Word: retailers
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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From 1859, when my grandfather, George Huntington Hartford, opened the first chain store, to 1959, "the Tea Company" evolved into the world's largest retail business. Grandma was destroyed by the inept management to whom my uncles John and George had entrusted her. After the company had lost more than $50 million in 1973 alone, in desperation a president, Jonathan Scott, was brought in from outside, and he has made heroic efforts to turn it around. But as you suggest, the resources and prestige of a Tengelmann may well prove the decisive factor...
Just about the most unpopular idea was Jimmy Carter's thwarted proposal to impose a new tax on domestic crude oil that would sharply raise the retail price. U.S. prices are low by world standards; a gallon of regular gas that sells in New York City for 78? costs $1.55 in Tel Aviv, $1.83 in Bonn and $2.09 in Paris. Economists, bankers and independent study groups like the Trilateral Commission agree that substantially higher prices would drive home the reality of the energy crisis and the need to save. For that to occur prices would have to rise drastically...
...like a blast of arctic air: the January Wholesale Price Index rose by 1.3%, or at an astonishing annual compounded rate of 16.8%. That was more than double the rate for all of 1978 and the biggest monthly jump in four years. The index, which usually foreshadows trends in retail prices, was lifted in part by the soaring cost of farm products, especially beef and veal, which rose 13% for the month. But finished goods like cars and appliances rose at an even steeper pace...
...A.A.M. wants crop prices raised to 90% of "parity," an antiquated concept founded on the argument that farm prices should have been rising as fast as nonfarm prices since World War I. Agriculture Department economists scoff at this demand; they say that 90% parity would drive retail food prices -the biggest single factor in the U.S.'s inflation problem -up by 16% this year, on top of the 10% increase...
...cream of the contemporary crop of slogans is still found in the creations of the advertising trade, which of course was the first to exploit psychology and behaviorism to turn the art of persuasion into a quasi-science. The success of its catchwords is confirmed by retail sales figures that make even the national deficit seem a trifle...