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Show Economic Highlights Industrial News Review Happenings that Affect the Dinner l'ails, Pividend Chocks and Tax Hills of Every Individual. National Nation-al and International Problems Inseparable In-separable from Local Welfare. oOo There is a new attitude abroad in the land. This began to be seen some month.') ago, and came to culmination with the bank holidays- and their subsequent sub-sequent reopening. Where the average aver-age citizen was once frankly dubious as to the future of the country, he now believes that recovery is in the process of starting that bottom actually ac-tually has been reached, and that we are ready for the up-climh. Partisan politics has been forgotten. Practically Practical-ly unanimous support is being given the Roosevelt administration by newspapers news-papers and individuals of all shades of political opinion. The administration's administra-tion's stand on gold hoarding is producing pro-ducing even better results than were anticipated. When the banks opened queues of piople stood in lines at tellers' tel-lers' windows not to withdraw money, but to deposit gold coin and certificates. Hundreds of millions of dollars of gold has been returned to circulation. Under the present banking bank-ing plan, no bank can issue gold or gold certificates without express permission per-mission from the treasury department. depart-ment. However, gold is coming out of hoarding so rapidly that it is even forecast this stipulation may be removed re-moved within a short time. oOo The president expects to have his ?500,000,C00 economy - drive actually in operation by the .end of March. Savings are to be made as follows : ?2SO,0C0,OCO from reduced veterans' compensations; $120,000,000 in lowered lower-ed salaries $100,000,000 through governmental reorganization. Economy Econ-omy is the first step toward a balanced bal-anced budget. 'Other, aids, in the president's pres-ident's belief, will be about $125,000,-000 $125,000,-000 in new revenue from beer, and $150,000,000 from a renewal of the federal gasoline tax. The number of men who will be put to work by legalized legal-ized beer and' the amount of taxes accruing to the government, are moot, much-debated subjects. Even taking the lowest figures, a considerable amount of employment and taxation will be provided. One question is, what influence will legal beer have on home brewing? It was certain that if beer were overtaxed, and a price of fifteen cents or so a glass made necessary, sales would be small. Under the administration ad-ministration bill, it is forecast that beer will be sold at its old price of 5c a glass, 15c a bottle unless, of course, states and municipalities overtax it on their own account. oOo Salient features of President Roosevelt's Roose-velt's unemployment program are: A $500,000,000 unemployment relief appropriation ap-propriation to be used in internal improvements im-provements and the establishment of camps for the unemployed engaged on government wyork; expansion of the Reconstruction Finance corporation corpora-tion to permit loans at lower interest; reforestation of marginal lands in the Tennessee Valley and elsewhere, etc. oOo It was expected that prices security, secur-ity, particularly would rise at the end of the bank moratorium, because of renewed confidence and new money in circulation. Prices did and, to surprise sur-prise some, are apparently holding to , their new levels, an extremely encouraging encour-aging sign. Commodity prices also showed a general disposition to rise. It is difficult to present a survey of business conditions in general, because be-cause of the brief time that has elapsed since the holidays, and the fact that a period must pass before improvement, even if started, is reflected re-flected in business statistics. Late reports on major industries show: Steel Cood Resistance to hanking crisis demonstrated. Operations have been downward, but not- so intensely in-tensely as was feared. Automobile Much optimism felt. It is believed that the. growing public desire to convert money into goods will be a boon to the industry. Sales strong before the moratorium reports re-ports since too incomplete to be reliable. Oil Conditions still chaotic, due to excess of production over consumption; consump-tion; prices at low levels. Stronger measures of control over production produc-tion in major producing areas anticipated. an-ticipated. Copper Production in 1032 was 294,-000- tons, consumption 300,000 tons. This is indicative of the position of the industry now. Production has been regulated to demand; principal princi-pal 'problem is surplus stocks on hand which at end of last year totaled to-taled 050,000 tons. Retail Trade Sharp improvement occurred oc-curred recently, and sentiment more hopeful than for some time past. Farm Products Prices have strengthened, strength-ened, in accord wi.h the general trend. |