A Little Boost Here . . .

With an air of judicial aloofness and a deep sense of political risk, the new high court of price regulation this week took up its rule. If the three-man Price Decontrol Board did nothing before August 21, price ceilings would go back on grain, meat, dairy products, cottonseed and soybeans. When the doors opened into the high-ceilinged marble of the Senate Caucus Room for the first public hearing, a flood of businessmen flowed through. Most of them argued that it would be economic folly to sit tight, i.e., let ceilings go back on.

While the Board heard the evidence for its first important decision, OPA economists sweated to match prices still under control to the new formulas written by Congress. The slide-rule answers nearly always meant that prices went up a little bit here, a little more there. On a few typical days last week OPA hiked ceilings on autos (7%), cotton textiles (7%), kid leather (30%), sofas (6%), hot-water bottles (10%), oilcloth (13 1/2%), enamel kitchen utensils (5%). Off went ceilings on window washing, contract janitorial service, sour cherries and imported food specialties.

A backward look by the Bureau of Labor Statistics etched the meaning of a trend of little boosts. The pre-wholesale prices of 28 basic commodities had risen a thumping 22.4% since the beginning of July. One big boost still stuck. From June 15 to July 15 retail food prices had soared 13.8%, the largest monthly jump in the 43 years since the Bureau had been keeping tab on them. (Actually, the real price to the consumer did not go up quite as much because of the abolition of subsidies on decontrolled products, which he must no longer pay via taxes.) Food prices dropped only slightly after the revival of OPA.

The price balloon had not torn loose from its moorings. But the cable was paying out at a steady clip. The Gallup poll found that 92% of U.S. citizens expected prices to continue upward for the next six months, a rare percentage of agreement on anything.

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