Word: cartels
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1940-1949
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...world's tight trade combinations, the British-controlled diamond cartel is the best textbook example of how to control production and fix prices. U.S. businessmen have long been aware that if this cartel could be splintered, diamonds might become cheap enough to: 1) weigh down their wives' fingers; 2) drastically cut the cost of diamond drills, grinding wheels and other industrial tools. Impressed by these facts, Attorney General Francis Biddle last week set out to break up the cartel...
...rest met the charges in the same fashion which the cartel reserves for all complaints-a dignified silence. If De Beers was disturbed by the charges of price fixing, control of production, quotas for diamond merchants, etc., it was comforted by the belief that Biddle has no more chance of denting the cartel than of cleaving a diamond with a butter knife...
...Ernest Oppenheimer, chairman of De Beers and Diamond Corp. (which together own Diamond Trading Co.), and understudy of the late Empire-building Cecil Rhodes. Now living on his spacious ranch outside Johannesburg, Sir Ernest makes only occasional visits to the little grey building in London from which the cartel rules...
Industrial diamonds comprise only 28% of the value (v. 87% of the volume) of diamonds sold in the U.S., the biggest market. With them, the company is less careful. But the cartel permits no stockpiling, carefully sells only what diamonds it judges the market can absorb...
...producing, while they waited to see what would happen next. Some of Biddle's flamboyant legal ventures-e.g., the abortive mass trial of alleged seditionists in Washington, his garishly publicized attempt to close up a Washington call-house-have come grotesque croppers. But the cartel and trade agreements suits might be more carefully handled, more determinedly pursued...