Word: austrian
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...wages rose faster (10%) than the cost of living (6%). Last week pre-Easter shoppers crowded Vienna's Kärntnerstrasse, splurging on everything from spring ski sweaters to imported delicacies like pâte de foie gras and French Beaujolais. Swarms of Volkswagens, Fords and Austrian-built Puchs choked the streets of downtown Vienna, where private autos were a rarity only ten years ago. Travel reservations for the Easter holiday were virtually unobtainable...
Despite such symptoms of affluence, the Austrian economy is in trouble. In sharp contrast to the U.S. and most of Europe, Austrian industrial investment in new plants and equipment has dwindled by an average 4% a year for four years, and the decline seems sure to continue throughout 1966. The investment shrinkage is undermining Austria's ability to compete in its biggest foreign market, the European Economic Community, which took 47% of the country's exports last year...
...Hobbled & the Small. Exports are falling while imports rise, and productivity gains by Austrian labor have slowed. Many experts feel that the economy is headed for slow stagnation. Professor Franz Nemschak, head of Vienna's Institute for Economic Research, warned last week that "Austria will surely go downhill unless we weed out the weaknesses in our economy...
...chief weakness lies in the nationalized 53% of Austrian industry: steel, aluminum, oil, chemicals, leather, paper and lumber, plus the deficit-burdened state railway. Hobbled by price control, high taxes to finance lavish welfare programs and a chronic lack of capital, both nationalized and private industry have been loath to expand into new product lines or even to modernize plants rebuilt after World War II with $1 billion of Marshall Plan aid. On top of that, much of private industry is fragmented into pint-sized firms-25% employ no more than 20 persons. Predictably, they turn out goods in small...
Fortunately, food remains cheap and 1913-vintage rent control keeps the cost of city housing down to a mere $4 to $8 per month. Even so, Austrian workers earn an average of only $1,500 a year, and the Austrian standard of living lags so far behind that of its Western neighbors that some analysts fear a massive emigration of skilled manpower...