Word: okun
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...digit inflation continuing well into the second quarter. Pechman raised the point and others agreed that businessmen do not believe Ford when he says that price controls will not be imposed. To beat controls, many businessmen are jacking up prices while they can to achieve higher "base levels." Arthur Okun of the Brookings Institution said: "Everybody is allowing for everything that could happen, plus a little bit more...
...drop in production somewhat mystifyingly has not yet caused as much unemployment as economists would expect in an unmistakable recession. Arthur Okun, a member of TIME's Board of Economists, speculates that "businessmen may not be taking this slump seriously enough yet. They think it is temporary, and have kept people on payrolls," even though there is little work for some employees...
Says Arthur Okun: "It may well be that those glorious surpluses of months gone by will be the last ones that we will see for a long time...
...Government at this time means we are just going to drift." Banker Beryl Sprinkel urges the Government to "keep our [fiscal and monetary] policy reasonably tight, settle for 5% or 5.5% unemployment, and then the rate of inflation could drift down"-over the next three to five years. Okun sees only one quick way of stopping inflation: "Panic-a real shake-out in commodity markets, partly induced by some real credit difficulties" among speculators. And he gives even that scary solution only about a 1-in-5 chance of actually happening...
...Okun was chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers during the Johnson Administration. He is now a fellow at the Brookings Institute...