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Show NATHAN GUESSES AGAIN Hold your hat! Here we go : again! At this writng it looks as though this nation is about to undergo un-dergo a plague of strikes, perhaps more devastating than the one that hit us last year, ic drama seems to be Robert Nathan. Na-than. You will recall that in October, Oc-tober, 194D, when this gentleman was economist of th OWMR, a report of that alphabetical bureau very conveniently "leaked out." This report purported to show that corporate profits would reach an all-time high in 1946 Walter Reuther of the United Automobile Workers, using this report as a pretext, and backed by Henry Wallace in his then official capacity as Secretary of Commerce, Com-merce, thereupon announced that the General Motors Corporation would make unprecedented earnings earn-ings in 1946 and could well afford to pay its workers higher wages, without raising prices. So we had the General Motors strike. Output of cars was suspended, sus-pended, strikes spread through industry, in-dustry, lowered production and higher costs increased prices not only of automobiles but of a great many other commodities, bringing great loss to 140 million America-cans, America-cans, and the greatest loss of all to the General Motors' workers themselves. Then after the General Motors workers had lost a strike in winning win-ning it, and not until then, did "honest" Henry Wallace tell the truth, and repudiate the Nathan report. It was all a mistake, just a wild guess, said Henry. But for many months, while the nation's economy was being wrecked, he deliberately let the public believe the OWMR report was "on the level." Now, Robert Nathan has moved from the OWMR. He has set up Robert Nathan Associates in Wash ington, D. C, an organization which for a fee will furnish advice on things economic. We prophesy there will be no great rush on the part . of those needing business counsel to avail themselves of Mr. Nathan's inexpert advice. The CIO, however, is a bear for punishment. In view of Nathan's wild guess of a year ago, he should be the last person to whom the CIO should go for information and advice. But, believe it or not, Robert Nathan Associates has prepared i a report for the CEO, and it follows fol-lows the same pattern as the former for-mer misleading report it predicts corporate profits in 1947 will reach an all-time high. This report advises ad-vises the CIO that industry can raise wages, without raising prices. pric-es. Mr. Nathan hedges somewhat by qualifying this claim, as he says, "it is reasonably conjectured." conjectur-ed." That should be a warning to the CIO that Nathan is guessing again. But Mr. Murray, CIO chief, naively accepts the Nathan report as gospel truth. Publicly he has stated that corporation profits will be enormous in 1947, and he is ready to plunge the nation into another an-other orgy of strikes, curtailed production, wage loss to workers, arid economic loss to every American Amer-ican man, woman and child. These strikes will be called on the basis of .future corporate earnings earn-ings as predicted by the unreliable predictor Robert Nathan. That in itself doesn't seem to make common sense. But even were Nathan correct in his forecast this time, the principle princi-ple involved is unsound. Whoever heard of a corporation declaring a dividend on unearned profits? Such a company would dividend pay itself right out of business. Well, strikes for higher wages based on future expected corporate corpor-ate earnings are equally as unsound un-sound and disastrous as dividends declared on unearned profits. That is a simple fundamental of economics econo-mics that Messrs. Nathan, Murray, Mur-ray, Reuther, et al would do well to ponder upon. |