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Show I FACTS I ' & FIGURES ; ilX4-J7OlI-S7011.''K' In a recent poll, about half the people responding thought the profit margins of U.S. industry was 37 percent per-cent or higher and that "fair" profit margins would be 20 percent or more. Actually, Ac-tually, even major companies compa-nies only realize about 10 percent. Over the past decade, the prices on products from one major company, Du Pont, have been rising a lot more slowly than the Consumer Price Index. Consumer prices in 1978 were 88 percent per-cent higher than in 1968, but Du Pont's domestic prices were only 37 percent higher. Continued generation of profits is how business serves the interests of the public. Nearly half of all pretax dollars dol-lars earned as profits are paid to federal, state and local governments in corporate income in-come taxes. |