Prices: New Philosophy

By last week everybody had taken a crack at OPA. Congress had worn it down, making price boosts to jibe with a new set of rules. Ceilings on grain and dairy products had been knocked over the fence in the Price Decontrol Board's big inning. Last week it was the Department of Agriculture's turn to humble Washington's once-powerful price fixers.

OPA had been all set to roll back meat prices to June 30 ceilings. As soon as the Price Board approved recontrol, OPA began printing butcher-shop lists for steaks and chops at the old retail levels. It had reckoned without a key point of the new price control law.

The real power to rule what the OPA orders should be had been transferred to Agriculture Secretary Clinton P. Anderson. His farm-conscious decision: to encourage production, livestock prices would have to be higher than June 30 tops by $2.25 a hundred pounds for prime cattle, $1.40 for hogs, $2.85 for lambs.

OPA abandoned its dream of a complete rollback, and began rewriting the retail price lists which would go into effect Sept. 9. Consumers would probably pay about 6-c- a pound more for beef, 3-c- more for pork than they had when ceilings were taken off meat. But the average would be lower (by 25% for beef, 40% for pork) than in last month's free market.

Speed Limit. Another provision of the revised price control act gave Anderson the power to rule which farm products are no longer in short supply and thus automatically force OPA to cancel ceilings on them. Last week he found that many commodities were in sufficient abundance for OPA control to be removed during September. Ceilings would come off 25 vegetables and fruits (fresh, frozen and canned).

OPA Boss Paul Porter, woefully watching his price power over foods slipping away, clung hard to rent control. He announced that there would be no general residential rent increases, and "as far as we can see none will be necessary in the future." OPA surveys, he said, had shown that the landlord was generally better off in income (thanks to no vacancies) than he was in the 1939-40 period.

But the pressure of price law amendments was heavy on just about everything else in the family budget. Last week OPA lifted the lid on galoshes, rubbers and sterling silver flatware; ceiling increases of 4.8% were authorized on children's tricycles, scooters, and wagons.

Actually, the old battle of hold-the-line v. take-ceilings-off was now over. What Congress had provided for was a new way of tackling the problem of inflation by permitting prices to rise without limiting the amount but strictly limiting the speed of increase. How well this policy would work remained to be seen.

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