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Show Economic Highlights ' Industrial News Review Happenings that Affect the Dinner I'ails, Dividend Checks and Tax Bills of Every Individual. National Nation-al and International Problems Inseparable In-separable from Local Welfare. oOo The late congress will go down in history as an extraordinary body. Its total appropriations were exceeded only by the world war congress. Almost Al-most without a dissenting voice, it gave up to the president powers and prerogatives it has prized since revolutionary revo-lutionary days. It, was the most docile, do-cile, the most obedient, and the least imaginative congress since the war. A list of its major bifis, passed mainly main-ly at' the request of the president, follows : 1. A bill enabling the president to inflate currency by forcing the federal feder-al reserve to buy government securities, securi-ties, to issue new currency up to $3,-000,000,000, $3,-000,000,000, to lessen the gold content of the dollar up to 50 per cent, to accept ac-cept up to $200,000,000 in silver, instead in-stead of gold, in war debt payments. 2. A bill giving the president, through a coordinator, wide powers in reorganizing and revising the railroads rail-roads of the country. 3. A bill authorizing vast federal developments in the Tennessee valley. 4. A bill creating a Civilian Conservation Conser-vation Corps to employ 250,000 otherwise other-wise unemployed young men in the national forests at $1.00 per day. 5. A bill authorizing the president to regulate transactions in credit, currency cur-rency and other coinage; to place an embargo, in whole or in part, on gold; to forbid the hoarding of gold by an individual in excess of $100, and to restrict the activities of the federal reserve system. 6. A bill authorizing beer, in spite of the Eighteenth amendment, through revision of the Volstead act. 7. A bill initiating a $3,300,000,000 public works program in the interest of employment, to be controlled by the president through a director of public works. 8. A bill to reduce agricultural acreage in production, with compensation compensa-tion to farmers for all land withdrawn with-drawn from' use. 9. A bill' giving the president unprecedented un-precedented contro 1 over industry, with powers to eliminate competition, fix minimum wages and maximum hours of work, regulate production, etc. There were other bills, of course, but these are outstanding. Most far-reaching1 far-reaching1 of all is the last it has not yet swung into action and it, is not widely understood. Operation of the bill, in relation to particular industries, indus-tries, will be as follows: A trade group will draw up a plan designed to settle wage, price and production problems. It, will apply to the administrator adminis-trator of the bill for authorization to put its agreement into effect. The administrator ad-ministrator will then find out if the plan meets with the favor of most units within the industry. Representatives Represen-tatives of labor, and a group of consumers, con-sumers, will be consulted. When all has been settled, the agreement will go to the president. If he finds it equitable, he will authorize it. If not, . (Continued on last page) Economic Highlights (Continued from page 1) it will have to be redrawn. When in-! in-! dustries are unable to agree among themselves, the president will be able to force a pact on them by the power of a licensing system. The bill will! strike directly at "depression born businesses" unhealthy sweatshops paying eniloyec-s 15 and 20 cents a day, and similar anti-social institu- j tionsj and will eliminate disastrous, depression - prolonging competition. The danger or weakness in the bill is that it will very likely make it more difficult for the small business to operate, and will favor the more efficient, ef-ficient, better-financed large business. oOo Most encouraging phase of the general gen-eral business situation is not only that improvement has appeared in basic lines, but that it is being continued. con-tinued. In recent months there have been no "downs" there have been ' many "ups." Recently reported was the sixth consecutive weekly increase 1 over 1932 in electric power output and each gain was larger than the one directly preceding it. Car-loadings are up during the week ending June 110, they were 12.5 per cent over the i same week in 1932. May cotton con-i con-i sumption was dose to double that of I May last year. The commodity and security price indexes have shown climbs for several consecutive months. The number of business failures has taken a sharp drop. Iron ore consumption consump-tion in May reached the highest monthly total since November, 1931. Improvement in employment and wage situations is reprted from all parts of the country. The United States is not, alone in experiencing signs of recovery. re-covery. Unemployment in the United Kingdom has declined. Favorable factors fac-tors predominate in French business indexes. Conditions in Spain are fairly fair-ly satisfactory. Trade optimism persists per-sists in Canada. New business activity is appearing in Japan. While economic econom-ic conditions in New Zealand are dull, prices of export products have shown sharp rises. Prices for Philippine export, ex-port, products have been firm. |