The Wall Street Journal Weekly Quiz
Covering front-page articles from Mar 7 - 11, 2005
Professor Guide with Summaries
Developed by: Scott R. Homan Ph.D., Purdue University
Questions 1 – 12 from First Section, Section A
New Lease As Energy Booms, 'Landmen' of Texas Enjoy a Gusher
By SUSAN WARREN
March7,2005;PageA1
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111015736881671805,00.html
MERIDIAN, Texas -- For an oilman, Steve Blakeslee spends a lot of time in graveyards.
His job is to research land ownership. Mr. Blakeslee, who is known as a landman, tracks his quarry through county courthouses, record books and sometimes from information inscribed on headstones. The leases he secures, ideally ahead of the competition, allow his clients to drill for oil and gas. Oil production in the U.S. has been declining for years as old fields peter out and the industry looks overseas. That ought to have sent the landman the way of the telegraph operator. But natural-gas production remains near historic highs and scrappy independents are flooding the market. Moreover, improved technology is letting companies suck oil and gas out of the ground that was previously inaccessible or too expensive. The job has changed beyond recognition compared with the days when oil tycoon H.L. Hunt and President George W. Bush made a living as landmen. Competition is more intense. Technology has revved up the pace. A century of oil production has bred hard-bargaining property owners. Environmental regulations restrict drilling. The standard two-page lease of the 1970s has grown into a 30-page document. Mr. Blakeslee, 48 years old, has never married. His life is a series of one-stoplight towns in the middle of nowhere. His four-year-old Toyota Tundra pickup has 123,000 miles on the odometer. "If you're allergic to enchiladas and chicken-fried steak, you're going to die," he says.
1. The primary job of a landman is______.
a. eat chicken-fried steak
b. plant crops
c. prepare new fields.
d. research land ownership Correct
2. What famous person used to be a landman.
a. President George W. Bush Correct
b. prize fighter George Foreman
c. writer Stephen King
d. actor Harrison Ford
Business Shows Stronger Role In Driving Growth
By TIMOTHY AEPPEL and KEMBA DUNHAM
March7,2005;PageA1
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110994219322970609,00.html
American companies are shaking off a prolonged hesitancy to hire and invest, prompting many economists to raise their first-half growth forecasts. The new business vigor is underpinning the stock market and could signal a major, post-Sept. 11 shift in the tenor of the economy. Until now, the economic recovery from the recession of 2000 had been fueled by tax cuts and low interest rates, which kept consumers spending despite the terrorist attacks and two wars. But recent data suggest business is becoming a leading force in the economic expansion, as companies tap their huge cash hoards to hire workers and buy machinery. The weaker dollar, too, is helping, by making U.S. goods cheaper on the world market and spurring The switch is visible in government indicators, including evidence that business-construction spending is finally on the upswing. Employers added 262,000 jobs in February, double January's pace and substantially higher than the average monthly job creation during the past six months of 182,000, the Labor Department said Friday. Orders for nondefense capital goods -- such as office furniture, trucks and computers but excluding aircraft -- grew 2.9% in January, the Commerce Department said. The gains in this gauge of business investment defy economists who had been expecting a slump in orders after the December expiration of a temporary tax break for business investment.
3. The weaker dollar, too, is helping, by making U.S. goods ______on the world market.
a. inferior
b. more expensive
c. cheaper Correct
d. float
4. Orders for non-defense capital goods -- such as office furniture, trucks and computers but excluding aircraft -- ______in January, the Commerce Department said.
a. grew 2.9% Correct
b. fell 2.9%
c. grew 12.9%
d. fell 12.9%
Boeing's CEO Forced to Resign Over His Affair With Employee
By J. LYNN LUNSFORD, ANDY PASZTOR and JOANN S. LUBLIN
March8,2005;PageA1
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111019724886272076,00.html
Harry Stonecipher was lured out of retirement to restore the reputation of the scandal-plagued Boeing Co. and set himself up as the company's chief ethics enforcer. Yesterday, the company said he was forced to resign as president and chief executive of the aerospace giant after an indiscretion of his own undercut the credibility of his efforts.
In a remarkable turn of events, Boeing said its board unanimously asked Mr. Stonecipher to resign the positions he had held for 15 months after it learned of his consensual relationship with an unnamed female executive. Yesterday, Boeing said the affair violated the company's Code of Conduct not because it was extramarital, but because the CEO used poor judgment and placed Boeing in a potentially embarrassing and damaging situation. The events leading up to Mr. Stonecipher's ouster began a little over a week ago. Lew Platt, a former Hewlett-Packard CEO and Boeing's non-executive chairman, confronted Mr. Stonecipher, 68 years old, with a tip from an anonymous employee about the relationship. The tip came to light through one of the mechanisms Mr. Stonecipher himself had established to prevent such scandals. In an interview, Mr. Stonecipher said he made no attempt to hide the affair. "I said it was true," Mr. Stonecipher recalls. He added that an additional allegation -- that he was using the affair to influence the pay and career of the woman -- was "absolutely false." Boeing said the revelation put Mr. Stonecipher in an unflattering light. According to people familiar with the board's discussions, the tip came in a letter to which was attached an excerpt of a "very graphic" e-mail written by the chief executive. Some board members worried that additional e-mails existed and that they could become public. The e-mails were apparently written on Boeing's main corporate system, not the encrypted e-mail system it uses to communicate with the Pentagon. Boeing wouldn't confirm that the correspondence was in the form of e-mail, and officials said they don't know how Mr. Stonecipher and the female executive lost control of the messages. The board doesn't know who sent the tip.
5. Boeing said its board unanimously asked Mr. Stonecipher to resign the positions he had held for 15 months because the CEO used ______.
a. company funds to fly first class
b. excellent judgment
c. poor judgment Correct
d. the mail room employees to wash his car
6. The events leading up to Mr. Stonecipher's ouster began a little over a week ago. Lew Platt, a former Hewlett-Packard CEO and Boeing's non-executive chairman, confronted Mr. Stonecipher, 68 years old, with a tip from an ______.
a. identified stockholder
b. identified employee
c. anonymous stockholder
d. anonymous employee Correct
In Midwest Investment Boom, Corn-to-Fuel Plants Multiply
By SCOTT KILMAN
March9,2005;PageA1
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111032760429274095,00.html
NEVADA, Iowa -- Truck driver Dean Rogers made the biggest investment of his life last year. He scraped together $25,000 for a stake in a plant to turn corn into a gasoline substitute called ethanol. "It's a big chunk of change," said the 61-year-old Mr. Rogers, who has spent a quarter-century driving from farm to farm delivering fuel. Tapping a bandaged finger on his stenciled work shirt, he added, "I'm hoping it will be a big part of my nest egg." Mr. Rogers is among thousands of farmers, teachers, storeowners, retirees and others who have raided their savings and borrowed money to join the biggest investment movement in rural America in decades. Driven in part by hopes of reviving weak local economies, the investors, together with rural lenders, are pouring billions of dollars into ethanol plants. Ethanol -- which is distilled from corn essentially the way moonshine is -- is blended into gasoline, both stretching the fuel's supply and making it burn cleaner. So far, the business is booming. With the price of gasoline up, so is ethanol's, 40% in two years. The Chicago Board of Trade is about to launch a futures contract in ethanol. Midwestern plants built by farmers' co-ops and private companies, at a cost of $50 million to $125 million each, now are showering their hometown investors with benefits.
7. The price of ethanol is up _____.
a. 70 %
b. 60 %
c. 50 %
d. 40 %.Correct
8. The Chicago Board of Trade is about to launch a futures contract in ______.
a. sugar
b. ethanol Correct
c. coffee
d. tea
Creditor-Friendly South Offers Preview of Bankruptcy Changes
By CONSTANCE MITCHELL FORD
March10,2005;PageA1
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111042423722975568,00.html
The Senate moved closer yesterday to passage of a bankruptcy bill that has been characterized as landmark legislation mapping out a new creditor-friendly environment, yet much of the South has long operated under a system that resembles what the bill aims to establish nationwide. Senators completed the final hours of debate on the legislation, paving the way for its approval by the chamber today. The Republican-controlled House Judiciary Committee is tentatively scheduled to approve the Senate version of the bill next Wednesday. The full House probably will vote to approve the measure in the first week of April after a day or two of debate following the two-week spring recess. It would then be signed into law by President Bush, who has said he supports the overhaul.
A key feature of the bankruptcy law is that it aims to compel more debtors to file under Chapter 13 of the federal bankruptcy law, which requires filers to repay at least some of their unsecured debts with regular payments over five years. Currently, more than two-thirds of bankruptcy filers across the country use Chapter 7, which wipes out all unsecured debt and allows consumers to start fresh. But in many Southern states, bankruptcy judges have long steered debtors to file under Chapter 13. "People here want to pay back their debts," says Max C. Pope, an attorney and bankruptcy trustee in Birmingham, Ala., where Chapter 13 was first created during the Depression to help workers make ends meet. At the time, Mr. Pope says, coal and iron workers who couldn't pay all their bills would send their paychecks to a state bankruptcy judge, who would distribute payments to the employee's landlord, banker and other creditors each month.
That system continues to exist today and has spread from Alabama to Tennessee and other parts of the South. "People in the South essentially use the bankruptcy court as a publicly funded consumer-credit counseling service," say Samuel Gerdano, executive director of the American Bankruptcy Institute in Washington, whose members include bankruptcy judges, as well as accountants and lawyers who represent both creditors and debtors.
9. A key feature of the new bankruptcy law is that it aims to compel more debtors to file under ______of the federal bankruptcy law, which requires filers to repay at least some of their unsecured debts with regular payments over five years.
a. Chapter 12
b. Chapter 13 Correct
c. Chapter 6
d. Chapter 5
10. Currently, more than two-thirds of bankruptcy filers across the country use ______, which wipes out all unsecured debt and allows consumers to start fresh
a. Chapter 7 Correct
b. Chapter 8
c. Chapter 13
d. Chapter 12
As Border Tightens, Growers See Threat to 'Winter Salad Bowl'
By MIRIAM JORDAN
March11,2005;PageA1
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111050941849076904,00.html
YUMA, Ariz. -- Shortly before Thanksgiving last year, Tom Nassif did something few law-abiding citizens would ever think to do: He called the U.S. Border Patrol here and suggested agents stop manning a highway checkpoint intended to keep illegal immigrants out of the country. A former U.S. ambassador and currently the president of a powerful farming association, Mr. Nassif told officials that the agency couldn't have picked a worse time to beef up enforcement. Didn't they know it was lettuce season? The checkpoint -- complete with drug-sniffing dogs -- was meant to stop the flow of illegal immigrants who might have slipped through the regular border controls. But it was also ensnaring busloads of undocumented workers who are critical to the task of picking lettuce and other vegetables during the winter growing season here. Border patrol Public Information Officer Joseph Brigman says he told Mr. Nassif that "we aren't targeting fieldworkers; we're conducting normal operations."
11. In Arizona a highway checkpoint was ensnaring ______critical to the task of picking lettuce and other vegetables.
a. undocumented workers Correct
b. machinery
c. drugs
d. animals
12. Tom Nassif did something few law-abiding citizens would ever think to do: He called the ______and suggested agents stop manning a highway checkpoint.
a. FBI
b. CIA
c. U.S. Border Patrol Correct
d. local police
Questions 13 – 17 from Marketplace, Section B
Movie, Music Giants Try New Weapon Against Pirates: Price
By KATE KELLY, ETHAN SMITH and PETER WONACOTT
March7,2005;PageB1
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111015143350171693,00.html
On a freezing February afternoon in Shanghai, street peddler Cheng Meiyuan watched two women comb through his movie-disc collection, which featured pirated copies of "The Aviator" and "The Incredibles." Mr. Cheng tucked his hands into a black down coat, his head pivoting left and right in search of police. A few minutes later his customers were gone, having paid 16 yuan, or roughly $2, for two DVDs.
The 30-year-old Mr. Cheng says he doesn't know where his goods come from; when he runs out, he calls a delivery boy to bring more. He earns just pennies per sale. Now, he wonders whether a new wave of legitimately produced discs, priced just slightly higher than the fakes, will threaten his ability to make a living. For many buyers in China, he says, "the price difference [between a $1 DVD and a $3 one] is still too big."
Entertainment companies think otherwise. Rampant piracy in places like China, Russia and Mexico has prevented Hollywood studios and major record labels from tapping the full growth potential of those tantalizing markets. Now, some media companies are trying to reverse the tide by cutting prices on legitimate DVDs and CDs low enough to challenge the pirates at their own game. The idea is to give consumers in those markets a cheap, legal alternative to pirated material. Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Bros. hopes to get a foothold in the Chinese market by setting the price of its DVD movie releases there to between $2 and $4. General Electric Co.'s NBC Universal would like to tap into Warner's Chinese distribution system and is planning a similar program in Russia. Meanwhile, the four global music companies have just launched a similar strategy in Mexico, in conjunction with government authorities, aiming to replace the pirated CDs sold by street vendors with new lines of cut-rate, legitimate CDs. The companies are betting that, just as Apple Computer Inc. helped the U.S. music industry reclaim turf lost to Internet piracy by pricing songs for the iPod at 99 cents apiece, the movie studios and record labels can woo back consumers abroad by slashing the price of legally manufactured DVDs and CDs. Their discs are of superior quality, they say, eliminating the risk of buying substandard goods and justifying the premium they want consumers to pay.