Word: scares
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Some of the rises could be blamed on scare buyers. Last week, hoarding housewives still roamed the nation's stores and markets, snatching up prizes. In Boston, sirloin steak went to $2 a pound. In Washington, a psychology-minded grocer put a sign out front: "Special: 5 Pounds Sugar, 98 cents"-just twice the price at the store across the street. By closing time, clamoring customers had bought 1,000 Ibs. In Allegan, Mich., a man asked to exchange a bag of badly caked sugar, confessed he had 250 pounds more just like it that he had hoarded from...
Cartoonists, editorial writers and finger-wagging officials were putting all the blame on the consumer for his rush to stockpile what he thought to be scarce. But much of the scare buying and hoarding was really the work of manufacturers, suppliers and retailers...
...from its peak production (last week it turned out 181,156 units v. 184,791 the week before). This came in the face of the biggest rush for cars in five years; used-car dealers were once again displaying new "used" autos at $500 and more above list prices. "Scare buying" of all consumer goods kept spreading; U.S. department-store sales jumped 21% in a week. In New Bedford, Mass., a telephone operator who caught the fever drew out her savings to buy a sewing machine which she did not know how to operate and a spinet piano which...
...required from veterans-who previously could buy new homes for nothing down, without even paying cash for closing fees. He also slashed by 5% the amount of FHA mortgage insurance available for non-G.I. buyers. (The immediate effect was to start a rush to buy homes, and the scare sent house prices rising.) The President was hoping to divert to war uses some of the lumber, steel, aluminum and other scarce materials now going into housing...
...hoarding, and some profiteering, had already sent the price of food hopping. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that scare buying had driven the wholesale price of food up more than 7% between June 23 and July...