European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - July 18, 1994, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 16 the stars and stripes Money matters monday july 18, 1994 today a rates following Are fixed rates at which Community banking and credit Union facilities will sell foreign currencies to . Personnel for. Personal use British Pound 1.60 dutch Guilder .1.70 German Mark 1.52 Nota Tho rates above apply within Tho Host country. Figures Are expressed in dollars to Tho British Pound other currencies to the Dollar following Are Interbank rates that fluctuate and should be regarded As the approximate value of the . Dollar to foreign currencies. Austrian schilling10,9135 Bahrain Dinar 0,37675 belgian franc. ,32-06 British Pound 1.5583 Canadian Dollar 1.3823 danish Krone. 6.0982 dutch Guilder 1.741 French franc. 5.329 German Mark. 1.5545 greek drachma 235.30 italian lira 1,544.50 Kuwait Dinar. 0.2955 norwegian Krone. 6.7972 portuguese escudo 159.65 saudi rial. 3.75 Spanish peseta. 128.28 Swiss franc 1.309 turkish lira. 30,600.00 note figures Are expressed in dollars to the British Pound other currencies to the Dollar Gold Quito s3&4.s5 an ounce. Silver quote 15,21 an ounce a sources merchants National Bank amp Trust co. A a and the Assod Atod Pross Microsoft agrees to end monopolistic Disney chief recovers after bypass surgery los Angeles a Walt Disney co chairman Michael Eisner underwent coronary bypass surgery saturday and was recovering Well. Eisner 52, Felt ill Friday night and went to see his doctor who recommended the surgery Disney spokesman Tom Deegan said. A the operation was a Normal bypass procedure without any complications a said or. Alfredo Trento who performed the surgery at Cedars Sinai medical Center Eisner a family visited him after the operation and  expected to recover fully Deegan said a we expect hell be Able to go Home in a couple of Days and return to work after a Short convalescent period a he said. Eisner and the late Disney president Frank Wells led the company through a stunning turnaround in the last decade. The pair helped boost annual Revenue from $1.5 billion to $8.5 billion. Eisner and Wells also re established Disney a dominance in animated feature films with a string of hits including Beauty and the beast and Aladdin. Wells was killed in a helicopter crash in april. Washington a Microsoft corp. Said saturday that it will cease practices it used to Corner the Market for the programs that run millions of personal computers resolving the highest pro file antitrust Case since the at amp to breakup a decade ago. Microsoft must change contracts that forced computer makers to use its programs and eliminate some restrictions it imposed on other software makers. The company is the largest creator of pc software with Well known products such As windows word and Encarta. A while the company fairly and lawfully climbed to the top of Industry ladder it used unfair and illegal practices to maintain its dominant position a attorney general Janet Reno said saturday. The settlement worked out late Friday a will prohibit the company from continuing to engage in monopolistic practices in the future a Reno said a Federal judge must approve it. The Redmond  company a business practices have been under review by . Agencies for four years enforcement authorities with the. European commission began probing Microsoft a year ago and reached a similar agreement with the company William Neukom senior vice president of Law and corporate affairs for Micro. Soft said the company agreed to the set cements to avoid protracted court Battles. A we believe the terms arc reasonable and it is a sensible time to put this behind us and move Forward Quot Neukom said. He said Microsoft continues to believe it has never done anything wrong. A was we have said from the beginning of the investigation. Microsoft believes that it has always conducted its business Washington a the icon omy is a experiencing the Ideal combination of rising activity falling unemployment and slowing inflation but that wont last unless Congress and the president truly curb Quot the budget deficit Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan warns. A. 1 although the worst deficit increases wont occur until after 2010 when the baby Boom generation starts to retire the expectation of a rising sea of red Ink already has exacted an economic toll Greenspan told a commission of eminent and private leaders. A financial markets have a Way of bringing future problems into the present a he said a Long term interest rates Are higher now because markets Are anticipating rising deficits in the next Century. We Are already paying for our failure to come fully to grips with our Long term budget  Greenspan was first to testify Friday in a perfectly Legal fashion a Neukom said. Microsoft a chief executives Bill Gates said in a written statement that the company was pleased to have settled on the same terms its separate disputes with the Justice department and the european commission. A Many of our customers do business on a global basis and we Are pleased that pc Nave resolved this in a manner that will enable them to continue to License a Gates software from us easily and inexpensively throughout the world a Gates said. The most important change for the company is in the kind of contract it can make with pc makers such As Compaq Dell or Gateway to install its is Dos and windows operating systems. Those programs run the Basic functions of a computer such As storing a file. Microsoft a is Dos program was chosen for the first ism personal computer which went on Sale in 1981, As other companies designed similar machines to compete with ism the min it soft program became a de Facto Standard and now is on about 80 percent of the worlds More than 150 million computers. Over time the company began requiring pc makers to pay it a fee for every computer it produced regardless of whether it had the Microsoft operating program. When competitors such As Novell inc and ism later came along with products that competed with is Dos pc makers had Little incentive to use those programs since they would have to pay a fee to the rival program and Microsoft a Microsoft used its monopoly Power to Juvy a tax on pc manufacturers who would otherwise like to offer an alter a live system Quot said Anne Bingaman assistant attorney general in charge of the antitrust division. A once Microsoft can no longer lock out other vendors that will open the doors for in my a Dos and digital re search Dos from Novell Quot said William Zachmann president of canopus research an Industry research firm in Dux Bury mass. Microsoft attorney Neukom however said the company does not expect the agreement to affect its revenues. The company gets about one third of its approximately $4 billion in annual Revenue from operating systems. Quot. The government also forced Microsoft to loosen restrictions that impeded software companies from developing programs such As word processors or spreadsheets that work with operating systems other than is Dos or windows. A those restrictions were part of confidentiality agreements required for companies to get Access to  orgy when they create products that run on is Dos or windows. The Justice departments antitrust division opened its investigation of Microsoft a year ago. It followed a three year investigation of the company by the Federal Trade commission. After two failed attempts to file complaints against Microsoft in 1993, the Etc closed its probe last August. Says before the 32-member bipartisan commission on entitlement and tax Reform which began meeting last month and Aims by december to offer a no nonsense plan for reining in the deficit. A time is no longer on our Side. Any presumption that the deficit is benign is clearly false a Greenspan said. A demographic trends imply an inexorable upward path for government expenditures As the next Century unfolds. The longer we wait the More draconian the remedies will have to be.�?�. The deficit peaked in 1992 at_$290 billion and is expected to fall below $200 billion in both 1995 and 19% As a result of spending Caps approved by Congress last summer according to the congressional budget office director Robert Reischauer who followed Greenspan to the witness table. But he warned that the red Ink will swell to $385 billion by 2004 and get even worse after 2010, when the generation born in the late 1940s and 1950s begins to retire. Greenspan also said the deficit in the Long run hurts the value of the Dollar which in recent weeks has plunged to a Post world War ii Low against the japanese yen. He said the Dollar in turn is crucial to securing a a american a leading role As an International financial Power into the 21st Century and added that the ability of the fed to prop up the value by buying huge quantities of dollars a is extraordinarily limited and probably in a realistic sense  in response to a question Greenspan conceded that the bipartisan commission would be Wise to examine tax deductions and exemptions but he stressed that cutting spending particularly on entitlement programs was the Only Long term answer. He said that it would take enormous tax increases to keep up with rising spending and that inevitably a the disincentive effects of rising tax rates would eventually choke off economic  for pennies appears to make cents by Kevin Robbins Scripps Howard news service Call it the Penny panic. Or the Copper crisis. Whatever it is it is no More. The Well publicized shortage of pennies in two cities ended this month after depositors flooded Banks with the coins Bank officials say. A a supermarkets and Banks in Columbus Ohio and Baltimore appealed in june for More pennies saying their Supply Wasny to enough to conduct routine business. But a the situation corrected itself a said Peggy Murphy a spokeswoman for the Baltimore Branch of the Federal Reserve. Murphy said a supermarket Chain in Baltimore issued Calls for More pennies last month but a it was not an absolute shortage of the coins. And she said it Wasny to a Universal Appeal. Its a localized a distribution Issue a hoarding  same goes for Columbus a and anywhere else. Rather than spending them Murphy said americans tend to stash pennies. The . Mint estimates that there Are 163 million pennies out there a equal to More than $6 for every Man woman and child in the country a but not All of them make it to Cash registers or tellers windows. A people consider them a nuisance a said Michael White a mint spokesman. But they apparently want them nonetheless. First Quarter orders for pennies from the Baltimore fed Branch were up 31 percent Over the same period last year the Bank said. The government minted More pennies in fiscal 1994 than at any time in the last decade. About 13.3 billion pennies will be minted this year a which is nigh plenty to add still More change to that 6 Bucks plus in everyone s pocket. A a there a enough cents out there a White explained Quot if people will circulate