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Clausen Asks Move To Pick Up World Development Plans

Austerity programs, put in place in the wake of the debt crisis and world recession, and cutbacks in investment have "broken the momentum of development," which over time "is a sure recipe for social and political upheavals," World Bank President A. W. Clausen warned yesterday.Clausen told a dinner gathering, held by the Society of American Business and Economics Writers, that industrialized and developing countries should work together.

Banks nationwide must support refinancing of Latin America's debt in order for the Third World's economic recovery to succeed, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Paul A. Volcker said yesterday. "Signs of financial stabilization in a number of Latin American countries" are appearing, he told thousands of delegates to the American Bankers Association convention here.

ARGENTINA Total population 1981 ..... 28.1 million Annual rate of population growth 1970-81 ..... 1.5% Gross domestic product growth 1982 ..... 5.0% Inflation (consumer price change) 1982 ..... 210% Exports* 1981 ..... $9.15 billion Imports* 1981 ..... $8.23 billion Balance of payments* 1981 ..... $4.05 billion Total foreign debt* Dec. 1982 ..... $38.5 billion *Figures in U.S. dollars Source: International Monetary Fund, Inter-American Development Bank, the World Bank.

A Miami banker described by prosecutors as "a world-class con man" was sentenced to six years in prison Tuesday for bilking three banks of $2.9 million in a loan-fraud scheme.Four others convicted last month drew sentences ranging from four months to a year and a day from U.S. District Judge James W. Kehoe. But the longest term and heftiest fine, $15,000, was given to Andres Rodriguez, who once controlled the Northside Bank of Miami and the Popular Bank and Trust.

ASIA should remain the world's fastest-growing region, Chemical Bank said.The continent's contribution to world gross product will nearly equal that of the United States and double that of Europe, the U.S. bank's Asian subsidiary said in an annual report. Real economic growth should reach about 3.5 per cent this year, surpassing last year's 3 per cent but not matching the 1981 expansion rate of 3.8 per cent, the report said.

Brazil, the developing world's biggest debtor, will pay about $300 million to bank lenders today, clearing up enough of its arrearage on interest payments so that the banks will not have to put the loans on their lists of "nonperforming assets," Brazilian officials said late Wednesday.Federal rules usually require banks to put loans on the problem list if the interest is past due by more than 90 days, although New York-chartered banks face a 60-day.

The world economy, already suffering from a severe recession and Third World debt estimated at $500 billion, could drift into a depression unless there is a recovery in the United States this year, Brookings Institution economist Lawrence B. Krause told a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee yesterday.Krause predicted that recovery will begin here soon, and strengthen in the second half of 1983. But because of a weak year in Japan and continuing recession in Europe.

Organizers have obtained a $40 million secured line of credit from 40 New Orleans area banks for the world's fair scheduled for that city in 1984.That and other information about the fair was gathered in November by members of the Oklahoma City Council and the Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce. The local leaders viewed a film and heard presentations by leaders of ""Louisiana World Exposition'' as city officials prepare.

The recovery may be picking up steam, but the meetings grind on for bankers. Their crisis isn't over. The chiefs of the central banks of the nations of the western hemisphere who came to Boston a week ago were somber as they discussed the financial condition of Latin American countries. But the leaders of the world's largest commercial banks, who will meet in Brussels this week, are guardedly optimistic.

The getaway plan of three novice middle-class bank robbers, armed with a nickle-plated pistol, two ounces of nearly pure cocaine and their cash, was to slip off to Disney World until the heat died down, authorities believe.But five days after holding up a Lauderdale-by-the-Sea savings and loan, the cash was spent, the drugs were gone, two were dead of overdoses and a third had shut down the Orlando International Airport with a bomb threat brought on by drug- induced paranoia.

The dollar's daily flirtation with new heights on world foreign exchanges is providing bargains for Americans traveling outside the United States. For banks, foreign exchange dealers and travel agencies, such an exodus means increased sales of traveler's checks. To the person seeking the safety and convenience of buying a traveler's check, the timing of the purchase can either swell or shrink a bankroll.

Banks and savings institutions this Wednesday will start a new era in checking, for customers who have at least $2,500 on deposit, by paying yields competitive with the popular money market mutual funds.The new ""super-NOW'' accounts signal the further lifting of federal regulations on checking and savings operations. This is a giant step toward deregulation that will come close to erasing differences between banks, thrift institutions.

When money-market deposit accounts debuted at financial institutions last December they were greeted with a welcoming fanfare unusual in the conservative banking world.Five months later, the initial high rates offered by banks and S&Ls have dropped to levels little better than those offered by money-market mutual funds -- the very funds that the accounts were created to compete against. In fact, some money-market mutual funds are beating the rates paid.

Not long ago, as Treasury Secretary Donald Regan recalls it, he went to his boss with an economic forecast that was startling even for the Administration's principal optimist. Said the man who used to earn his living being bullish on America for Merrill Lynch to President Ronald Reagan: "The recovery will last another 38 months. It's built into the system. According to Regan, the President responded with a smile.

About two dozen financial institutions - including most of the city's largest banks - do business in the Logan section of North Philadelphia.But a group of Korean businessmen thinks that none of those banks, savings and loan associations or credit unions adequately serves the residents of the ethnically diverse neighborhood, particularly the thousands of Koreans who have flocked there in recent years.

The Federal Reserve Board Wednesday cleared the way for a rare $400-million, interstate takeover of Seattle's ailing Seafirst Corp., which would make California's BankAmerica Corp. the world's largest bank holding company.BankAmerica Corp. has agreed to pump $150 million into Seattle First National Bank, Seafirst's principal subsidiary and the Northwest's largest bank, and pay the holding company's shareholders $250.

A Logan County district court jury has released a Texas Panhandle man as guarantor of a $1.1 million loan to World Oil Co. of Oklahoma City because the terms and amount of the loan allegedly were changed without his consent.Jerome Weinheimers, a farmer from Groom, Texas, agreed in late summer 1981 to serve as guarantor of a $1 million loan to World that was originated by Oklahoma City's Quail Creek Bank, according to Weinheimers' attorney.

High unemployment, especially in Western Europe, will be the major economic and social problem for the world during the remainder of the 1980s, the chief economist of the nation's largest bank predicted yesterday.John O. Wilson of the Bank of America said the world economy's long-run growth potential has slowed from about 5.5 percent in the 1960s and early 1970s to about 3 percent today.

The summit nations' finance ministers, in three sessions of their own last weekend during the heads-of-government meeting at Williamsburg, Va., were unable to agree on a formula that would bring them into regular contact with trade ministers.Despite strong American interest in resolving the question, the finance ministers put it off until they meet again just prior to the joint annual session of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund in September.

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