Exchange Rate

Spice maker McCormick & Co., which has been buffeted by rising commodity prices, reported yesterday that fiscal third-quarter profit rose 32 percent as the local company benefited from a weak dollar that helped boost sales overseas. McCormick had net income of $57 million, or 43 cents per share, in the three months through August, compared with $43 million, or 32 cents a share, in the comparable quarter last year. Sales rose 8 percent, with 2 percent of that increase attributed to favorable currency exchange rates.

Apparently, when people transfer money to relatives outside the U.S., they are dinged by hidden fees. The result is that those family members get less than expected. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau today adopted a rule that generally will require money transfer providers to disclose all the fees and the exchange rate upfront. And these providers are going to have to investigate disputes and fix errors. “With these new protections, international money transfers will be more reliable.

In the U.S.S.R., it seems, it is possible to live even betteron rubles than dollars! So says Elizabeth Shogren, correspondent for the American newspaper Los Angeles Times, who explains that the problems of Americans living in Russia are the same as those of Soviet citizens: finding an apartment, buying meat, and so forth.We Russians, too, easily could live on rubles if we had a thousand dollars -- a third of the monthly salary of an average American engineer, to say nothing of a famous journalist.

WASHINGTON -- Germany resisted committing itself to lowe interest rates to lessen the European currency crisis yesterday, but agreed with six other major industrial nations to take "appropriate additional actions" to stabilize currency markets and promote economic growth.This appeared to signal that the central banks of the seven leading industrialized nations were ready to intervene to block continuing speculation against the weaker European countries.Such a move would require co-ordinated bulk buying of threatened currencies to bolster their value.

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Jewelry stores are doing a bustling business in Saddam City, the sprawling, poor section where 1.5 million Baghdad residents live. But the jewelers are not making many sales.Women are selling their jewelry -- items from their dowries or gifts from their husbands, a family's life savings in a place where people do not have bank accounts -- to raise cash to buy food and other goods.This is Iraq today, a country trying to cope with a changed economy, with fears of attack from abroad and of civil unrest within, and with the aftermath of a decade of almost continuous war.Even as President Bush vowed recently that the United States would not permit the "suffering of innocent women and children" in war-ravaged Iraq, prices of flour, rice and sugar have doubled in recent weeks as Iraqis have stocked up out of fear that renewed U.S. air attacks are coming.

Frankfurt, Germany.--For the foreseeable future, the United States will run a sizable current-account deficit, while Japan will continue to post an equally large current-account surplus. Forecasts for the respective balances are in the range of $120 billion to $130 billion.Due to the imbalance in domestic savings rates, there is a need for a significant flow of Japanese savings into U.S. coffers.However, as a consequence of the phenomenal strengthening of the yen against the dollar in recent years, Japanese investors in dollar-denominated assets already feel badly burned.

Leaders of Bosnia's Serbs and Muslims met to decide the fate of the latest Geneva peace plan that would divide the republic into three ethnic states. The Serbs met in PALE, the Muslims in SARAJEVO, where President Izetbegovic spoke against it. Bosnian Croat leaders were to meet today.Worried Muslims prevented a U.N. convoy from leaving MOSTAR for the second day but arranged the evacuation of five badly wounded children. Despite the U.N. presence, sporadic shelling and sniper firing continued.

Here is an excerpt of an editorial from the Corriere della Sera, of Milan, Italy, which was published Wednesday.AFTER nine years of economic expansion, the United States continues to be the economic motor of the world. But what will happen if Wall Street suddenly gives in?According to International Monetary Fund economists, the growth of the U.S. economy would stop, and the euro's value would strengthen with respect to the dollar. But with minimal growth and a less competitive exchange rate, the European economy would slow down.

NationsBank Corp. of Charlotte, N.C., said yesterday that it will pay 50.1 percent of the purchase price for Baltimore-based MNC Financial Inc. in stock and 49.9 percent in cash.Under the merger agreement, MNC's shareholders will have the right to decide whether to receive their payment in cash or stock, as long as the overall payment follows the ratio NationsBank announced yesterday. The exchange will be tax-free for MNC's shareholders as long as at least 50 percent of the purchase price is paid in stock, according to NationsBank spokesman Dick Stilley.

In a move that suggests Indonesia will move to link its battered currency to the U.S. dollar, Indonesian President Suharto has appointed Johns Hopkins monetary specialist Steve Hanke as special economic counselor, Hanke said yesterday.Hanke met with Suharto and the president's advisers last week in Jakarta, the Indonesian capital. His appointment marks Indonesia's formal embrace of a process leading toward dollar-linked monetary reform, and yesterday Indonesian authorities summoned him back from the United States.