Word: cottons
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...rising costs of food, gasoline and rent, inflation-riddled Americans now have still another worry. As the Christmas shopping season begins, prices of clothes and most other textile goods are climbing. A man's cotton dress shirt tagged $12 a year ago is selling for at least $14 this holiday season-if the shopper can find what he wants...
...Cotton is the most widely used natural fiber, but long staple (quality cotton) is no longer very stable. Demand for all grades is so greatly outstripping supply that the price of raw cotton is about 650 a lb., v. 250 a year ago. In Atlanta, a decorator showing drapery samples cautions: "Don't choose anything with cotton-it's sky-high." In Bar Harbor, Me., a manufacturer of sea bags says that he is going out of business because he cannot get any more duck cloth. In San Francisco, Levi Strauss & Co. has begun informally to ration jeans...
Demand for Cotton. Exports are significantly responsible for the shortages that are forcing prices up. Some 6,000,000 bales of U.S. cotton, no less than 45% of this year's crop, will be sent abroad. The Japanese have bought about 1,800,000 bales, 2½ times their normal purchase. The U.S. Government no longer permits the Japanese to convert their huge hoard of dollars into gold, and so they are moving their money instead into such commodities as soybeans, wheat, shrimp-and cotton. In addition, China, hit by a bad crop, is buying unexpectedly large amounts...
...cotton crop was hurt, too, by flooding this spring. Worse yet, the Agriculture Department last winter anticipated surpluses rather than shortages, and it cut back the number of acres on which it pays its standard 150 a lb. subsidy. That move saved the taxpayers $100 million, but by reducing the cotton crop by 4%, it aggravated shortages and drove prices...
Though the Agriculture Department's move was designed to help cotton farmers, most of them were angry. The reason: months ago they committed their crops for sale to brokers at prices averaging a little less than half the current levels. A minority of farmers who held out are now reaping windfall profits, as are the brokers, who bought at low prices...