National Economy

The owners of the vacant Southern Hotel on Light Street received a four-year guarantee from the city zoning board yesterday that they had until 1997 to start construction at the site.Zoning board members extended the variance, which is needed to build a $180 million, 44-story tower, after an agent for the owners said that a four-year guarantee from the city was crucial to attracting tenants in a soft market.The project, proposed two years before the commercial real estate downturn began, would be the tallest building in Baltimore.

County officials and business leaders -- still smarting from the recession -- unveiled yesterday an early-warning system based on local economic indicators.The plan calls for government officials and business people to meet four times a year to draw conclusions about the local economy from data on employment, income, sales taxes, building permits and real estate sales.The group also will examine leading economic indicators for the nation and the region."It beats a stab in the dark," County Executive Charles I. Ecker said yesterday morning, after he announced the system.

NEW YORK - Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and tourism officials say they expect the sharp growth in the number of tourists to New York City to slow next year amid signs of a cooling national economy, but held that tourism remains robust and a driving force in the city's economy. A record 39.4 million visitors are expected in the city next year, 1 million more than the number projected for this year, the officials said. It would be an increase of 2.6 percent, compared with the 4.7 percent increase expected this year and an 11 percent increase in 1999.

While the nation is struggling with a sagging economy, Carroll County is holding up "remarkably well," according to an economist who delivered an outlook on 2003 to business, government and community leaders yesterday in Westminster. Residential growth, which many in the county wish to stem, could insulate the area from the brunt of the downturn, said Anirban Basu, director of applied economics for Towson University's economic research arm, RESI Research & Consulting. Basu told an audience of about 200 that housing construction is strong throughout the state, particularly in Carroll.

The latest economic plan offered by the Bush administration takes on a variety of players in the current crisis and offers some credible reforms. But while President Bush is talking about bolstering confidence in a financial system shaken by the housing bust, there is relatively little that he has suggested that can ease the growing insecurity felt by families in Maryland and elsewhere. Tens of thousands of subprime loans to Maryland homeowners are expected to go into foreclosure in the next two years, according to a study by the Joint Economic Committee of Congress.

This is why he no longer wears the funny hats. All the fun is gone for William Donald Schaefer. Long gone.When he arrived in Annapolis in 1987, there was fun money. He surfed into the state capital on the crest of a huge mandate, and he had fun like never before. It was still Morning In America, the national economy was still experiencing its phony euphoria, the state of Maryland had a budget surplus and its legislature was eager to accommodate the powerful new governor.So the bond issue for that multimillion-dollar stadium in Camden Yards went through, and so did money for a light-rail system to get people to it. And the Do-It-Now Man was a happy camper.

Despite a weakened national economy and lowered expectations for growth, more than half of 250 state companies rated Maryland as having a business-friendly climate -- a 14 percent increase over the same quarter last year -- marking the highest level of optimism in four years, according to a University of Baltimore economic survey released yesterday. In contrast to cutbacks and layoffs at companies across the nation, 69 percent of Maryland businesses expect revenue growth in the coming year, and 65 percent reported difficulty in finding skilled workers to fill manufacturing, labor, sales, managerial and engineering positions, according to the report.

So how is Maryland's economy?Two years ago, Dream Homes in the state builders' annual trade show cost from $469,900 to $775,000. Last year you could get a Dream Home for $290,000 to $370,000. This year, the Dream Home show has been canceled.Any more questions?As economic indicators go, the Dream Home index isn't threatening to dislodge the gross domestic product. But the home-show anecdote, related by economist Michael Conte at a forecast conference yesterday, reflects nuggets of general truth.

The mid-Atlantic economy is among the slowest in the nation, as manufacturing companies continue to move out in search of cheaper labor, land and taxes. And with a Republican Congress drafting budget cuts aimed at wiping out the federal deficit, the WEFA Group, a Philadelphia-based consultancy, has forecast that reduced U.S. government spending could cost Maryland 100,000 jobs over the next decade.That scenario comes at a time that a slowing national economy prompted the Federal Reserve last week to trim interest rates a quarter point in the hope of preserving its "soft landing" strategy -- heading off inflation without precipitating a recession.

Consumers less optimisticConsumer confidence slipped in February for the second straight month as optimism about the current state of the economy was undercut by mounting worries about the future, a key survey found yesterday.The Conference Board, a business research group, said its overall consumer confidence index declined to 99 in February from 101.4 in January. The index uses a 1985 base of 100.In a separate report that also signals a possible slowdown in the national economy, the National Association of Realtors reported yesterday that sales of existing single-family homes fell 4.5 percent in January, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.59 million.