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Show Price Forecast Indicates No Drop Will commodity prices go up? Go down? Stay where they are? Newsweek recently asked 50 leading economists, connected with business, labor, governmental, governmen-tal, statistical and educational institutions to forecast the price trend for the balance of the year. Twenty-six thought prices would continue upward; 14 said they will remain about the same, and the remaining ten believe they will be lower by the year's end. Averaging the answers,, the concensus is that prices won't change substantially one way or the other. That may be a disappointment disap-pointment to the consumer, who has watched his dollar shrink like wool in water, but it is completely com-pletely understandable. Spending Spend-ing by government business, and the individuals goes to higher artd higher peaks. The vast sums being spent fox foreign aid and military purposes will further strain the supply-demand balance. And millions of Americans Ameri-cans have a higher standard of living than they ever had before. So, when you go shopping, don't expect to find a lot of bargain's soon. What you will ifind, however, are merchants who sell you what you want at a far lower profit margin than most people realize. That is true whether you patronize the chains, the independents, the specialty shops, or anything else. The profits per sale are so small, generally speaking, that if they didn't exist at all it would make little difference in your purchasing power. Retail trade, whether we realize it or not, deserves much of the credit for the abundance that exists in this nation. |