High Signs

How fast is the U.S. boom growing? Much faster than most businessmen think, Ford Motor Co. Board Chairman Ernest R. Breech told the St. Louis Chamber of Commerce last week. "The big boom we have all been anticipating for the early 1960's is no longer a distant dream. We have no choice but to prepare for a major breakthrough into a new and much higher plateau of production and consumption."

Three days later Commerce Secretary Sinclair Weeks put the official stamp on the optimistic picture. Said Weeks: "Business was never better. Workers never had it so good. Old man prosperity just keeps rolling along." Weeks cited record employment of more than 65 million workers in October, and prophesied that Christmas sales figures will be the best ever.

Other plus signs:

P:Steel producers, working at 100% capacity, produced 2,413,000 tons, an all-time high.

P:Car and truck output hit the record rate of 200,482 units in a week.

P:Personal income from all sources reached the record rate of $307.5 billion in September, a $2 billion rise over the previous month.

P:New construction in 1955, reported the Commerce and Labor departments, will reach $42 billion, 10% above last year's record.

P:The stock market, spurred by news that Standard Oil (New Jersey), the world's No. 1 oil company, planned a 3 for 1 stock split, surged out of its doldrums, wiping out October's losses. The Dow Jones Industrial Average made its largest weekly gain since Nov. 15, 1954.

P:Corporations continued to set earnings records for 1955's first 9 months. American Tobacco reported a net of $38,440,000, up 21% over last year; Eastern Airlines netted $4,748,089, up 16 1/2%; Sinclair Oil earned $18,336,756, a 12% rise above a year ago; American Radiator earned $13,637,000, up 11%; Chrysler netted $70,637,012 v. $3,724,383 last year.

In the midst of the pluses, there were also some minus signs. The growing shortage of credit was beginning to pinch some sections of the economy, as the Administration had expected it would. Housing starts in September dropped below 1954 levels. Next year, said the Veterans Administration, new housing starts will probably fall to 1,100,000, or 200,000 below the '55 level. In Manhattan, the First National City Bank, the city's leading maker of personal loans, hiked interest rates from $3.83 per $100 to $4.25, the first rise since 1937. The Chase National Bank also boosted its rates. Prices started to edge up for a growing number of basic materials--steel pipe, cement, nickel, platinum, shellac, plumbing fixtures--and increases loomed for dinnerware, pots and pans, drapes, rugs, toys, refrigerators, washing machines. Retailers, trying to hold the price line, warned that unless the pressure eases, they will have to give way and also boost retail prices.

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