Downtown

P:Economist A. Wilbert Zelomek of Manhattan's International Statistical Bureau announced last week that in the first eight months of 1936 the U. S. people spent as much money ($5,600,000,000) on automobiles as they did on food. Up 5% were expenditures on food, up 20% were expenditures on automobiles, which included not only old and new sales but fuel, oil, service, accessories, etc.

P: With the assistance of Morgan Stanley & Co., 46 other banking houses and some 800 investment dealers throughout the land, American Telephone & Telegraph Co. last week sold $150,000,000 of 3 1/4% debentures, biggest single issue floated by any U. S. corporation under the Securities Act of 1933. Another $25,000,000 was sold to A. T. & T.'s pension trust fund. Though some of A. T. & T.'s operating subsidiaries have taken advantage of prevailing low money rates to refund their bonds, this was the parent company's first move to shave interest charges on its own $450,000,000 debt. Another $150,000,000 refunding issue is expected before the year end.

P:Assured by F. W. Dodge Corp.'s Researcher Thomas Steele Holden that U. S. building construction in 1936 will be 50 or 60% greater than last year, members of the U. S. Building & Loan League, in convention at Manhattan's Waldorf-Astoria, made what, for them, was a fine concession to Public Housing. They nodded righteous approval to a report which suggested: "If a substantial number of families cannot pay an economic rent, we recommend that the Government extend rent relief or rent subsidy, rather than follow the course of building and permanently renting to a group of citizens public accommodations."

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