Profit

Chemical maker W.R. Grace & Co. said Wednesday that its third-quarter profit fell 7.1 percent to $75.5 million as revenue shrank, in part due to unfavorable exchange rates. The Columbia-based firm's revenue dropped 10.1 percent to $776.6 million in the three months ending Sept. 30. Sales retrenched in all of Grace's product segments: catalysts technologies — used by oil refineries and other industrial customers — as well as materials technologies and construction products. Sales volume actually increased slightly, as did base pricing, but differences in exchange rates and a decline in what it can charge for rare earth elements outweighed those improvements, the company said.

Buoyed by rising assets under management and market gains, T. Rowe Price Group reported Wednesday that it earned $247.3 million, or 94 cents per share, for the third quarter. Revenue reached $769.7 million for the three months ending Sept. 30. A year earlier, the Baltimore-based investment company earned $185.5 million, or 71 cents per share, on revenue of $679.4 million. The third-quarter results included a one-time gain of $31.2 million, accounting for 7 cents per share, from the sale of securities from a number of funds, said James A. C. Kennedy, president and CEO. That gain was re-invested in some of Price's European portfolios to beef up their assets and attract institutional shareholders, he said.

James R. Adams, a giant on Madison Avenue during the years immediately after World War II, once said that advertising is the "principal reason why the business man has come to inherit the Earth. " Surely, the three weeks prior to an election give further reason why modern "Mad Men" still have a lot to say about how people behave at the polls, let alone the marketplace. Those ads for Question 7 that have flooded Maryland's airwaves in recent weeks aren't detached, dry recitations of why expanded gambling is good or bad for Maryland.

Baltimore Gas and Electric made a decision to cut its work force to make more profit. Customers should never have to pay a surcharge for outages ("A worthy investment," Oct. 4). The losses should be absorbed by the shareholders. They are the ones that profit when times are good. Why would you advocate socializing the risks and privatizing the profits? This is just more corporate welfare. Les Kurts

Paul's Place began as a soup kitchen in the basement of a Southwest Baltimore church 30 years ago. It has expanded into a community outreach center that serves more than 75,000 hot lunches a year and offers more than 20 programs, including job training, housing assistance, computer classes, and family workshops. "We help more than 80,000 people annually," said William J. McLennan, executive director since 2002. He marked the 30th anniversary Thursday with a large decorated sheet cake, that, given the number of lunch guests at the center, disappeared in minutes.

Spice maker McCormick & Co. Inc. said Thursday that its profit grew more than 13 percent in the third quarter, thanks to new products, acquisitions and strength in emerging markets. The Sparks-based maker of spices and flavorings raised its full-year earnings expectations to a range of $3.03 to $3.08 per share to reflect a more favorable tax rate. For the three months ended Aug. 31, McCormick reported net income of $104.4 million, or 78 cents a share, compared with net income of $92 million, or 69 cents a share, in the comparable period a year earlier.

Baltimore's beleaguered Edgar Allan Poe House will be shutting its doors Friday, with plans to reopen in 2013 under the auspices of a nonprofit group hoping to increase attendance and make the city landmark self-sufficient. The house, which normally closes for the winter in December, could reopen as early as next spring, said Thomas Stosur, director of the city's Department of Planning. Plans for the site are still being formulated by the nonprofit Poe Baltimore, which will oversee the house and work to increase its visibility and viability.

With the Maryland unemployment rate hovering around 7 percent and the pace of job creation slowed in recent months, it's fair to say that the Free State could use an economic boost of consequence. How fortunate that one has arrived at seemingly no charge to local residents or taxpayers — at least if politicians and voters play their cards right. We speak, of course, not of gambling but of the contemplation of gambling. As lucrative as expanded gambling might be in Maryland and elsewhere, it carries risks.

Columnist Leonard Pitts wrote a story for the front page of last Sunday's Charlotte Observer indicting both parties for failing to speak up for the poor. He inspired this column. I could be writing the expected narrative from a conservative at the Democratic National Convention but have chosen instead to acknowledge that Mr. Pitts, though a lefty, is right. If the Democrats and Republicans aren't talking about the greater goal of helping the poor become un-poor (rather than just sending them a check to sustain them in their poverty)