Word: aluminum
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Recessions almost always drive down inflation because prices cannot be raised rapidly when production and sales are falling. As business activity winds down, stockpiles of unsold commodities and goods begin to swell, choking the stream of commerce with bulging inventories of everything from aluminum and grain to cars and unsold homes. To raise cash, businessmen begin dumping their inventories at bargain-basement rates, dragging down prices even further...
Once the defense buildup begins in earnest, this erosion of productive capacity will probably start to pinch. The backlog for aluminum forgings used in military aircraft is expected to swell from 12 months to 24 months by the end of 1982. The waiting time for aluminum powder and other components in rocket propellants, now ten to twelve months, is expected to grow longer. The delay in supplying integrated circuits used in computerized missile-guidance systems is already 80 weeks in some cases...
...London Metal Exchange, housed in a grand stone edifice on Fenchurch Street, exudes an air of ultramodern, professional efficiency. The 29 brokers sit in a circle on red leather banquettes surrounding the marble trading floor and make bids on seven metals (copper, lead, zinc, aluminum, nickel, tin and silver). For the past eight months, however, the exchange has been in turmoil. While prices for other commodities have been falling, the price of tin has been rising steeply. Since July, it has shot up nearly 30%, to more than...
...cans. Canning companies use tin because it resists corrosion that can be caused by acids often found in foods. Tin consumption, however, has been declining for years. More and more food is being packaged in sealed plastic pouches, and tin users are experimenting with such substitute materials as aluminum...
...Says New York City Forensic Serologist Dr. Robert Shaler: "The hair is the garbage can of the human body. Everything you eat shows up there." Knowing that it grows about 1 mm a day, Shaler insists, "we can tell if you took aspirin yesterday and drank beer from an aluminum can a week ago." Until now, only Sherlock Holmes could deduce so much from so little. -By Bennett H. Beach. Reported by Jay Branegan/Chicago and Marc Levinson/Atlanta