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Show Economic Highlights ILij The American dollar, as all i of our 140,000,000 people must have discovered by this time, has shrunk woefully so far as purchasing power is concerned. Measured in terms of the cost of most goods and services, it will do about half the work it did a few short years ago. Despite that, the world is seeking the dollar more eagerly than ever and abroad, a nation's strength and hopes for the future are pretty largely determined by its ability to do business in American currency. cur-rency. It is probably true that no one completely understands what might be described as the great international monetary 'circus. Newsweek, for instance, recently ran a long article on world money. mon-ey. In preparation, the magazine recounts, it asked a veteran banker bank-er and former high public official offi-cial to clear up some of the obscurities. ob-scurities. The banker smiled and answered, "Don't you think that I ought to make it clear to myself my-self first?" The subject is so enormously enor-mously complicated, so subject to sudden change, that the human hu-man mind has a natural tendency to reel when it attacks it. The world's insatiable appetite appe-tite for American dollars is easily eas-ily understood. First, even our 50c dollar is the strongest currency cur-rency in common use. Second, and more important from the foreign for-eign point of view, the dollar is the medium of exchange in the world's principal producing and exporting nation. In other words, the dollar means food, machines, manufactured goods all ihe thousand and one things impoverished nations must have if their people are to live and their industries are to be reestablished. reestab-lished. Stricken nations will go to almost any length to protect or to improve their dollar position. posi-tion. That is the main reason for the insane currency-exchange situation. sit-uation. Today, the value of all currencies (with a very few unimportant un-important exceptions) is fixed by their governments when it comes to exchanging them for the currencies cur-rencies of other countries. It is obvious that if a government can fix its currency at a high level in terms of dollars its economic nosition will be bettered, at least theoretically. And that practice has been the direct cause of the creation of black markets, unofficial unof-ficial exchanges where currencies curren-cies tend to find their own level, regardless of their officially-established value. The world is full of examples of this. For instance, at the official rate, less than ten Austrian shillings will bu one American dollar on the black market a dollar brings 58 shillings. shill-ings. The French franc is negged officially at 119 to the dollar but it is 290 to the dollar on the flourishing illegal market. An American dollar, savs the Chinese Chin-ese government, will buy only 3.350 Chinese dollars actually, it will buy as much ps 19.000 if you shop at the unofficial exchanges. ex-changes. And suh figures are subject to tremendous day-to-day fluctuations. The difficulties this chaotic situation imposes on international internation-al trade are endless and innumerable. innum-erable. And that is only the beginning. be-ginning. In some countries, governments gov-ernments will not permit American Ameri-can exporters to withdraw any of the money received from sales. In others they can withdraw only a part of it often at an extremely ex-tremely disadvantageous rate of exchange. In still others they are subject to heavy special taxes. tax-es. It all adds up to a permanent headache. However, under the impetus of our foreign policy, buttressed by heavy loans to foreign countries, coun-tries, American exports of good? are extremely high in 1946 thev ran to a value of mnrp than $12,000,000,000 as against $5,-000,000,000 $5,-000,000,000 in imports. To quote the Newsweek article, "The United Unit-ed States in 1946 provided $7,-000,000,000 $7,-000,000,000 to cover payment for its own goods shipped abroad. This is only part of the shape of things to come. Loans and credits cred-its made or authorized by the United States now total an estimated esti-mated $10,400,000,000." What this means is that the United States is doing a very big part of the job of keeping the rest of the worldaliye--loaning it money to buy our goods. It is doing that both for humanitarian humanitar-ian reasons, and in the hope that oyer the years stability will come 1 again to hungry, weary, devs k&fy' tated nations. And the Amer mefltfai dollar, symbol of the grea tiled v. productive country on earS U-H -n reigns supreme. $ -COO- According to the Wall Strft rnitcd S Journal, production per wory Jtly 7 is again on the rise in AmerW Siofl' industry. And one of the reasoj W for this is the incentive-pay Pk Ltfd 1 under which the worker Lfiels : produces more is paid more. ' u The Square D Company ports that employee efficiency k jtarry- creased 6 per cent last year, js is continuing to rise. Ford m tor's labor relations director $a4 that productivity is going J W11 President Wilson of Genoa jlard Motors states that his firm's iwhesi ductivity recently reached 91 $ jUol cent of the pre-war level, as co L0tracl pared to 80 per cent in Septe; eat ' ber. JLjnty One hope is that incentive pj Sye 1 may prove to be a factor in nul jLirni ing price reductions possible.! roUnty is no secret that many executiv LjCa in such basic fields as autonJ biles and domestic appliance! itt are defenitely concerned wia th what current prices may do i 7 p: volume of sales once full produj fede tion is achieved and the backy of orders is met. Incentive pay, according to ft SUin experts, is not readily adaptat n0n to all industries. But it seems I jja be working successfully in mac Lnth manufacturing lines. u' |