Word: slowdowns
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...according to the Labor Department, in this year's first quarter, private nonfarm productivity declined at an annual rate of 3.5% largely as a result of the severe first-quarter drop in real output of goods and services.* As is usual in times of an economic slowdown, both workers and machines operated below optimum efficiency because employers did not trim their work force as fast as they reduced production. The main cause of the productivity slump in the first quarter was that the gasoline crisis forced automakers to cut production of big, gas-drinking cars. Since auto manufacturing...
...promise their citizens is that inflation later this year will abate somewhat?maybe. In the U.S., for example, the Nixon Administration is predicting that inflation will slow to 5% to 6% by year's end, with the best of breaks: a letup in consumer demand caused by a business slowdown, a record crop this fall and an easing in petroleum prices. Even that less than comforting scenario, and similar ones projected in other nations, could go awry if labor unions force fat settlements. In the U.S., AFL-CIO President George Meany and other leaders are talking up a drive...
...about to let what few controls are left die at the end of this month when the legislation permitting them expires, and a complacent Congress has made no move to extend them. That will leave the Administration with few weapons to fight inflation, and only the hope that a slowdown in the economy will reduce the rate of price increases by year...
Back to Cars. There are a few clouds on the industry's horizon. Traffic may level off when airborne ex-motorists find it easy to buy gasoline again, and the general economic slowdown may eventually catch up with air travel. Yet most airlines have already made enough energy-related flight cutbacks to weather such a storm. And the CAB is expected to rule favorably on the industry's request for yet another fare increase, this time 6% effective April 16, to cover the rising cost of fuel...
...reported to the IRS, it is difficult to assign monetary values to them. But the tax complications are only one reason why many businessmen hope that bartering will turn out to be a passing phenomenon-which it indeed may, if shortages ease as expected because of the gathering slowdown in the economy. Barter may be indispensable to companies caught by shortages but, just as the textbooks say, buying and selling for cash is much more efficient...