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Show BEAUTIFUL SPRING Inflation to Burst into Bloom Where price inflation is concerned there is no such thing as a last word. More words, more gloomy predictions always follow. Latest verbal foreboding by private pri-vate and government forecasters holds that next April and May will mark a probable crisis peak in the continuing upward trend of retail and wholesale prices. Flat predictions that meat and some other food prices are likely to soar as winter ends have been made by political officials and confirmed by government and other economists. econo-mists. Experts in retail dry goods prices are saying that the shelves emptied by the Christmas buying rush will be restocked with goods that will be i priced much higher. The goods were being bought in the garment trade centers at wholesale prices nearly equal to last spring's retail prices. Another factor boosting the inflation infla-tion bubble is expected to be the peak in foreign demand for food and other items in Europe scheduled to come as winter bows out. The construction industry, which hit an all-time high in dollar values as the 1947 season ended, probably will begin the 1948 season under an extraordinarily high demand pressure pres-sure for building materials. Another considerable influence is CIO President Philip Murray's recent re-cent declaration that unions in his organization will seek another round of wage increases, thus helping help-ing to form another price bulge. ' Pressure for higher wages is expected ex-pected to build up during the late winter months. In Washington political leaders erf both Democratic and Republican persuasion are giving all these signs serious and concentrated study, and both sides-are convinced that something some-thing must be done. It is not considered likely that these indications of further inflation will add up to a nation-wide bust next summer. Their biggest significance signi-ficance is that they make up a package pack-age of political dynamite which probably will explode with an earth-shaking earth-shaking impact sometime around the presidential election in November. |