his groceries for the weekend but he hadn't found everything he want rapidly and through free competition prices will quickly adjust themselves to levels that consumers are willing to pay for just plain my dear boy i know what they are talking about there the band will run today people are being squeezed squeezed out of food clothing mississippi's because of rising prices just think back to nineteen thirty nine and prices at that time shirts eighty eight cents a pair of shoes one dollar ninety five cents and as for food butter thirty one cents a pound chuck roast fifteen cents land prices started upward as big business took advantage of the war uncle sam established the opium crackdown in nineteen forty six controls were removed prices shot up in eighteen months they went up as much as in the whole previous seven years these prices mean big trouble to families as shown by experts from the university of california the hiller committee who prepared a minimum budget for a family of four its standards are not very high for example father gets one overcoat every six years three work period for a year cost about seventy five dollars a week in january nineteen forty eight the administration considered even this budget too optimistic for the bureau of labor statistics estimated a more realistic one a little less of everything for vacation and savings practically nothing this supermodel budgets average sixty five dollars in january nineteen forty eight and at the same time manufacturing wages were around fifty one dollars a week it's a simple sober fact that most people cannot live on their pay because of high prices and inflation what's the reason for inflation high prices according to the national association of manufacturers who say inexpensive and inflation comes when the flow of money into the market is greater than the flow of goods the n a m m says that production and incomes for goods and money are the controlling factor i price of if there are more goods than dollars prices go down if there are more dollars than good prices go up sounds reasonable but it's only half of the story this explanation leaves low price fixing m speculations market rigging it leaves out the basic reason for today's inflation and that is the killing of all the a let's analyze the inflation business it's important in the army goods went back to civilians there was less money because overtime was cut therefore money and goods were more in balance there was less reason for inflation with opi a continuing savings would have gone for washing machines houses automobiles and refrigerators for many years to come we would have had prosperity sound stable prosperity instead government controlled prices were replaced by business controls profits prices went up wages were used for food and clothing but wages weren't enough today things went for food and clothing upon our economic security seems like an act of nature but it actually is the result of acts by big business people are beginning to discover who is responsible for inflation to postpone this discovery big business is putting up a barrage of propaganda here on their excuses and here are the facts against them as dug out from official government sources excuse number one the farmers are to blame for one of the principal causes for high prices is federal support of farm prices the department of agriculture finds that of the increases in food prices in the last he didn't finance farmers he didn't sell the wheat he didn't harvest it he didn't distribute it he didn't even eat it he just sat on it three hundred twenty percent no wonder prices are high one of these companies the a and p was charged with violating the sherman antitrust act their extra take from a false wives was estimated at twenty one million to production six hundred million man days furthermore in comparison to all man day's work strike losses are practically nothing to be exact one third of one percent of the total nine did you know gentlemen at the end i am you cannot blame the high price of the strike but the biggest target of the n a a m propaganda is wages labor costs come to eighty five percent of expenses which prices are base so naturally if labor costs go up prices go up simple arithmetic well let's take a look at some minor for a concrete example miners average sixty five dollars a week for working underground they risking three tons of cold make two tons of steel the steel companies increase their prices on two tons by as much as twenty dollars two terms of steel are used in the average car lot of companies increase their prices by as much as one hundred dollars big business doesn't know how to answer it only learn the multiplication table no wonder prices go up wage increases have no relation the price increases this is true throughout industry here a wage increases in typical industries practically all are less than five percent of the price of  now keeping the same scale parties the comparison take a look at the price increases the fact the rub is there is no relation between wages and prices as economic experts have known for a long time know gentlemen that the n a m m wage a great desire not responsible for price increases let's see what is responsible for high prices also increased its prices more than steel and steel more than co the answer lies in the degree of monopoly campus trade let's examine these industries more closely take the three largest producers i meet in coal mining the three largest companies produce only seven percent of all grow in steel the largest reproduce sixty percent of the total in auto the largest three produce ninety percent of all cars in other words the auto industry is controlled by a few companies that grow industry is not gold mining is very competitive although as  monopolistic as a result they can and do charge more they can and do make bigger profits take the profit level at one hundred forty nine hundred forty six and compare nineteen forty seven in coal mining profits up fifty six percent in steel of eighty four percent in auto up one hundred twenty five per these increases in profits are not unusual throughout all industries profits are incredible here is the golden year of american business nine hundred twenty nine now let's compare the last five years with nineteen point eight nine the warriors were very profitable american manhood suffered a million casualties but corporations average nearly ten billion a year then in nineteen forty six big business broke all profit records and a nine hundred forty seven the take was out of this were seventeen billion dollars in two years corporations cleared twenty nine and a half billion dollars in two years big business collected for themselves as much money as was collected by the entire federal government of the united states from taxpayers from the time of george washington but that of her being hoover i told her all of one hundred forty years no wonder prices are up these profits are still operate just that big business is trying to minimize them through a huge campaign of according to the company figure they make only a couple of pennies on each dollar of sales aside from these two and a half cents all of the dollar is going to pay for labor and plants and materials and supplies of all kinds connected with the job of giving you meet process armor they only make two point six percent profit which is very low sounds reasonable doesn't it but it's phony most of this dollar is spent before armor begins working which is right here this part of the dollar is saying for activities that have nothing to do with armor our meat processing this product is paying for armors operations and when we look at it closely we find the products work and processing meat i'm against two and a half cents alright but these few little pennies represent a profit the armor of seventeen for example the value of their work and seventeen percent for each armored dollars is a very high rate of profit but armor isn't the only pro this picture let's examine what goes on before processing