Word: spigelman
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Dates: during 1942-1942
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...this month's Harpers' Magazine appeared a resounding No. Free-lance Economist Joseph H. Spigelman points out that, in this war, businessmen are so afraid of seeming to make too much money and are so shackled by "an enervating fear of the future" that they are voluntarily trading profits for "the joys of secure incompetence." When all the "convenient fictions . . . for concealing profits" (extra reserves, etc.) have been exhausted, "the businessman seeks refuge from high profits in high costs...
This, says angry Mr. Spigelman, means two things: 1) ballooning costs keep war production from reaching its real peak; 2) after the war, "a mighty alliance of all the incompetents" will demand continued Government protection for uneconomic wartime habits. If this comes to pass, the U.S. will find itself in "the most rigid and closed of socialisms . . . a tyranny of collective incompetence at least as disastrous as the nineteenth century tyranny of unbridled competence...
...Spigelman recommendations: the Government should favor low-cost and high-profit enterprise with priorities and tax concessions, favor efficient management similarly with salaries and bonuses tied to production and profits. Last week a U.S. Department of Commerce report revealed that Germany had been doing just that: low-cost German industry gets exemption from excess-profits taxes in direct proportion to its productive efficiency...
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