Word: marginals
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...problem is a regulation that companies winning permission to raise prices must not push their profit margins-that is, their percentage of profit on each dollar of sales-above those of a base period. If they do, they must cut prices. For most companies, the base is the average of the two best years in the period from 1968 through 1970. So far, this rule has not hurt industry much; corporate profits surged to a record rate in the first quarter (see chart) without subjecting too many companies to rollbacks, and even those firms have not necessarily suffered. In order...
...second-quarter reports, however, are expected to disclose many more companies exceeding their profit-margin ceilings. Alan Greenspan, a member of TIME'S Board of Economists, figures that sooner or later at least one company in every major industry will pierce its ceiling and be forced to cut prices. That, he fears, will be enough to crimp corporate profits generally, because price reductions by one company would have to be followed by all its competitors -including some with narrow profit margins that would be further squeezed...
Some things can be done to avert a showdown. Companies in danger of bumping against their profit-margin ceilings could pour more money into such activities as advertising and research and development, thereby reducing immediate profits but also perhaps increasing their share of the market. Willard F. Rockwell Jr., chairman of Rockwell Manufacturing Co., Pittsburgh-based maker of valves, meters and power tools, views the necessity of complying with margin ceilings as a chance to "give my competitors a good kick in the pants...
...Monday's Council meeting, Peterson failed to win the support of the Council by a 5-4 margin. Johnson lost out in a 7-2 vote...
Graham then introduced two resolutions which failed by the same 7-2 margin. Owens being her only supporter. The first would have offered the job of City Manager to James Threatt, administrator of the Model Cities program in Kansas City, Mo. The second motion urged the dismissal of Corcoran even though his successor has not been selected...