Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 5, 1993 TAG: 9305050091
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
PITTSBURGH - McDonald's on Tuesday celebrated the 25th birthday of the Big Mac, the two-patty hamburger that has become an icon of American fast food.
Jim Delligatti, the franchise owner who invented the Big Mac on a summer night in 1968, blew out 25 candles on a 200-pound hamburger-shaped cake at a McDonald's in Pittsburgh.
Ronald McDonald and a high school band marched.
Delligatti came up with the Big Mac in the kitchen of a McDonald's he owned in suburban Pittsburgh. "I just felt that what we needed was a good, big sandwich," he said. The Big Mac now is the flagship of the fast-food chain.
Delligatti said the secret to its success lies in the sauce.
So what's in it?
"I'm sorry, but we'll have to skip that part," he said.
\ FDIC nearly makes it out of the red-ink pot
WASHINGTON - The fund insuring deposits in the nation's 11,800 banks nearly climbed out of the red last year, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said Tuesday.
At year-end, the FDIC's Bank Insurance Fund had a deficit of $101 million, compared with a $7.03 billion deficit at the end of 1991.
The agency attributed the improvement to favorable interest-rate conditions for banks and healthier economic growth generally. Helped by the wide gap between interest rates on deposits and loans, commercial banks earned a record $32.2 billion last year.
One hundred twenty-two banks with $44.2 billion in assets failed last year, down from 127 banks with $63.2 billion in assets in 1991. The asset total of failing banks is projected to fall to $25 billion this year.
As a consequence, the FDIC cut the fund's reserve for future failures from $16.3 billion to $10.8 billion. Its actual losses on failures last year were $4.7 billion, down from $7 billion in 1991.
\ Spending on tourism breaks record in Va. RICHMOND - Tourism spending in Virginia reached a record $8.6 billion in 1992, up 5.5 percent from the previous year, state officials said. The number of visitors to tourist attractions increased 1.7 percent to slightly more than 50 million, said April L. Young, director of the state Department of Economic Development. Direct employment in travel-related industries rose 2.1 percent to 157,900. At least an equal number of people work in fields indirectly related to tourism. The state collected $381.5 million in tourism-related taxes in 1992, up 5.8 percent from $360.6 million in 1991. Local taxes totaled $224.9 million, up 6.2 percent from $211.8 million.
by CNB