Brown and White Vol. 116 No. 12

              the brown and white lehigh university's student newspaper founded in 1894 vol 116 no 12 friday october 10 2007 all the lehigh news first mccain and palin make push to sway lehigh valley voters by julie stewart and elaine hardenstine republican presidential-hopeful sen john mccain and running mate gov sarah palm rallied supporters at stabler arena wednesday with hopes to gain support in the lehigh valley a swing region in the highly-contested state of pennsylvania mccain and palm rode directly into the building on a campaign bus labeled the straight talk express around 2 p.m along with the senator's wife cindy and daughter meghan mccain jumped into his proposed solutions for the broken economy the housing crisis and american job losses mccain said he is developing a home ownership resurgence plan that would allow the government to repur chase mortgages in trouble and replace them with rates consumers can afford the dream of home ownership should not be crushed under the weight of a bad mortgage he said mccain spent considerable time rebutting sen barack obama's state ments made during tuesday's presi dential debate a town-style meeting that many critics say obama won mccain said obama's pledge to give tax cuts to 95 percent of ameri cans wasn't true instead mccain said 50 percent of small businesses will experience a tax hike under obama's b&wphoto by elaine hardenstine plan obama's proposed policy is unac ceptable mccain said crediting small businesses with providing 350,000 new jobs to americans even as the number of national jobs fell by 700,000 mccain said he will not raise taxes because it will not help already-strug gling families obama thinks taxes are low mccain said i think spending is too high he said he will put a stop to insider dealing and excessive earmarks on bills a practice he said obama took full advantage of in chicago cindy mccain flanked by gov sarah palm and presidential-hopeful sen john mccain greets supporters at stabler arena on wednesday in his speech mccain promised to fix the economic crisis burdening americans financial officers looking to diversify lehigh endowment by gabriela saade officials overseeing lehigh university's endowment are looking to diversify its invest ment portfolio over the next three to five years chief investment officer peter gilbert said the most important aspect to improving the endowment's expected financial return and to reducing risks is how they allocate money for investments we want to have a more diversified port folio exposure to different asset classes and more global orientation gilbert said the endowment will extend beyond do mestic u.s equities and u.s fixed income to move toward a balanced global exposure he said gilbert said the changes will help keep the endowment healthy during the current eco nomic downturn if you can diversify investments over a wide range of geography and investment ap proaches over the long term you should do much better he said twenty years ago the u.s dominated 60 percent of the global market today it repre sents less than 50 percent accounting for the endowment's interest in expanding its focus on other global markets gilbert said part of the advantage of an endowment fund like lehigh is that it has a long time horizon gilbert said referring to the long term approach of investing the endowment will go on forever or at least as long as the university gilbert said the changes in allocations will be incremental taking place over three to five years a more diverse portfolio will both earn more money and reduce the chance of erratic equal pay activist speaks in bethlehem for obama by julie stewart while supporters of sen john mccain exited stabler arena at the end of his rally wednesday afternoon a differ ent type of rally was taking place on the other side of town lilly ledbetter an obama supporter and activist for equal pay for equal work spoke at obama's campaign of fice on the north side after working at goodyear tire and rubber co for 19 years ledbetter found out in 1998 that her pay was about 40 percent less than the white males working in the same position she said in a phone interview ledbetter sued and the case eventually reached the su preme court in 2006 in a 5-4 decision the court decided that in order for ledbetter to win the case discrimination would have had to occur 180 days or fewer before the claim was filed with the equal employment opportunity commission ledbetter said the court's decision to rule against her represented a new interpretation of the equal pay act obama supports the lilly ledbetter fair pay act a piece of legislation that would effectively overturn the su preme court's interpretation in her case she said ledbetter said women now earn about 77 cents for every dollar a man in the same position makes and when women are not paid as much families and the overall economy bear the burden this affects all families she said it's a family affair she said if women earned the pay they deserved wom en would put more money into their communities and would consume more which would benefit the economy ledbetter said she supports obama because of his views on equal pay for equal work but she also likes his plan to support healthcare coverage for all his plan to make medical benefits from previous employers tax-exempt and his proposed tax break for americans earning less than 250,000 per year mccain does not support equal pay legislation she said senator john mccain said that what we women need is more training and education she said ledbetter said she had the training and education needed for her job at goodyear but still earned less than the men working in the same type of job ledbetter said the next president will have the oppor tunity to nominate two or three justices to the supreme court and americans should weigh that information heav ily into their decision of who to vote for since the supreme court interprets laws in cases like hers that can really change the direction of the country she said on tuesday the night before sen mccain's visit sen bob casey and lehigh county executive don cunning ham visited bethlehem to discuss mccain's economic and health care plans see endowment page 3 see mccain page 2 are students feeling men's soccer wins check online for pain at the pump in double overtime breaking news page 7 „, page 16 thebrownandwhite.com