The Cincinnati Enquirer from Cincinnati, Ohio • Page 65

EDITOR: KERRY KLUMPE, 369-1009 THE CINCINNATI ENQUIRER SUNDAY, JANUARY 3, 1988 SECTION Pay raise outlookG-2 Whither OTC NYSE stocksG-6 NASDAQ stocksG-8 o) jj i -J- I 4 I I ill -0 A The Cincinnati EnquirerJohn Samora Raymond A. Sumner a former sales executive who spent 1 4 years at Kenner Products before being laid off, has been lookinq for a new job for a year. "It hasn't been pleasant," he said. White-collar layoff blues Managers may find jobs easier, but loyalty hurts them eusmiss KOffDAY In The Enquirer What a winter sports team means to downtown How the tax overhaul affected sales of city bonds How has boosted its sales internationally States line Air base's impact could fall in '88 Wright-Patterson Air Force Base pumped $3 billion into the Ohio and Indiana economies last year, but this year's impact could be less because of federal budget cuts. The base, which normally hires about 250 civilians monthly, has been under a hiring freeze since early November, with most departments told to cut their staffs by 10 through attrition.

Similar cuts are projected in most other areas, such as supplies and equipment, spokeswoman Kathy Higgins said. The economic impact study said the base was directly or indirectly responsible for 63,000 jobs last year and that each $1 spent for items such as payroll, construction services and health care generated $1.80 of income for the local area. Wright-Patterson, the center of the nation's military aerospace research, employed 29,185 people, 18,493 of them civilians with a total payroll of $852.4 million. Ohio BUYOUT CONSIDERED: Preliminary results of a survey indicate that 60 of LTV Steel Warren Works personnel are willing to consider an employee buyout of the plant, according to a survey by the United Steelworkers Local 1375. Cleveland-based LTV Steel in November began looking for a buyer for the mill, which it considers the least important in its flat-rolled steel division.

The union is considering an employee buyout in the event a new owner does not commit to operating the entire plant. REORGANIZATION OVER: Flo-liz-er a Kingston-based fertilizer and chemical supplier, plans in the next two weeks to file a plan to return to full operation. Flo-lizer filed for protection from creditors under U.S. bankruptcy laws in April, 1986. The company reopened its main fertilizer plant in Kingston and 11 other outlets in October as part of an interim plan to return to full operation.

Kentucky OFFER EXTENDED: The Carlyle Group has extended its merger proposal for Louisville-based Chi-Chi's Inc. until Jan. 31, the restaurant chain said. "The company's board of directors continues to consider the Carlyle merger proposal and other possible alternatives to maximize value for our shareholders," Hal W. Smith, chairman and chief executive officer of Chi-Chi's, said last week.

The Carlyle Group is an investment company based in Washington, D.C. Chi-Chi's is the operator and franchisor of full service, family-style Mexican restaurants. UNEMPLOYMENT UP: Kentucky's unemployment rate inched upward to 7.2 in November, pushed by a loss of farm jobs with the close of tobacco harvest season, the Cabinet for Human Resources said. The November rate was 0.1 higher than October's rate, but well below the 8.1 rate recorded in November, 1986, the cabinet said. The national unemployment rate was 5.6 in November, down from 5.7 in October.

The U.S. Department of Labor estimated that 1,573,700 Kentuckians had jobs in November, 17,100 fewer than in October and 14,000 fewer than in November 1986, the release said. The state estimated that 14,600 farm jobs were lost temporarily with the end of the tobacco, harvest. Compiled by John Byczkowski from news service reports Annual rate of total personal income for Ohio residents, by quarter. 160 Leonard kv.

Silk Reagan economy faulted The Reagan years, which embodied a dramatic effort to restructure and revitalize the economy, are winding up with the dollar falling, the external deficit widening, the stock market still in shock after its steepest fall in history and wide expectations of sluggish growth or recession. Does this mean the "Reagan revolution" was a failure, even on its own terms? Qr may it still bear fruit? At last week's annual meeting in Chicago of the American Economic Association, economists of different political and theoretical persuasions offered their assessments of the Reagan years and what they imply for the future. Allan H. Meltzer of Carnegie-Mellon University, a conservative monetarist, said the administration had been criticized as ideologically motivated. Yet, he added, it was hard to "find evidence that the administration was willing to trade much public support to reduce non-defense spending or entitlements to end inflation." He depicted its monetary and budget decisions, other than on tax rates, as "lacking direction," particularly after 1982.

Leftover problems He said the administration would leave its successor lower inflation and higher real per capita income but "serious problems, largely unattended or mismanaged," including the foreign debts of developing countries, the accumulated liabilities of savings and loan institutions, government agencies and the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance the trade deficit and the budget deficit. Marc A. Miles of Wainwright Co. of Boston, a supply-side economist, insisted that Reaganomics was not supply-side economics but "a conglomeration of different economic views." In sharp contrast to Meltzer and the monetarists, who favor floating currency exchange rates, Miles strongly supported stable exchange rates. He said uncertainty surrounding an unstable dollar raised the cost of doing business.

Miles contended that a falling dollar would do little or nothing to improve the U.S. trade balance. He saw the Reagan administration in a no-win situation: "If the economy continues to grow, trade continues toward deficit, and Reagan loses. Should trade shift toward surplus, the economy is likely to have slowed, and again Reagan loses." Alfred S. Eichner of Rutgers University, a liberal "post-Keynesian" economist, surprised many by declaring his agreement with "the group now in the ascendency within the administration which showed not just a skepticism bordering on contempt for the conventional economic theory but a disbelief in the efficacy of trying to control inflation by slowing the aggregate growth rate." He praised the administration for abandoning monetarism.

But he said that this abandonment and the administration's unwillingness to consider price and wage controls left its supply-siders without any means of reducing inflation. Economy called worsened A group of left-wing economists Samuel Bowles of the University of Massachusetts, David M. Gordon of the New School for Social Research and Thomas E. Weisskopf of the University of Michigan argued that Reaganomics had failed to reverse the long-term deterioration of the U.S. economy and may have worsened it.

However, they found some evidence that, through the military buildup, deregulation of industry and tax changes, with an "aggressive redistribution of wealth and income," Reagonomics may have long-term effects: altering the nation's industrial structure and increasing the power of American capital "over the economic agents with which it deals over workers, over external buyers and sellers, over those who would use the state contrary to the interests of business." Yet they warned that this victory for U.S. capital may have been won at an unsustainable cost, with the net effect of a slack economy and high interest rates choking off profits and investment, and with the chronic trade deficit and weak dollar undermining the international strength of American business. Thus, these economists judge the Reagan years from very different perspectives, they all fault the administration for the shifting and unsustainable means by which it has sought to achieve increased military power, low inflation and strong together with an enhanced international position for the nation. Leonard Silk is economics columnist for The New York Times. BY MIKE BOYER The Cincinnati Enquirer Sometimes even the guy wielding the ax gets cut.

Ask Raymond A. Sumner, just three months after he had to lay off four sales people who worked under him at Kenner Products, he himself was laid off. "I had expected it (more layoffs), but I didn't expect it to be me," he said. Sumner was Midwest regional sales director for Kenner supervising 15 other sales people when he was laid off just before Christmas a year ago. "It was Dec.

2, at 3:35 p.m. to be exact," he said. What made it even more painful was the fact that his boss was a personal friend. Today, Sumner, 44, who lives in Anderson Township with his wife, Judy, and three sons, is still without a job. For someone who had never been laid off before: "It hasn't been pleasant," he said.

The initial shock of losing his job after Would-be BY STEVE KAUFMAN Knight News Service SANTA CLARA, Calif. Three summers ago, Kathleen Gwynn was having pizza with a friend and sighing about the prospect of spending another year poring over more than 4,000 applications to Stanford University's Graduate School of Business. After four years as the school's admissions director, she decided enough was enough. Gwynn is still evaluating candidates seeking master's degrees in business ministration. But she's having more fun and making more money these days as a $125-an-hour consultant to students who want to attend the nation's premier business schools, such as Stanford, Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School.

The premier schools typically admit only one in nine applicants, and their students enjoy a substantial head start after graduation. They get more offers, more prestige and jobs at a starting salary of roughly $45,000, about a third more than the graduates of other schools. Gwynn, 33, who works out of her Santa Clara home, helps students analyze the, selection process at top schools and prepare essays used in determining admission. 1 Many of Gwynn's clients speak well of her, and she sees nothing wrong in what she does. Most MBA applicants get help r-1 3 1 iWl Kn A bicentennial look at some of the Tristate's Founder Otto Zimmerman, right, and son Arthur William Zimmerman.

tlr Ms. Wall Street firms have' announced massive layoffs. Last month Kenner announced plans to trim another 100 salaried employees as part of a streamlining move by Tonka which acquired the toy maker in October. And it's not just companies in trouble. Despite record jet engine sales in 1987, GE Aircraft Engines in Evendale last August trimmed 500 salaried jobs and said further salaried and hourly cuts will be made this year.

James Frasier, director of the Center for Employment Resources at Great Oaks Joint Vocational School District, said, "As organizations become leaner, we're going to see more of it (reductions), especially in the middle-management level." That's the bad news. The good news is that white-collar workers are usually better equiped to find new jobs when they're laid off. "White-collar employment skills are a (Please see LAYOFF, Page G-3) coaching versity degrees granted in the United States. Hickman and others don't expect growth to continue as briskly, partly because of changing demographics. Yet they don't think the number of applicants will decline, either.

Although some in the academic community have qualms about Gwynn's services, those concerns haven't spread to the business world. Gwynn gets much of her work from blue-chip investment firms such as Goldman, Sachs Co. and consulting firms such as First Boston Corp. and Bain Co. Inc.

These firms typically hire top students out of college with the understanding that they'll leave after two years to pursue an MBA. They hire Gwynn to tutor candidates and help them get into the best schools. Companies and students appear to get considerable bang for their buck. According to a survey of 170 of Gwynn's clients who applied to business schools last fall, 46 got into Stanford, Harvard or Wharton. Twenty-two percent were accepted by one of the nation's other top 10 business schools, such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology or the University of California at Los Angeles.

Tips on getting into the best schools. Page G-3. still in print and printing, later hotel stationery printing. Original market: National. Current product: Commercial printing, with several music account.

Current market: Primarily Greater Cincinnati. Current locations: Printing plant and offices at 120 E. Third Newport. Current employees: 36. Current executives: President Ernest S.

Zimmerman, grandson of founder; Vice President Arthur Wv Zimmerman, great grandson; General Manager Jordan O. Zimmerman, grandson. Future plans: Enlarging plant and buying new equipment, including a new press. 14 years with the company was the toughest part. "You think you have a social disease, but then after you watch the news you realize you're just one of hundreds of thousands.

You're problems aren't unique," he said. Layoffs aren't just a blue-collar phenomenon. All kinds of companies are cutting their management ranks as they consolidate operations and restructure. "When they make acquisitions, companies find they don't need duplicate staffs, and part of it is the realization that the Japanese are ahead of us because they run leaner (organizations) than we do," said Sam Sackett, senior associate with Joy Reed Belt Associates, an Oklahoma outplacement firm. Actually, Sackett said, the trend toward trimming management ranks has been under way for several years.

"By now practically all the corporations that need to get down to fighting weight have gotten down." But not entirely. In the wake of the October stock market crash a number of -f MB As get from various people, she says, and schools know that. "My job is to do my best on behalf of MBA applicants," Gwynn says. "They don't want to do a half-baked job on their applications and end up regretting that 'they didn't get into a school they might otherwise have gotten into." But some observers of the nation's business schools aren't sure Gwynn's services will help MBA candidates in the long run. "If what Kathleen is doing becomes a trend and applications wind up becoming more homogeneous, they may no longer be useful for admissions officers," says Charles Hickman, a director of the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business in St.

Louis. On the other hand, some schools believe Gwynn provides a valuable service. "To the extent that she helps prospective candidates communicate their individuality in applications, that helps us learn who the candidate really is," says Stephen Christakos, the admissions director at Wharton. "That makes the selection process more efficient." Hickman says 650 American universities awarded more than 67,000 MBAs last year, up from fewer than 33,000 in 1974. During that time, the number of schools offering the degree has grown nearly 70.

Graduate and undergraduate business degrees now account for 24 of all uni oldest companies Zimmerman The Otto Zimmerman Son Co. Inc. is a music engraver turned commercial printer family members continue to orchestrate. The founder: Otto Zimmerman emigrated to the United States in 1862 and started his own printing business in 1876 in Cincinnati, when he was 17 years old. His son, Arthur, was born in 1885 and followed him into engraving when he was 15 year old.

History: The company probably was known originally as Otto Zimmerman Co. In 1921 it built and moved to its current plant in Newport. When the Ohio River flooded the Tristate in 1937, workers arrived by boat and continued operations, despite high water around the plant. Original product: Music engraving 140 jj I I III I I I 130 lJ I I I I I 1 I I I 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 1985 1986 1987.