Productivity is the key: Productivity is the unsung hero of this long economic expansion, now entering its ninth year. By next February, it'll be the longest stretch of U.S. economic growth ever, passing the record 106 months in the 1960s. In all the fuss over the stock market, exports, strong housing and autos, low inflation and interest rates, productivity often gets short shrift.

It holds inflation down. Employers are able to give pay raises without boosting their prices, at least to the extent productivity rises.

That in turn keeps interest rates low, helping housing, autos and other lines. It also encourages more business capital investment ... information technology, high-tech equipment ... boosting productivity. And so the cycle continues. Productivity ... output per worker per hour ... has been rising 2 percent a year. That's twice the average of the past 20 years.

It's especially strong in manufacturing, with gains of nearly 4 percent per year so far in the 1990s. As a result, production continues to rise even though the total number of workers in manufacturing keeps declining.

Are these big gains a fluke, some sort of economic aberration?

No. They're a payoff from decisions made in the past 10 to 15 years to control costs, run more efficiently ... downsize, outsource, restructure and invest heavily in training, factory automation, computers and software.

It took awhile to get the payoff, but now it's here in spades.

... Many countries are reluctant to open access to U.S. attorneys, who account for 90 percent of all lawyers in the world. France, for example, insists that American lawyers working there must pass the French bar. -- Excerpts from a private newsletter

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Gore de-teched? Vice President Al Gore, who has fashioned himself as a high-tech savant, picked up about $400,000 on a recent fund-raising swing through Silicon Valley. But despite a long courtship of the tech centers' honchos, the veep may not have a lock on the Valley's deep pockets.

Democratic rival Bill Bradley, the former senator who spent last year in the Valley lecturing at Stanford University, walked away with more than $1 million from a fund raiser co-hosted recently by a heavy-hitting group. Among the group: venture capitalists John Hummer and Ann Winblad, and Larry Sonsini, head of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, the Palo Alto, Calif., law firm behind many of the Valley's hottest deals. Mr. Hummer says Mr. Bradley, who lags Mr. Gore in overall fund raising, is drawing support from both sides of the political aisle, and quips: "Venture guys are very good at separating what is real from what's not. They invest in things that are real, and it's clear to them that Bradley's for real."

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Do billboards really impact smokers? I don't believe for one moment that anyone is convinced to start smoking cigarettes because they are motivated by a highway billboard. But in our zeal to end smoking, a noble but ill-founded idea will mark the removal of 200 highway billboards that advertise cigarettes. In their place will blossom new billboards with anti-smoking messages.

Just like the "Just Say No" campaign and others, we search for solutions to our problems in the most unusual ways. As part of a massive settlement with tobacco manufacturers, billboards of the Marlboro man and Joe Camel will go the way of Burma Shave signs and disappear from the scene. And though I have no problem with their removal, it seems absurd to assume that this superficial move will somehow reduce smoking among young people. It may not hurt, but it surely will not help.

Attorney General Jay Nixon, in what will go down as the height of hyperbole, said the removal of the offending billboards is a "historic day" for the state. Nixon, who is clearly playing for future votes, must simply have a different definition of "historic day" than I.

Nixon called the billboards "deceitful ads that target young people." Even agreeing with his assessment, it seems equally as deceitful for politicians to claim victory on such a shallow front. By touting this day as somehow "historic," Nixon and others are misleading Missourians.

We support measures that will reduce smoking among young people. That's a no-brainer. But to claim some false victory based on the simple removal of a handful of highway billboards is stretching the truth. Jay Nixon and others know that. But you'll never hear that from the lips that depend on your vote for their future. -- Michael Jensen-Standard-Democrat, Sikeston

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A year 2000 message for bank customers: You may have heard that the banking industry, like other businesses and all levels of government, is investing considerable time and money to make sure its computer systems will work properly in the year 2000. As we approach the year 2000, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. wants you to know:

There is no safer place to keep your money than in a federally insured account at a bank or savings institution.

Financial institutions are working hard to make sure the banking system is operating on a business-as-usual basis on Jan. 1, 2000, and beyond, and any disruptions that do occur are held to a minimum. Regulators have conducted special assessments of every FDIC-insured bank and savings institution to make certain they have plans in place to assure critical computer systems are modified and tested and will run smoothly when the year 2000 arrives.

Regulators are closely monitoring insured institutions' progress in carrying out these plans, and will conduct additional assessments in 1999 and well into the year 2000.

The year 2000 date change will not affect your deposit insurance coverage. The FDIC protects your insured deposits up to $100,000 against loss due to the failure of an insured bank or savings institution for any reason, including a year 2000 problem. Since the creation of the FDIC in 1933, no depositor has ever lost a cent of insured funds at an FDIC member institution.

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Hate crimes: A lot has been written about President Clinton's appropriating much of the Republican agenda for his own, but his call for an expansion of the federal hate crimes law came out of left field.

Three highly publicized cases of alleged hate crimes last year have focused much attention on the issue: the killing of a black man chained to a pickup truck and dragged for miles near Jasper, Texas; the murder of a gay Wyoming college student who was pistol-whipped and lashed to a fence in freezing weather; and the beating of an Alabama gay man whose body was set on fire.

All were brutal and senseless crimes.

But stop and think for a moment. Isn't each of those actions already a criminal offense? Of course.

Clinton made his announcement for more federal laws only a day after a man was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of the Wyoming student. A man is on death row in Texas for the dragging death of the black man in Jasper.

So why the push for a hate crimes law?

The president is asking Congress for a bill to allow prosecution for hate crimes committed because of a person's sexual orientation, gender or disability.

The proposed Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 1999 also would expand the conditions under which people can be prosecuted for violent crimes motivated by bias based on race, color, religion or national origin. Current law only covers such acts when committed against people engaged in certain federally protected activities, like voting or going to school

A hate-crimes law adds nothing -- and could take away much, even if we detest the ideas. And it's ideas that are the target of the legislation. A hate crime law allows the government to designate certain ideas as intolerable and deserving of special punishment.

Yes, racism is inexcusable, as is sexism, and all other intolerances against others. But to expand the concern of law from criminal action to include thoughts is an equally intolerable reaction. -- Arkansas Business Journal

~Gary Rust is president of Rust Communications, which owns the Southeast Missourian and other newspapers.