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Business Briefs

Reported by Star-Bulletin staff & wire

Tuesday, June 6, 2000

Straub holds meeting for medigap clients

An informational meeting for Senior StraubCare plan holders is scheduled June 16 at the Ala Moana Hotel to discuss alternative "medigap" insurance plans.

Straub Health Plan Services recently notified about 1,100 senior citizens that Senior StraubCare, which supplements to Medicare insurance, will be discontinued June 30. The health maintenance organization cited dwindling enrollments and rising costs.

The meeting, from 9 a.m. to noon at the Hibiscus Ballroom II, will include representatives of insurance companies that offer medigap plans. Call 266-6560 for more information.

Fed governor sees signs of slowing

WASHINGTON -- Federal Reserve Governor Edward Kelley said today that a rise in the U.S. jobless rate may herald the start of the economy's long-awaited soft landing and signal a major change in the economic outlook.

In an interview with Reuters, the top policymaker said last month's rise in unemployment to 4.1 percent from a 30-year low of 3.9 percent might well be a watershed for the economy -- as long as it was confirmed by other data that also hint at a much-needed slowing in the pace of red-hot economic growth. "It did come as a big surprise," Kelley said, adding that should the data mark the beginning of a trend, it "would really indicate quite a dramatic change in direction."

The Fed has raised interest rates six times in the past year in hopes of slowing the economy and warding off inflation.

Kelley insisted more data was needed to judge whether the Fed has reached the end of its monetary tightening campaign. Policymakers next meet on June 27-28 and some analysts expect them to keep rates steady as they wait for their most recent moves to show their full effect on the sizzling economy.





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