North Carolina Now; North Carolina Now Episode from 01/06/1997

The It's Monday January 6 tonight I knew him still wrong about the lineup being manufactured in a laboratory in North Carolina now. Hello I'm married I'm a tray Welcome to a new week of North Carolina now what an extraordinary weekend it was for Charlotte and all of the Carolinas the Carolina Panthers soundly defeated the defending Super Bowl champs the Dallas Cowboys yesterday. Now the

Panthers are just one game away from the Super Bowl later in the week we'll take you to Charlotte to see how Panther mania is turning into dollars for the Charlotte economy. But first tonight's program we have a couple of items this evening that will help make this a healthy new year for you both physically and financially. Well what about the various options available for getting your body in shape. And an economist from NC State will be here with tips on how to keep your bank account healthy. Now to our first story. North Carolina has long been known as a gemstone state primarily because of the plentiful gem mines in the western part of North Carolina. But in just a few months our state will also be known for a new gemstone that is expected to rival the diamond itself and brilliance and popularity. But as Shannon Viguerie reports unlike gemstone finds in the past this new gemstone was created in a Tarheel laboratory with the help of one of the state's most prestigious universities.

Guy ram the allure of diamonds has made it the stuff for records both in lyrical form and in record sales figures that please jewelers worldwide. What most people say that they're looking for in a stone is you know what they say. We want beauty in a stone. And when you break it down what they're talking about is brilliance sparkle and fire. Allen that the Mayas is a graduate Jim ologist with more than 20 years in the jewelry business. He says the diamonds mystique along with his dear ability keeps it a top seller in his dormitory store in terms of diamonds. People really respond to its its beauty its durability and they continually come back for more. But what if you want the brilliance of the diamond and the durability of the diamond but not its cost. That's a question. Scientists around the world including

a special group of researchers right here in North Carolina have been struggling to answer for many years in fact for the last 20 years. No one has been able to offer a quality alternative to the diamond at least until now. Once a night in nature comes from meteorite and it was fans in the Diablo Canyon in Arizona about the late 1890s boys and I'd as a name you can expect to hear a lot of in the coming months in its natural form. It's a rare and unearthly find but this chemical compound no more commonly as silicon carbide can also be made in a laboratory. It is then shaped into various applications including the new Jim Stone that's being easily compared to a Diamond Diamond is the hardest material at the 10 Weiss a night is nine and a quarter and weighs and I can also scratch glass. Just like a diamond Kim was and i also has the same shine of a diamond. Well Heinz is the manufacturing engineer for the company called c 3 that's developed the new

Jim Stone. Heinz is the one responsible for taking Moyes a night in its Dole raw form and turning it into this on his computer Hines is able to show us how light reacts when hitting the Moisant stone. You see the lights coming in here across the stone and out the other side that's ideal. That's what you want. In fact the noise and its ability to refract the light back to the eye gives the gym a sparkling quality much like a diamond shown side by side. It's hard for the average consumer to tell the two stones apart. But unlike a diamond the moistened eyes developers say the fire and brilliance of a boy's night will soon be available to consumers at a much lower cost than conventional diamonds. Final pricing hasn't been fed and that will be really determined based on just like diamonds the fourth sees the color of the cut the clarity and the carat weight. But our estimates right now would be somewhere in the neighborhood of one tenth the price of a dime. Too good to be true. Not so says a North Carolina State University professor who first

developed the moist night material. Of course initially I did not envision it. Becoming a source for Diamond simulants. But we did envision hope praying for it to become a material which could be used for high temperature high power and high frequency semiconductors. Believe it or not this new diamond rival got its start right here in an in sea state lab back in 1979. The Office of Naval Research awarded Bob Davis a grant to develop a material that could withstand high temperatures in frequencies working with a group of graduate students. Davis developed a process for creating more than ICT in a lab. The same graduate students have now gone on to form two corporations located in the Research Triangle Park based on the noise and technology. One of the companies is C3 which is currently creating the new gym. It has allowed students seeking advanced degrees to be trained to study this new material and to develop it themselves with

their own mind and abilities. Secondly it's significant because it has created corporations in the state of North Carolina which have hired people and who have been successful and who are now growing fairly rapidly. But the real test of how successful this new Jim Stone will be won't come until later this year. Until then Moyes Knight is already gaining interest in the jewelry industry mostly for how this new stone reacts on traditional diamond testers. And here's the conventional diamond tester works on thermal conductivity or heat. And we're going to take this wand and place it on top of a diamond. And as expected the meter reads the stone as a diamond. But when the same test is performed on the moistened night the meter registers this stone also as a diamond jewelry experts say Never before has a diamond alternative pass this test. But according to developers there's never been a Jim Stone quite like noise in the night.

North Carolina is as always been known for gemstones emeralds for sapphires rubies and the like and here is another one coming out which is not coming out of the earth. In this case but nevertheless puts North Carolina on the map again as a source of gemstones. As a test of its product the gemstones developers took the new moissanite stone to 30 jewelers across the nation to see if they could tell the difference between the boys the night and the diamond. According to company officials only two chillers could tell the difference between the two stones noise and I will hit jewelry stores later this summer and you can expect to see boys tonight advertised as a diamond alternative just in time for the 1997 holiday season. Still ahead some tips on making this a financially healthy new year. But first Michel Louis has returned from his holiday vacation so let's head over to the news desk where Mitch has a summary of today's statewide happenings. Welcome back Mitch. Thank you Maria. Good evening everyone. The North Carolina school board associations meeting tops our news this evening. Governor Jim Hunt spoke

before the educators today in Charlotte. The governor continued his push to improve the quality of North Carolina schools. The state's new education leader also addressed the group Mike wards and school board members must address the lingering concerns about schools such as safety. Ward also asked residents to maintain their faith in the public school system. State statistics indicate a steady decline in the number of recorded abortions over the past six years according to the North Carolina Center for Health Statistics. Fewer and fewer abortions have been performed each year since 1990. In that year alone more than 34000 abortions were performed. That's compared to just five years later when less than 30000 procedures were placed on record. The 1995 figure represents the lowest number of abortions in the state since 1982. A special departmental hearing by the Charlotte Police Review Board began today. The board is meeting behind closed doors to go over the actions of a white police officer in the fatal shooting of an unarmed black motorist. Officer Michael Marlow has been cleared

of any wrongdoing under state law in the November shooting death of James Willie Cooper. The police review is expected to take about three to four days to complete. The 150 United States Congress will be sworn in tomorrow and members of North Carolina's delegation say the not election year could take could help take some of the politics out of the hot button issues such as Medicare reform the continued control by Republicans in both the House and Senate is expected to ensure North Carolina's influence. But take you really in terms of tobacco regulations. Senator Lott Faircloth sans he'll file a bill calling for a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. Senator Faircloth will join us tomorrow night to discuss this and other congressional issues. Looking ahead to tomorrow's weather seasonally mild temperatures are expected across the entire state for Tuesday. A fairly even range of high temperatures falling between the low to high 40s a forecast overcast conditions will make for partly cloudy skies from the mountains to the coast. But rainfall does not look to be part of

tomorrow's weather picture. In today's business news attorneys in the Food Lion case are presenting their arguments for punitive damages. The attorney for Food Lion today told jurors that ABC routinely uses hidden camera reports to increase ratings. The federal jury ruled last month or two ABC producers committed fraud and trespass when they lied on their resumes to get jobs at Food Lion stores. ABC later used information gathered by the producers to accuse Food Lion of selling old food. The network's lawyer countered that ABC was trying to comply with the law during its investigation but that the law is often vague. And now for a look at what happened on Wall Street today. So

it's the new year time to get a fresh start on your finances. But what does 997 economy hold for us here in North Carolina. Here to answer that question and to give us some tips on how to make this a financially healthy new year is Dr. John Lapp Dr. laugh is an associate professor of economics at North Carolina State University. Dr. Lapp Welcome to North Carolina now. Thank you. Why do we start off with maybe a forecast of what you see for a 1970s economy. Well one of the nice things about the current economy is that it is well balanced we've been expanding smoothly and there's no reason not to expect that to continue well into the new year.

Will it continue to be expanding at such great rates as it has been in the past. Well we hope it doesn't expand that fast in the first half of 1996 especially in the second quarter the economy expanded more rapidly than it can sustain. The third quarter was a little slower. The fourth quarter seems to been quite healthy. So the outlook is for 2 or 2 and a half percent growth for 1997 and that's a nice healthy sustainable rate of expansion. Explain that to me more rapidly than it can sustain. Why is that a problem when the economy grows so quickly. Well we only have enough labor and enough capital enough machinery to produce a given amount of resources and we add to that capacity at something like 2 or 2 and a half percent per year. If we try to produce more than that if growth were to be 3 or 4 percent per year then we're stressing out our capacity and we end up with an inflationary scenario almost always inflation is the result of an economy growing faster than it can sustain. Now you say that since the economy is doing so well right now that this is the time to say let's

talk about that a little. Well many people feel that they're going to save when things improve when their job situation is better when their income is a little stronger then they'll choose to save. And people often use as an excuse Well when the economy does better I'll start to say well the economy is doing better the economy is doing about as well as it can and people ought to save now because while there is no recession on the horizon when there is a recession people will need those savings or at least will have a reduced capacity to save. So during times when the economy is strong and healthy is when people ought to be saving either for their retirement or for children's education or for any of those things that can happen that require people to dip into their savings. You are an advocate of a consistent savings plan. What do you mean by consistent savings plan. Well people really ought to have a plan. They ought to think about how much money do I need over the next three to five years for a new car or a downpayment

on a house. How much money will I need over the next 10 to 15 years for children's education and how am I funding my retirement. And people ought to think in terms of a consistent percentage of their income that they're going to save. And then they ought to do that on a regular basis. They ought not to say well I'm going to say when the economy is doing well I'm going to save when the stock market is going up. People ought to save on a consistent plan basis regardless of what the economy is one some people say saving ought to come first rather than last in the budget process. Easier said than done in a lot of cases you know one of the things that I'd like to talk about is the stock market it has just been skyrocketing in the last couple of years especially this last year. Do you foresee that 1997 will have this the stock market expanding at such great rates as it has been the last couple of years. Well well everyone hates to predict the stock market especially for the record. It would be very unlikely for the stock market to have a third year like the last two

we have seen rates of return in the stock market that are far above the historical average. If the stock market had prices increased by 5 to 10 percent in the coming year I think many people would think it was a good year after the last two years. And and people need to keep in mind then this is probably something for you to say but it's been something that's been pounded into my head so much is that the stock market is a long term investment and a lot of times you see especially the last couple years of it just growing light leaks and leaps and bounds it's a way to make quick money but that's not necessarily the case. That's certainly not buying and selling stocks is expensive even in this day of discount brokers. It costs money to buy. It costs money to sell. If you sell on short term capital gains you end up paying more taxes. Most professionals recommend using the stock market as a long term investment vehicle by which they mean money that you intend to keep invested for 5 years or longer. Let's talk about some areas of the stock market I don't want to mention specific stocks we can get both of

ourselves in trouble that way. But maybe some areas I know in the past technologies have done particularly well any areas that you're looking at for investments. Well there are a number of areas that have been hot in the recent period for the first part of the 90s it was health stocks as you say More recently it's been technology stocks. There is always some new area that's in favor or some area that's out of favor and so particular sectors of the stock market show a fair amount of volatility. Most investors would be best off not trying to pick the next winner not guessing whether it's going to be technology or mining or energy or foreign stocks but rather choosing a well-diversified widely balanced portfolio with stocks from this industry and stocks from that industry and a well diversified mutual fund is probably the right way for most individuals to accomplish that. OK Doctor we have less than a minute left but I very quickly want to ask you about home mortgages what do you see happening there.

Probably not much. As long as inflation stays under control the Federal Reserve is not going to raise interest rates. There does not seem to be any room at the moment for them to lower interest rates. And so as long as inflation stays under control and as long as the Fed maintains its current stable policy mortgage rates are likely to stay approximately where they are. I don't see any reason for a big move in either direction approximately where they are is pretty reasonable. Oh I think so they're certainly lower than they've been for the last several years and they're unlikely to fall further. OK Dr. Elavil I want to thank you very much for your time this evening and thanks for the advice. My pleasure. For most of us are out of town guests have left about the remnants of the holidays are still

lingering around the house like a fruit cake or some honey glazed ham. And for many there are also a few extra pounds hanging around after the holidays. Tonight producer Hans Van Doren award shows us the various ways to get rid of those unwanted pounds and inches. In this piece narrated by Bob Garner. That's right it's that time of year again. The New Year is upon us and for many that means it's time to make good on promises made to get back into shape. Erika limpin a certified personal trainer at the Rex Wellness Center sees this trend each year. Generally the busiest time of year is from January 1st because most people make New Year's resolutions to get in shape. So the busiest time is from January to tell about March and if most people don't drop out it really is resolutions that will be the busiest time for sign ups for people to start their fitness program.

Though it may be the most popular time of the year to start a new fitness program it may not be the wisest Karen Singleton a personal fitness instructor says that expectations are often too high and unrealistic. If you see that it's time you step on the scales on January 1st you don't like what you see. This does not come on overnight and it hasn't even come on just over the last Christmas. And to Dickie if you're out of step and have not exercised in a while a lot of people will tell you Jim at the beginning of the year and up the Hudson and get an MOT. If you're thinking about starting the new year committed to a healthier way of living consider this when shopping for exercise equipment for the home. What works for one will not work for all. And take your charm when trying to match your goals to equipment. I just shop around a lot. That's the best advice go to a place where someone is going to show you the machines and really try everything out yourself. Don't just watch somebody else get on it and see how they do it. Get on it yourself try it make sure it's comfortable for you and that you can properly it. Stay the same. Your

body type or your body size because that's something your past then you want to have a sure that it's appropriate for you. Pat George manager of superior fitness systems in Raleigh has been busy stocking up for the new year and he knows how important it is to personalize your fitness program. You have to make a commitment to come in and buy something and I think you also have to put a little time into researching like we just talked about what it is that you're going to stick with you know the best piece of exercise equipment is the one you're going to take home and continue to use. Consumer Reports rates these products tops for the home prices range from twenty three hundred dollars to $600. But for some owning the equipment isn't a guarantee they're going to use it on a regular basis. They need the extra motivation that sometimes comes with joining a gym or health club. You know I basically always use jams. I've never had a space at home set up a home gym. And I just can't see. Need to get on a stationary bike at home and it's just

not motivating. I'd rather come to a jam I'd rather be in this atmosphere. And again depending on what you want to accomplish physically this year you'll have to pick a health club that matches those needs. It pays just to really take time to you know research the facility the staff and make sure it's the right program for you. fees start around $30 a month and go as high as Average membership $90 per month depending on how many years you sign up for initiation fees may be as high as one hundred fifty dollars or waived entirely regardless of the facility most will give you a week's trial membership for free which can make your decision easier. And still some people need more of an incentive to workout. This is an industry which is doing very well and has grown tremendously in recent years. Personal Training is really booming right now because a lot of people. Well there's more and more people exercising a lot of people find it hard to have the internal motivation. And plus they really

they're not sure what they're doing when they start. So it helps to have a personal. I am here to get you started and to continue on your exercise program. Susan your has been training with Karen singleton for seven months now and says she wouldn't still be exercising if it wasn't for the push she gets from her personal trainer. Is this answer for me I mean I tried lots of other things and I knew what the good things to eat or I didn't need somebody to tell me that good nutrition and all but I had no idea about weight training. And it is worked like a charm for me. Whether you need a personal trainer for the motivation or because you don't feel comfortable inside a gym yet. Remember their rates are from 35 to 50 dollars an hour on top of your facility fees. Regardless of the method you choose for getting in shape this year one thing is true in order to be successful you've got to be committed for life and do it from now until the rest of their lives. And I see my objective as educating them on how they can maintain that and how they can understand that at the different stages of their lives and then they have to make adaptations but

they're still maintaining exercise. I'll add exercising to my increasingly growing list of new year's resolutions. Remember that it's important for you to research the method you decide to choose for getting in shape. But regardless of the method you have to be truly committed for a lifetime. Well as we mentioned earlier tomorrow is a big day in Washington D.C. as the members of the 100 fifth session of Congress are sworn into office. Among them three new members of the North Carolina delegation actually two are new and one is returning to his previously held office. Returning Congressman David Price and two newcomers Congressman elect Etheridge and McIntyre will be our guests next week on North Carolina now on tomorrow's program we'll speak via satellite with Senator Locke fair cloth about his expectations for the coming session. Also tomorrow we'll examine the moves our state is making to curb prison overcrowding. Have a great night tonight and please make plans tomorrow to be back here for another edition

of North Carolina now tonight.