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Show NAM OFFICIAL SEES AMPLE SUPPLY OF CONSUMER GOODS IN AMERICA Government officials searching for shortages of consumer con-sumer goods as an excuse to extend price and wage controls con-trols will have a hard time finding any, according to R. L. Irvine, vice president of Utah Lumber Company, Salt Lake City, who says a survey just released by the National Na-tional Association of Manufacturers shows the outlook for consumer-goods supplies as much brighter today than a year ago. ' "The record against "economic controls is overwhelming," Mr. Irvine said, quoting NAM President Pres-ident William J. Grede's recent testimony before the House Banking and Currency Committee Commit-tee that "Only harm to our economy econ-omy and thus to our mobilization effort can come from the continuation contin-uation of price, wage, and civilian civil-ian material controls. They impede im-pede production, impair incentives incent-ives and increase costs both for industry and government, and they require tons of useless red tape. They lead to demands for ever more controls to attempt to shore up the inevitable failures fail-ures of existing controls." Today, in the face of improved supplies of both consumer soft goods and durable goods, there is less justification than ever for continuing price, wage and material ma-terial controls, he declared, adding add-ing that "th? deadly thing about loss of a freedom, which is what such controls amount to, is that once lost it is hard to regain. Freedom, like muscles, must be exercised." The survey gives the following over-all summary of the consumer consum-er supply situation: FOOD Food, most important item in the consumer budget, taking about 28, will be in plent ful supply in 1952. The Department of Agriculture reports re-ports sufficient supplies are expected ex-pected to maintain consumption consump-tion at least as high as in 1951, and if weather conditions and livestock marketings are about normal, the year's output of food may set a new record. CLOTHING AND SHOES The supply outlook for clothing and shoes, representing about 10 per cent of the consumer budget, also is favorable. Consumer demand de-mand has not been great enough to keep these industries operating operat-ing at their peaks; should demand de-mand increase, there is substantial substan-tial leeway for greater production. produc-tion. HOUSING Residential building build-ing industry has been so active that it has more than kept pace with the growth in population. While there are local difficulties, particularly where new defense plants have been built, the statistics sta-tistics give assurance that there will be no widespread housing shortage in 1952. MISCELLANEOUS SERVICE More than 20 of consumer spending goes for such miscellaneous miscel-laneous services as medical care, utilities, transportation, laundry, barber and beauty shops, etc. Here no scarce materials are involved, in-volved, and the mobilization program pro-gram as it stands should lead to no significant shortage of manpower man-power in these servicse. CONSUMER DURABLES While the impact of mobilization mobiliza-tion necessarily is greater on consumer durables than on soft goods, the supply outlook is generally good. These expenditures expendi-tures amount to only about 14 of the total consumer budget. Production of all major consumer consum-er durables in the early part of 1952 will be below the peak levels of 1950 and J951, but these peaks resulted from abnormally ab-normally high demand. |