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Show Exponents of More Housing Overlook Production Limits In a courageous analysis of the nation-wide, housing shortage, short-age, the National City Bank of New York has suggested that further government grants to ameliorate it could lead to more expensive housing rather than to simply more housing. Materials and labor available for construction both are fully employed at present, the bank explains. "Measures to increase the demand could not proportionately propor-tionately increase the supply; they could only increase competition compe-tition for materials already in the market and for workers who already have jobs. They could only drive construction costs further upward." Easy mortgage terms, together with the altogether justifiable GI Bill of Rights, have added to the spending power for building build-ing and to inflation generally. They have spurred construction, but at the expense of an exorbitant exorbi-tant rise in building costs and prices and, frequently, at the sacrifice of quality. The low productivity that has so increased construction costs is chargeable not only to union restrictions and poor building ordinances,, the bank says, but to over-employment, widespread use of inefficient workers, weakening weak-ening of incentive to increase man-hour output and unevenness : of materials flow. Exponents of increased Federal Fed-eral housing1 aid, the bank concludes, con-cludes, "overlook the impracti cability of finding additional materials and labor to" increase the output of housing above present figures and the effects of pouring additional demand into the market when productive produc-tive facilities are fully em-employed." |
