Word: patman
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Texas' Wright Patman is sometimes slyly called "the leading economist of Texarkana" (pop. 25,000), his home town. No professional economist, Lawyer Patman, a champion of small business, nevertheless makes a gallant effort to fight his way through the jungles of Treasury short-term "paper" and Federal Reserve re-discount rates. Last week, Patman's critics adopted a more respectful attitude. Patman had just published the results (in two volumes totaling 1,302 pages) of a broad poll of experts on U.S. fiscal and monetary policy...
This, said the Federal Trade Commission, violated the 1936 Robinson-Patman Act, which Congress passed to protect small businessmen against just such practices. FTC argued that Standard could not legally reduce prices to big customers just to meet competition, could do so only if the lower prices reflected actual savings from the bigger orders...
...Supreme Court disagreed with Judge Minton, who took no part in their deliberations in the case. In a 5-3 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that if the lower price was offered in "good faith" (i.e., to meet competition), then it was legal under the Robinson-Patman Act. "The heart of our national economic policy long has been faith in the value of competition," wrote Justice Harold Burton for the majority. "Congress did not seek by the Robinson-Patman Act either to abolish competition or so radically to curtail it that a seller would have no substantial right of self...