Word: priced
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1930-1939
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Commodity price levels began at once to get out of whack. Countries which had wheat to spare-particularly the U. S., which was blessed with a bumper crop in 1914-suddenly discovered themselves in a strong seller's market, with the price per bushel rising from 85? in July to $1.28 in December. Rye went up; so did lard; so did sugar. But no general inflation of prices occurred immediately. It was as if someone had turned on a strange magnetic current which attracted certain commodities, repelled others...
Among commodities that rose in price were most of the metals. Copper soared from 13? a pound in early 1914 to 35? in 1917. But as wheat, sugar and copper went up, cotton (little of which was used for gun cotton) fell from 13? a pound to 8? in six months. Coffee and tobacco followed the price pattern set by cotton. Cotton piled up in U. S. warehouses, coffee clogged the docks of Santos in Brazil...
...Denmark the price level rose 111%. Breeders of livestock made money by selling meat to Germany and Austria in 1914, 1915 and 1916. Fodder shortages slashed production of butter and milk upon which a majority of the Danes live. Real wages in Copenhagen failed utterly to keep pace with the rising cost of living...
...Sweden, trade hummed; there was a mad rush to get rich in war industries and in shipping. But the industrial population, which depended on imported foodstuffs, found their wages inadequate to buy meat, which rose in price as the Government rationed it. Malnutrition and influenza contributed to raising the death rate in Sweden by a third in 1918-19. Norway did well with fish and lumber to export to the belligerents. Norwegian steamship lines cashed in, paying big dividends and purchasing about a million tons of new shipping from the U. S. as German mines and submarines sent 829 Norwegian...
...machine equipment company stocks had appreciated 458% over their pre-War level. General Motors stock appreciated 452%. Stocks of steel and iron companies, exclusive of U. S. Steel, rose 293%; chemical concerns, 117%. At the other end of the table, gaining little, were the railroads and utilities, whose price structures were under the supervision of the Government. Tobacco and cigaret manufacturing stock appreciated only...