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Show WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS Price Reductions Clip Inflation: Rent Control Law Gives Authority To State Governors, Legislatures ' . r..,M,ed In these column, they are those of (EDITOR'S NOTE: When opinion- nece.s.rlly of thi. newspaper.) Western Newspaper Union's newi anaiy New Senator I1" I s, - , m :6mm -r-- PRICE DROP: Hits Inflation American consumers were asking ask-ing themselves: What does it mean? Why were prices being slashed, the dollar stretching a little further? Was it simply that inflation was being clipped, or was it true, as some have said, that the country is in the midst of a mild recession? THOSE QUESTIONS were well-founded. well-founded. For, in the latest economic development, prices of automobiles, automo-biles, accessories, radios, refrigerators refriger-ators and ranges had been reduced. re-duced. Continued reductions in such basic commodities as lead, zinc, copper and steel indicated there might be further cuts in manufactured manufac-tured goods in the wind. One automobile manufacturer announced cuts ranging from $198 to $333 in the price of his cars. The I mid-season catalogue of the nation's na-tion's biggest mail-order house announced an-nounced "many price reductions in all lines." Even ice cream was down off three cents a quart in Philadelphia. Radios showed the biggest drop. One nationally-known manufacturer manufactur-er announced price cuts of 20 to 50 per cent on nine home model sets. Auto batteries were lower in cost. A refrigerator manufacturer knocked off $20 from some of its models. Steel was down and scrap metal was at the lowest price in almost al-most two years. WHATEVER ELSE entered into the picture, it was conceded that buyer resistance was one of the main items in the price reductions. The consumer had become more conscious of prices. There had been more hand-to-mouth buying. There was a tendency to "wait and see" whether prices would come down a bit. One of the nation's foremost educators, Dr. Frank P. Graham, Gra-ham, has been appointed U.S. senator from North Carolina to succeed the late Sen. J. Melville Mel-ville Broughton. Dr. Graham was president of the University of North Carolina. RENT BILL: Buck Was Passed The rent control question was red hot. Congress knew it. The people knew it. But something had to be done before controls expired March 31. Congress had to do something. It did. It passed the buck. A rent control bill was drafted by the 81st congress, but it laid in the laps of state governors and legislatures the real power and re-sponsibility re-sponsibility for rent controls. EVERYTHING congress wrote into the present bill can be nullified by a governor or a legislature, if they see fit. The bill continues rent controls for 15 months, or to June 30, 1950. It sets up a "home rule" process for decontrol of states, cities, or other local areas. Legislatures could remove controls throughout a state, or in parts of a state. A city government, or ruling body of other communities, could pass a resolution calling for de-control and, if the state governor approved it, then the federal government would be forced to abolish controls in that community. Businessmen and industrialists agreed that the "bloom is off the boom" that a healthy readjustment readjust-ment is underway. SPEED PILOT: A New Record? Joe De Bona, by his own admission admis-sion was a "scared boy." And he had every reason to be. He had taken off from Burbank, Calif., in actor Jimmy Stewart's nine-year old plane a souped-up F-51 at 9:20:50 one morning, and exactly five hours later he was zooming into the airstrip at New York's La Guardia Field. THE PLANE had a cracked cockpit cock-pit canopy, dangerously low oil pressure, no oxygen, and gasoline for only seven more minutes of flying fly-ing when De Bona whistled into the airport at 600 miles per hour. "I'll never try a record flight again," he said. 'This was too nerve wracking." Fred H. Wilkerson, official timer of the National Aeronautical asso- The bill requires the housing expediter ex-pediter to fix rents so as to insure landlords a "fair net operating income in-come ... as far as practicable." However, it restores old O P A powers for the rent expediter to control evictions. This, some congressmen con-gressmen said, would prevent any mass evictions by landlords. UNDER THE MEASURE, the housing expediter is authorized to sue a landlord for three times the amount of any charge made against a tenant above the legal rent ceiling. ceil-ing. Under old law, the tenant had that power, but seldom used it. The new act does not authorize iunner la per cent "voluntary " increases in-creases in rents, and recontrols any dwellings decontrolled under such voluntary leases, at the rent figure contained in such leases. Veterans' priority for first chance to rent or buy a new property are continued in the bill. STOCK MARKET: Curbs Are Relaxed The federal reserve board had taken an action that should make the "ribbon clerks" very happy. "Ribbon clerks" is a name applied ap-plied by stock market operators to amateurs who seek to engage in the fascinating business of trying to make several bucks grow where only one grew originally. THE FEDERAL reserve board ruling was that the down payment on purchase of stocks would be reduced re-duced from 75 per cent to 50 per cent. The board had been pressured for several months by the New York stock exchange, its president, Emil Schramm, and securities dealers generally. They had complained that the previous restrictions had thrown markets into the doldrums and that trading had remained at an unusually low level for months. THIS WAS CONSIDERED as strong indication the board believed be-lieved inflation had ceased to dominate the economic situation. Earlier, the board had relaxed restrictions on installment-buying credit, giving a longer term for installments in-stallments on purchases of automobiles, auto-mobiles, furniture, refrigerators, washing machines. r ciation, said the NAA would have to decide whether De Bona set a new cross-country record. He said the plane carried no barograph, a locked instrument which shows elapsed time, and that the gasoline tanks were not sealed. THE OFFICIAL coast-to-coast record for a single reciprocating plane such as De Bona flew is six hours, seven minutes and five seconds, sec-onds, set by Paul Mantz on February Feb-ruary 28, 1947, in a flight averaging 401.076 miles per hour. DEFENSE CHIEF: Has Big Job Louis Johnson of West Virginia had taken on one of the biggest jobs in the world, and had added to the magnitude of the task when he declared the armed services of the United States would be "united as one." WELL, JOHNSON, in taking over as secretary of defense, was the man whose job it would be to unify the armed services, but his predecessor, prede-cessor, James V. Forrestal, retiring retir-ing to private life as a banker, hadn't been able to do it. The fact was that jealousy between be-tween the services made it practically prac-tically impossible to implement a congressional act unifying the army, navy and air corps. However, it was said Johnson would come closer to it than anyone else probably proba-bly could. It was reported he was ready to adopt a "tough" policy to brass hats in all the services and that if unification were possible, he'd bring it about. FORRESTAL: Medal From Harry James V. Forrestal retiring secretary sec-retary of defense, received a surprise sur-prise when he called at the White House to say goodbye to President Harry S. Truman. Mr Truman pinned the Distinguished Service Medal on Forrestal's coat The citation read that Forrestal had "materially advanced the security se-curity of the nation" Forrestal said it was "beyond me" how he merited it. |
