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Southern California	Wednesday, March 16, 1983
Students may get all Century apartments
Volume XCIII, Number 44	University of
Laffer, colleague debate on gold et al.
By Mark Gill
Editor
Aug. 15, 1971 is economist Arthur Laffer's day that will live in infamy. "The rumor is that Abraham Lincoln founded the Republican Party and that Richard Nixon dumbfounded it," he said. On that day, Nixon's administration took the U.S. off the gold standard.
But that wasn't the beginning. Lyndon Johnson was responsible for removing convertibility, and by February 1973, the nation had converted to a floating exchange rate.
The occasion for all of this economic theorizing was a debate sponsored by the Hong Kong Business Students Association and the International Business Students Association. Approximately 400 people, perhaps half of them dressed as if they had just come from work, filled Taper Hall 101 from 5:30 to 7 p.m. to hear two professors of business economics debate.
Laffer, a leading proponent of supply-side economic theory, the man with a curve named for him and a member of the President's Economic Policy Advisory Board, faced Alan Shapiro, a free-market economist who came to this university from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and who serves as a consultant for multinational corporations, among them Citibank and Scott Paper.
They spent about half of the allotted time with formal speeches and the rest answering questions from the audience.
One man questioned Laffer's assumption that the United States could prosper under the auspices of a gold standard. America, the man said, did well under the gold standard from the end of World War II into the 1960s because the economy was strong enough to let the dollar serve as a base for all other currencies to follow.
But technology and productivity are not what they were, relative to other nations, in the post-w'ar period, he said, and emploving that system now might force U.S. dollars overseas.
Laffer said judicious suspension of convertibility, which Britain practiced for 200 years, would stop such a flow.
The debate was not one exclusively devoted to gold standard issues, though. For the most part, it was to cover toreign exchange policies, flexible or otherwise, gold-based or not.
Shapiro began the proceedings, explaining that the debate was conceived because many students take one class in international finance from Laffer and then follow' it with Shapiro's course. The result — what he called the watch theory. With one w'atch, at least you can have a good idea of the time, but with two, you never have the right time. "We'll see how well we can tell time," he said.
Shapiro also quoted George Bernard Shaw in his opening remarks: "If you took all the economists in the world and laid them end to end, they still w’ouldn't reach a conclusion." With that framework in mind, he launched into what he perceived to be the best solution to problems with the existing exchange rate system.
"Art and I agree that the current monev system (fiat) is a poor one," Shapiro said. "Certainly we agree that gold would be better. But the issue is, is it the best system? I don't believe it is."
He said gold historically has fluctuated too much to outperform a system pegged to a cost-of-living index, which he advocates. In a commodity-pegged system, the peg is the price of gold, with allowances for the peg to change to keep the cost-of-living index constant. If gold's price is set initially at $300, for example, a rising Consumer Price Index would be cause for a change in the price to, say, $330. As a result, a relatively stable price index could be maintained, he said.
The problem with the existing system — monev pegged bv fiat
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By Joann Calardy
Staff Writer
Although it has not been easy, university officials are now optimistic about obtaining for student use the 48 housing units in the Century Apartment complex currently being occupied by low-in-come community residents. If all goes as planned, students will occupy the additional apartments in the coming fall semester.
Before this can happen, how’ever, the university must fulfill its part of an agreement made in 1978 with Watt Industries, the Community Redevelopment Agency of Los Angeles and Councilman Robert Farrell, the representative from the city's 8th Council District. Watt Industries, a large construction company, is headed by Ravmond Watt, a university trustee.
In the agreement the university promised to facilitate the construction of 300 government-subsidized apartments which would be used to house low-income families in the community.
Anthony Lazzaro, vice president of business affairs, said of the 300 units promised, 150 have been completed and the remaining 150 should reach completion by the end of June.
The community residents currently living in Century Apartments will be relocated to the newly constructed apartments, a process the university has tried to make as easy as possible but which has been met with strong community opposition.
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MAGGIE MELANSON / DAILY TROJAN
University officiajs are now optimistic about obtaining 48 housing units in Century apartments for student use.
John Falkner, an astronomy teaching assistant, works in the university's existing planetarium. Plans for the construction of a new planetarium have been postponed bv the universitv in lieu of rpther projects.
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Proposed construction of planetarium postponed
By Steffannie Fedunak
Staff Writer
Plans to complete a new planetarium on campus have been given back-bumer status pending renewed fund-raising efforts and completion of other higher priority projects.
The new planetarium for astronomy students W'as included in thv* original design of the new multimillion-dollar Seeley G. Mudd building. However, the plans have not been completed and have been indefinitely delayed due to lack of suffident funds to equip the fadlity.
For students enrolled in astronomy courses, this means that they will have to continue to use the old planetarium located above Bovard Auditorium.
"Our hope is that (the adminstration) will choose to continue to seek funds," said Edward Rhodes, an assistant professor of astronomy. "I'm optimistic."
Rhodes added that there are definite problems with the existing planetarium, which he is said is outdated and ill-equipped.
"We have had numerous student complaints about poor facilities," Rhodes said.
The complaints, he explained, focus on such factors such as the planetarium's lack of ventila-
tion, poor seating, difficulty in reaching the fadlity and the poor mechanical quality of the projector, which is used to show the sola r system on a screen.
Rhodes said that in addition to the problems brought up by students, the presen fadlity has a capadty of only 50 persons, which s not enough for large classes.
"We believe (the approximated cc mpletion cost is) something between $200,000 anc $300,000, including the planetarium projector ard the dome." He said that the new planetarium vrould provide seating for about 130 students.
Rhodes said that it is far more benefidal to astronomy students to teach classes in a planetarium because it enables students to have a more immediate understanding of w'hat s being said.
“It’s something (with which) wm feel we can increase existing interest in the program by enabling us to integrate the planetarilim experience directly with lectures, w'hich we ca mot do at the present time,’’ he said.
Despite the delays, the planeta:ium has not been abandoned by the administration. The decision to stop actively W'orking on obtaining funds was based on priorities, and the planetarium fell
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