Consumers Can't Win

The Department of Commerce deflated the four-year-old notion that U.S. sho pers have been on a four-year buying spree. Estimating retail sales for 1944, the Department predicted that the quantity of goods bought this year would be only 15% greater than in 1939, and 5% less than in 1941. But the Department's report confirmed what every housewife knows: sky-high retail prices make purchases of essentials seem like a mad squandering of money. Thus the dollar volume of retail sales this year are guesstimated at an alltime peak of $67 billion -- up 60% over 1939, and 20% over 1941.

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