October 3, 1984

Congress is debating a bill that would give the Synthetic Fuels Corporation a new lease on life, not by giving it more money but by taking money away. Language that would take $5.2 billion from the corporation is part of a Senate version of the stopgap money bill that Congress must pass before adjournment later this week. President Reagan proposed such a rescission last spring and said that until Congress approved it, he would not appoint the directors the corporation needs to muster a quorum and do business. The corporation is poised to make financial aid commitments for eight synthetic fuels plants, ending a half year of inactivity.

Mutual funds, in part promoted for their professional management, have again failed to give investors an advantage in the stock market. For the fifth consecutive quarter, the average gain for equity funds failed to match the Standard & Poor's index of 500 stocks, the benchmark against which most money managers are usually measured. In three-month period ended Sept. 30, equity funds increased an average of 6.48 percent, with utility funds generally doing the best and gold funds clearly doing the worst. That compared with a 9.69 percent climb for the S. & P. 500. The figures, released yesterday by Lipper Analytical Services Inc., assume all dividends were reinvested.

Almost one adult American in five has a mental disorder and the rates are about equal for men and women, according to a federally sponsored survey, the most comprehensive ever done of psychiatric problems in the United States. Finding equal rates for men and women was particularly surprising, according to Dr. Darrel A. Regier, of the National Institute of Mental Health, director of the study. He said it had been widely believed that women were more prone than men to mental problems, probably because previous studies gave disproportionate emphasis to anxieties, depression, phobias and related disorders that are more common among women. Problems more common among men, including antisocial personality and drug and alcohol abuse were also covered in the new broad survey. Drugs included narcotics and potentially dangerous medicinal products. Tobacco was not included among the drugs of abuse studied in the survey.

It's been raining over much of France, and the low, gray sky that seems to hover just above the chimney pots of Paris reflects the spirit of wine makers from Bordeaux to Beaune, from St.-Emilion to Epernay, from Vouvray to Riquewihr. Of course, wine makers are particularly sensitive to weather, so a few good days will raise their spirits. On gloomy days everyone likes to recall the miraculous vintage of 1978, when a disastrous summer of clouds and rain in Bordeaux and Burgundy gave way at the end of September to warm, arid days that went on and on, drying the grapes and maturing them into the raw material for great wine. It could happen again and one day it may, but probably not in 1984. The forecast was for rain through the week over most of the important vineyard regions.

The Advertising Column in Business Day Sept. 21 incorrectly reported an advertising assignment made by the Charles of the Ritz Group to Lord, Geller, Federico, Einstein Inc. It was for the Charles of the Ritz brand and the Alexandra de Markoff cosmetics line.