Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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: _ State & National News 1 State Briefs ■ S.C. heat produces more county fire alerts (AP) - A red flag fire alert has been is sued for eight more South Carolina coun ties because of increased concerns about wildfires. The Forestry Commission on Friday posted the alert in Abbeville, Aiken, Al lendale, Barnwell, Edgefield, Green wood, McCormick and Saluda counties. The alert was already in effect for Bambeig, Calhoun, Lexington, Orange buig and Richland counties. ■ Lexington Medical considering expansion (AP) - Lexington Medical Center is thinking about buying a neighboring psy chiatric hospital that is planning to close once it finds other facilities for remain ing patients. Charter Rivers Hospital stopped ac cepting new patients earlier this week. Its parent company, Charter Behavioral Health Systems, is in bankruptcy and is selling or closing its 84 psychiatric hos pitals. Lexington Medical officials have not yet decided whether they will bid for Charter Rivers. But Mike Biediger, Lex ington’s president and chief executive officer, said they have studied the situa tion the past two weeks. ■ Stolen Clemson horses back at farm Pendleton (AP) - Two mares stolen from Clemson University’s equine re search center are back at the school’s farm after a woman spotted one of them for sale in the Honea Path area. The woman saw that the big "CU” brand on its front left shoulder and iden tifying number on the rear hip were dis torted, farm manager Pat Evans said. No arrests have been made, but the investigation continues. S.C. economic growth could be slowing down Associated Press South Carolina’s rapid economic growth could be slowing down. Figures from the state Commerce Department show that through May, 43 companies announced plans for 5,375 new jobs in South Carolina. Projected through the year, that means 103 com panies would bring in 12,900jobs. But in 1999, the department said 641 companies invested $638 billion and cre ated nearly 30,000 jobs. Mark Vitner, an economist with First Union Corp. in Charlotte, said some of the drop comes from the state’s focus on bringing in manufacturing companies, which usually suspend expansion plans when interest rates rise as they have this year. A study from the Economic Fore casting Center at Georgia State Univer sity said South Carolina’s gross state prod uct grew by less than 4 percent last year. “The rate of economic growth in South Carolina will continue to slow in 2000,” said Donald Ratajczak of the cen ter. Ratajczak expects the slowdown to last into 2001. “After nine-plus years of exceptional growth, we may see growth begin to mod erate,” Vitner said. ‘ ’But it’s still grow ing very strongly.” Part of the problem could be South Carolina’s inability to regularly attract high-tech companies, some say. Helen Munnerlyn, Commerce De partment spokeswoman, said bringing such companies to South Carolina is a challenge. While manufacturers look for areas with abundant space and workers, high tech companies need technology-sawy employees. “I think the trend [here] is going in the right direction,” said John Peeples, chief operating officer at West Colum bia computer maker KryoTech. “But whether the rate of change is fast enough is another question,” he said. ClientLogic Corp. of Nashville, Tenn., a computer services firm, has said it will create customer support centers in Williamsbuig and Lee counties that will mean up to 1,000 jobs. But ClientLogic is the only com puter-related company this year to es tablish its first South Carolina operations, Commerce Department figures show. Munner said major development pro jects come in cycles. She said that in five days this past May, four companies an nounced projects that involved $ 124 mil lion and 972 jobs. “It all depends where companies are in the decision-making cycle,” Munner lyn said. “The year is far from over.” Frank Hefner, a College of Charleston. economist, said South Carolina might just be maxing out on development. “Sever al times, we’ve had back-to-back banner years,” he said. “I’ve always cautioned that you just can’t keep doing that.” Hefner also said you can’t measure growth just in dollars and jobs. Better, not more, jobs are what South Carolina needs, he said. “I don’t see anything wrong with [at tracting] a bunch of small, high-tech, start-up firms that might employ 15 or 20 people,” he said. AT&T phone monopoly offers breakup lessons BY KALPANA Srinivasan Associated Press Washington, D.C. - The decision to slice Microsoft Corp. in two sends it down a path already well-worn by Ma Bell, whose breakup enabled consumers to price shop for long-distance service and buy their own phones. But experts warn that there are limits to the parallels and that it’s too early to say if the impact will be the same. “Microsoft is no AT&T,” aigues Rick Rule, a former Justice Department at torney who administered the phone com pany’s consent decree and is now a con sultant for Microsoft. . There are stark differences between the cases. For one, American Telephone and Telegraph, created through a series of acquisitions during the early part of the 19th century, already had fairly au tonomous divisions. When the phone giant was broken off from its local businesses in 1984, the lines were easy to draw and there were physical assets that could be divvied up. ' “AT&T may have had a head start because it basically had the splits between local and long-distance already done,” said Bell Atlantic President and Chief Operating Officer James Cullen, who was director of corporate planning at AT&T from 1981 to 1983. “The hard work was taking the network and figur ing out how to divide it.” AT&T still houses some of its equip ment in the central offices of its offspring — the Bell companies. In contrast, Microsoft’s case repre sents the challenge of separating intel lectual property and breaking up a com pany in cyberspace, said Nicholas Allard, a communications lawyer at the Wash ington firm of Latham & Watkins. “The split of Microsoft is much more metaphysical,” he said. From the consumer’s perspective, that could impact how competition evolves. The local phone companies that broke off from AT&T still controlled the copper lines leading into people’s homes, and it took time for other businesses to lease or build their own facilities to of fer rivaling service in the residential mar ket. Software is ‘’arguably easier to du plicate than the phone network, which could clearly not be duplicated,” said Steve Sunshine, a former Justice De partment antitrust lawyer. Consumer advocates and others have contended that the AT&T agreement merely replaced one relatively benign phone monopoly with seven much more aggressive ones, because consumers in local markets had few alternatives open to them. ‘ ’The biggest political mistake made after all the logic of the breakup is that the railroad of telecommunications — the local telephone companies — be came the powerhouses,” said Gene Kim melman, co-director of the Washington office of Consumer’s Union. “They be came much more powerful in the polit ical arena than their previous parent.” More than 15 years later, many of those pieces have begun to come back together. The original seven Baby Bells, through various mergers, have been con solidated down to four. But some atgue that the AT&T agree ment still managed to constrain the re sulting monopolies from extending their dominance to new arenas. For example, the decree kept the Bell companies from monopolizing the equip ment manufacturing, long-distance and fiber optic industries, said Reed Hundt, former chairman of the Federal Com munications Commission. □ Spend This Weekend at Myrtle Beach! USC Student, Faculty & Staff Special Rate ! 20% Coupon ! off Room Rate . ' Ocean Boulevard & 11th Avenue South | Myrtle Beach, South Carolina 29577 I 1-800-331-4656 L — — — — — — —