Word: rollback
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...place Washington-wise Eric Johnston, $125,000-a-year boss of Hollywood's Hays office and ex-president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (see below). Before Johnston even got his feet planted under a bureaucratic desk, a freeze of prices and wages and a partial rollback of prices were in the works...
...Economic Stabilization Agency last week issued a broad and hazy price proclamation aimed at almost every businessman. ESA asked for a general freeze on prices except farm products (about which ESA can do little), and a rollback of price increases since Dec. 1. The freeze was voluntary, said ESA, but woe to the businessman who didn't obey. ESA warned that anyone who did not cooperate would be punished when "feasible," apparently meaning when ESA makes the order mandatory and gets some price cops...
...seemed to mean that those who had taken advantage of scare-buying and jacked their prices this summer would get off scot free; and those who had postponed price increases as long as they could would be punished by a rollback. By the same token, the steel companies which raised their prices on Dec. 1 would be left alone, but manufacturers who raised prices on Dec. 2 to compensate for the steel boost would have to roll them back. Said one Chicagoan: "[Rolling] back prices in the face of higher costs must have been the system Mr. Truman used...
General Motors Corp. last week lost its fight against a rollback of its price increases on 1951 models. To G.M.'s suggestion that the increases be allowed to stand at least until a survey showed they were unjustified, Economic Stabilizer Alan Valentine gave a flat no. His reason: "Earnings of your company in the [third quarter] are running at the reported annual rate of $1.9 billion, as against an annual average rate of $827 million in the best three years prior to 1950." While ESA had "no interest in control of profits arising from increased volume, greater productivity...
This week G.M. sent wires to Pontiac, Chevrolet and Cadillac dealers stopping sales, until further notice, of new cars shipped after the rollback order. G.M. did not say how long the freeze would last. But it looked as if it was done in hopes of getting the rollback rescinded or persuading Washington to roll back raw materials and wages as well. A price freeze, said G.M., would require an "equally arbitrary wage freeze" under the Defense Production...