Word: boosted
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...expected, U.S. Steel Corp. and Bethlehem Steel Corp. raised their prices an average of $5 a ton last week, thus making the rise in steel virtually industrywide. What was not expected was the careful explanation of Big Steel's Chairman Irving S. Olds that the $5 boost had nothing to do with the recent coal price increase. The coal price rise added $1.50 a ton to the cost of steel making, said Olds, but the boost last week was only to cover increases in costs in steel wages, raw materials, etc. Whether there would be a further boost...
...item in Big Steel's earnings statement was an extraordinary additional charge of $6,700,000 (a boost of 30% over normal) for plant depreciation. New York's jumpy PM promptly jumped on it, cried that the $6,700,000 was profit that Big Steel had hidden to excuse its boost in prices. Olds conceded that the item was not "presently" deductible for tax purposes.* Thus in the eyes of the U.S. Treasury, it might be considered profit. But Olds claimed that the depreciation was warranted by recent increases of far more than 30% in the cost...
Fleabite. In defense of the price boost, Bethlehem Steel's Chairman Eugene G. Grace struck a querulous note. He berated "the pastime or indoor sport" of blaming all economic ills on the steel industry. "Until we stop raising costs," he said, "we can't stop raising prices." Anyway, he added, the cost of steel was only "a fleabite" in the cost of living...
However, Iron Age estimated that last week's price advances would add $350 million to the nation's steel bill, boost third-quarter steel earnings close to the first quarter's alltime high. So last week's steel rise would give the rest of the nation's heavy industries an occasion to boost prices even though many of them had not yet had any decline in their profits...
Hungry Steel. After their hungry cry for another rate boost (TIME, July 14), some of the railroads turned out to be pretty well fed. Union Pacific's six months' earnings, at $20,601,834, were 51% above the 1946 period; Chesapeake & Ohio Railway's, $20,609,310, were up 57%. Some 25 roads did much better than last year-a poor year-including the New York Central Railroad Co., which made $2,053,711 v. a 1946 loss...