Word: slump
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Political advisers are warning the President that a continuation of the current slump could be poison for Republicans in the fall congressional elections. If the economy is not "back in balance" by Election Day, says White House Political Operative Murray Chotiner, "there is no question that Republican candidates for office can be hurt." A Republican National Committee official who has traveled throughout the nation recently brought back this report: "Millions of older people who own stocks are scared to death. Lots of them have depended on stock values to take care of them in their retirement. Now the cash value...
Businessmen are wondering whether the current slump is really necessary; within the Government last week, some powerful voices began calling publicly for the first time for changes in the game plan. Most important were the rasping W.C. Fields tones of Arthur F. Burns, Nixon's longtime economic mentor. Now, as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, Burns is the master of the nation's money supply. Coming from anyone else, what he said might not have seemed startling; coming from cautious Arthur Burns, it raised eyebrows around the country...
Nixon's policies have failed to defeat inflation so far, but have they brought on a recession? Economists argue incessantly about whether the current slowdown qualifies for that maddeningly imprecise term. If this slump is really a recession, however, it is not like any before it. The real output of goods and services has declined for two consecutive quarters?the classic if somewhat misleading measure of a recession. But factory output so far has fallen only 2.4% from its 1969 high, compared with declines ranging from 6% to 14.2% in the four recognized recessions since World War II. Corporate profits...
...Wall Street." The President, however, is getting increasingly nervous. With a congressional election coming in six months, the economic situation leaves his party vulnerable to the kind of criticism voiced by Economist John Kenneth Galbraith: "It is very hard to combine inflation with rising unemployment and a stock-market slump, but the Nixon Administration has managed...
...political turmoil by helping to aggravate the business downturn. Economists generally do not consider the market a major determinant of the pace of business, but most concede that, in Paul Samuelson's words, "There is a little wagging of the dog by the tail." A continued stock slump would make it more difficult for corporations to raise money by selling new shares-and that is already extremely difficult. Nixon's economic advisers have tended to ignore the market, but now they are paying a little more attention. They know that retail sales, for example, may be hurt because...