The Durant news. (Durant, Miss.) 1882-1985, 1942-05-07
BEHIND THE SCENES IN
AMERICAN BUSINESS
BY John Craddock

what VIII cause most OF the con
sternation and hardship retailers will
experience under the OPA general
price regulation order order. Elk
ample: In March the month whose
price top is used as the limit in
future pricks--a haberdasher was
selling a certain shirt for $1.5O
having bought them for s12 a dozen,
wholesale. Now he has to keep on
selling the same shirt at $3.50 al
though in the meantime the whole
sale price has gone up to SIC a
dozen. Multiply that circumstance
by just about every item that a
store carries and you can begin to
imagine the scope Of adjustments
and retrenchments that the overall
price ceiling makes necessary . .
Despite the severity of the pinch, the
order was generally received with
out grumbling - a tribute to the
country's appreciation Of the need
for checking the Cost-of-Living
spiral
SLOW CURVE-It's by far the
most sweeping order Of its kind ever
issued in this country, and because
it includes almost all foods, n
might assume that the food price
situation had been getting desperate.
! Actually, federal reports show that
retail food prices this spring have
averaged lower than during a COM
parable period Of World War /. Dur
ing the three-and-a-half years since
Hitler's peaceful" penetration of
] Czechoslozakia, the retail price in
J dex for all foods has risen less than
half as much as it did in the cor
responding period after the Austria
Serbia wal declaration in 1914. Spe-
officially, food price rose 500 per
cent between July 1914 and March
l918-compared to anly 2O.8 per
cent between July 1888 and March
1912. AS a result, the index for all
foods in March of this year stood
about IL percent below the CORES
ponding month of 1918. Reasons:
OPA restrictions have acted as a
brake; chain store retailing and far
mer-producer organizations have
helped put food distribution on a
more efficient basis today; prices
were higher to begin with in 1914
than at the start of the current
war.
TIP-OFFS ON THE TINES -
Conversion brought sharp reduction
in earnings for General Motors in
the first quarter of 1912. a 81 per
cent drop in net earnings available
for dividends contrasting with a 81
per cent rise in the concerns war
production Engineering stu
dents at Purdue University PTS
OF them, are turning out war goods
on q regular subcontract for a big
manufacturing concern, on the stu
dent-training facilities. The young
men work part-time, but the total
operation amounts to a 75-man full
time shop Exact proportions of
eastern seaboard gasoline rationing
are still underlined, but oil industry
officials now think the ration may,
after all, be not higher than five
gallons per week per a i. Nat
ional City Bank Of New York figures
The net inco2es Of $50 manufacture
ing companies for the first quarter
of 1912 averaged is per cent be-
low the similar period of 1941, 20
per cent below the final quarter
Of that year. Increased taxes and
war-curtailed production were, an
turally, the chief factors cited.
SUGGESTED SPEED-UP-Amer-
ica's workers want to step up war
production and they have some good
ideas on how to do it. A well-or-
Eanized and fast-acting Suggestion
campaign" is q key factor, according
to word krom Akron. Since the first
labor-management committee in the
rubber industry was organized in the
plant Of B. F. Goodrich there. with
an implified suggestion routine, q
barrage of worthwhile ideas has
flooded in. The rate is Is per cent
greater than before the committee
was formed, it is reported, and, even
more important, two-thirds of the
suggestions received are so practical
as production-boosters and waste
eliminators that they have already
been put into practice. The com
mittee is composed Of six represent
~tatives Of Rubber Workers Union,
Local No. 5, and six of the manage
ment. Subcommittee concentrate
on production, safety, t~ransporta-
ton, waste and material savings. and
publicity and promotion of the drive.
THINGS TO WATCH FOR-Re-
movable wooden wheels on l943 auto
trailers Window screens woven
from nylon latter the war; instead
NJ nANnA Wnc- en-