Word: mikes
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...biggest gripe from businessmen came from those who had gone along with the Government's voluntary rollback in December, then found themselves frozen at lower levels than their competitors. Price Boss Mike DiSalle hoped to fix that too by a new kind of price freeze based on pre-Korea profit margins rather than specific prices. This would permit businessmen to raise prices to meet rising costs. At week's end, it looked as if the "freeze" would not keep wages & prices from going up, but merely slow the rise...
...tail. Ten minutes before a scheduled press conference was to begin, Johnston handed the wage order to Cyrus Ching, who hardly had time to skim through it before he lumbered into President Truman's press-conference room in the old State Department building. There he was joined by Mike DiSalle and his satchel. But before either had a chance to begin, a press officer let the big cat out of the bag: "Mr. DiSalle and Mr. Ching are here to discuss a wage & price order issued today, freezing prices & wages as of yesterday...
With only a few hundred employees on hand, Mike DiSalle had to build a staff of 6,500. Thirteen OPS regional offices and 42 district offices were opened around the U.S. this week, 29 others were ordered set up by March 1. Economists, lawyers and commodity experts went to work on specific ceilings, which will gradually replace the flat freeze of last week. (Before it was through, in 1946, OPA had issued more than 8,000,000 of them.) Already under separate orders: auto prices (rolled back in December), hides (rolled back last week...
...ceiling prices were figured out, there might be some rollbacks from the price levels set by the freeze. Some of the rollbacks, said DiSalle, will be "substantial." There would also probably be some increases for those who had obeyed Mike DiSalle's voluntary-freeze request in December. Businessmen had to keep all sorts of records, were told to prepare for a flood of questionnaires and directives needed to put price ceilings into operation...
...Wrist-Slapping. To enforce price controls, Mike DiSalle profited by mistakes of OPA in World War II. Then essential, low-priced items disappeared from the shelves as manufacturers channeled their materials into fancy sports shirts, frilly dresses and expensive gimcracks which brought fatter profits. In his freeze order, DiSalle prohibited manufacturers from switching to higher-priced lines, or producing cheaper "similar" products for the same price. He persuaded Mobilizer Wilson to issue a new order to his Defense Production Administration-it authorized DPA to use its priorities and allocations to force manufacturers to produce adequate quantities of inexpensive apparel...