Word: straus
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...store that Straus runs not only looms large in a nation that loves to buy; it has become part of the American scene. Macy's has inspired a movie (Miracle on 34th Street} and a Broadway musical (Here's Love). It has been the subject of an armful of books, of countless gags and cartoons, of many enduring legends. Its 40-year-old Thanksgiving Day parade - a two-mile panoply of celebrities, bands, six-story-tall balloons and pneumatic majorettes -is yearly watched by a million New Yorkers and a TV audience of 60 million. For visitors...
Emergency Power. The planners know that when all is said and done, the ultimate decisions about the future of the economy will be made by the U.S. consumer. And the men who know best what the consumer is likely to do are Jack Straus and the nation's other merchants. They generally forecast that an average U.S. family of four, which spent an average $8,320 last year, will spend about $8,650 this year. The brisk increase in consumer demand should go far toward bringing about what Washington foresees as a 6% gain in both corporate profits...
Considering the emerging power of the consumer, even the short-term pessimists are long-term optimists. Chicago Economist Langum, for example, says that the '65 troubles he envisions will simply be a prelude to "a really terrific era" that the U.S. can expect later in the 1960s. Jack Straus knows the reason well: "Our economy keeps growing because our ability to consume is endless. The consumer goes on spending regardless of how many possessions he has. The luxuries of today are the necessities of tomorrow...
...conditioner to replace the window fan or taking that long-planned trip to Europe. By the same token, he has the power to slow or reverse the economic advance by deciding to postpone his purchases. "The consumer is the key to our economy," says Macy's Jack Straus. "When the country has a recession, it suffers not so much from problems of production as from problems of consumption...
...hard competitor. The store continues to collect millions worth of free publicity from its largely mythical war against Gimbels ("Macy's Will Not Be Undersold!"), even though Gimbels has long since been supplanted as New York's second largest store by Brooklyn's Abraham & Straus (in which Jack Straus's family held a major interest until 1913). Macy's also works at burnishing its reputation as an avid civic booster, buying full-page newspaper ads that hymn the local theater, symphonies and sports teams. Its publicity-minded executives are adept at the techniques of both...