Record-Bound

U.S. corporate profits, which reached a record high in 1946, went considerably higher in the first half of this year. So reported the Department of Commerce this week, after adding up a cross section of the returns. Profits after taxes in the first three months of 1947 were at an annual rate of $17,500,000,000--some 10% more than in last year's booming fourth quarter. The rate declined in the second quarter, tut only to $16,500,000,000, still higher than any other year's peak.

The Department of Commerce pointed out that the figures included inventory profits (i.e., values added to stored goods because of rises in their market prices), "which, in the recent period of rising prices, have been an important factor in the advance of reported profits." But inventory profits showed a declining trend in the first half of this year; if they were excluded, earnings would still show a rise through June. Current profit levels in wholesale and retail trades, the Department added, were probably lower, due to rising costs.

Even so, there was no denying one pleasant prospect: that U.S. businessmen, after worrying themselves sick over what would happen in 1947. stood to make as much, if not more, than they ever had before.

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