Word: firsts
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Everybody had been prepared for some pretty glum news when the profits accounts for 1949's first six months were totted up. Last week, with most of the earnings figures in, the news was surprisingly good. Out of 425 companies reporting, about 40% had bettered their 1948 profits; only 27 companies lost money...
General Motors, one of the biggest single U.S. employers, was acting as if it had never heard the word "recession." First-half profits hit an astronomical $303.7 million, 46% above 1948. The reason: as steel became plentiful this year, G.M. was able for the first time since the war to push its production throttle to the floor board. G.M. intended to keep it there: next week, Chevrolet's Flint plant will add an extra shift to step up production from 480 cars a day to 680. In 1949's second quarter, G.M. had already broken all previous quarterly...
Although the steel industry had been Gloomy Gussing for weeks as its production rate sagged and its backlog of orders thinned, first-half earnings for many companies were the best in history. U.S. Steel's $94 million net was up 76%, Bethlehem's $59.9 million a shade less than 100%. But Bethlehem's Chairman Eugene G. Grace, who first warned against slackening steel demand six months ago, now said: "We have been living on our accumulated fat ... and it is getting thin...
...airlines fulfilled their predicted jump into the black (TIME, July 18). Eastern Air Lines' $2.1 million net was up 63%, Northwest Airlines' $430,915 profit helped offset a $2,016,000 deficit in 1948's first half...
...board's hearings began in Manhattan last week, Big Steel's Chairman Irving S. Olds found himself in something of a psychological box. The hearings opened just as U.S. Steel issued its mid-year earnings report to stockholders. Since profits were 76% above 1948's first half, Olds had a hard time explaining that past profits were no remedy for the steel industry's present situation, with orders having fallen off so much that production had been cut back 30% in a matter of ten weeks...