Word: opa
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...months old, in its heyday the controversial guardian of price controls on some 8,000,000 items from bubble gum to locomotives, once staffed with 235,000 volunteer workers in 5,561 local boards; by executive order of the President, after a long decline induced by progressive decontrol. OPA's heirs: Department of Agriculture (sugar and rice) ; Office of the Housing Expediter (rents); Department of Commerce (winding up OPA records); Department of Justice (pending enforcement cases...
...other fields, the 80th Congress voted a Constitutional Amendment to limit U.S. Presidents to two terms, ended OPA for good, ended sugar rationing as of Oct. 31, and wiped out portal-to-portal pay. By declining to take any action on reciprocal trade, it gave the Administration a little longer to hack away at barriers to world trade...
...well aware of this. But, with unholy naivete, they still hope to sense the imminent price crash in time to slow down or temporarily halt production, having squeezed enough profits out of exorbitant prices to tide them over. This gamble lay behind the NAM's successful war against the OPA last year, and it is this same gamble that seems dangerously close to being lost in the near future...
...Labor? Big Labor's successful strikes in 1946 had helped to build the pressures which blew the lid off OPA and the ceiling off prices. Government statistics showed that Big Labor's weekly income had more than kept pace with prices since 1941 (see chart below). Big Labor had won these gains at the expense of unorganized workers, old-age pensioners, and professional and white-collar workers...
...some of the hardest hit, the slump seemed to have come with startling suddenness. Actually, the causes of the slump, stemming from the war, had been noticeable for some time. In spite of OPA's efforts to prevent it, many of the mills had switched to more expensive goods on which they could make more money. When OPA died, they continued to do so because of abnormal demand. But when buyers' resistance began to be felt, manufacturers refused to shave their prices. Their profits were high enough-and demand for quality goods still heavy-so that they could...