Reverse Spin: So much for the House — now for the Senate

Chalk one up for the Bush Man. President Bush scored the first major victory of his administration Thursday when the House approved the bulk of his tax cut plan. The House approved the income tax reductions, the biggest part of Mr. Bush’s $1.6 trillion proposal, by a vote of 230 to 198.

Mr. Bush faces a far tougher challenge in the Senate, which is not expected to review the proposal at least until May.

What rate cut?

* It’s the old “good news or bad news” scenario.

The good news is that the Labor Department on Friday reported that the U.S. employment rate held steady at 4.2%, and payrolls grew more than expected in February.

The bad news is that we can all kiss goodbye any lingering hopes that the Federal Reserve will continue its campaign of aggressively cutting interest rates.

U.S. payrolls outside the farm sector grew by a larger-than-expected 135,000 in February after gaining 224,000 in January, a month when payroll gains were swollen by seasonal factors.

The downtrend in the job market has slowed considerably since last year. Even so, James Glassman, senior U.S. economist at J.P. Morgan & Co. in New York, said the report “dramatically lowers the odds the Fed is going to step up the pace of easing.”

Doing a job on jobs

* This little tidbit ought to persuade the Fed to continue doing the right thing. Job cuts announced by U.S. companies almost tripled last month from levels a year earlier, according to a report released Monday by Challenger Gray & Christmas Inc., an international outplacement firm in Chicago.

U.S. companies announced 101,731 layoffs in February, up from 35,415 a year earlier, the report said. The February numbers are a lot better than the 142,208 layoffs in January.

On Thursday, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co. became the latest Wall Street giant to announce possible job cuts, and Cisco Systems Inc. in Palo Alto, Calif., said Friday that it intends to cut 5% of its staff in the coming weeks.

Infidelity at Fidelity

* It turns out that last year was a great year for selling other people’s funds.

Fidelity Investments, the world’s largest mutual fund company, said Thursday that its profits more than doubled to $2.17 billion in 2000. Meanwhile, strong performances at its fund supermarket and brokerage arms offset market declines and weak sales of Fidelity funds.

While profits were 115% higher than in 1999, last year marked the second year in a row that the company’s funds posted mediocre returns. In total, Fidelity funds beat 57% of their rivals on an asset-weighted basis, the same as in 1999.

A bad-news bear?

* Did Mr. Bezos know something we didn’t know?

The Securities and Exchange Commission is supposedly investigating stock sales by Jeffrey Bezos, the chairman of Amazon.com Inc., the Seattle Internet retailer.

Citing a person close to the matter, The New York Times reported Friday that the probe centers on stock sold by Mr. Bezos in early February, just before a Wall Street firm released a negative report about the company.

A spokesman for Amazon said Mr. Bezos sold the shares to raise money and diversify his holdings.

Double Dutch treat

* Would you like a 20-year term life insurance policy with that nightie?

Dutch insurer Aegon NV said Thursday it is expanding its U.S. health and life insurance business by buying U.S. retailer J.C. Penney Co.’s direct-marketing-services division for $1.3 billion. Aegon said it would offer an expanded range of financial products to the 12 million customers of the nation’s fifth-largest retailer. J.C. Penney sells insurance through direct mail to credit card customers.