Trouble Ahead

What's ahead for business? Said General Electric President Charles E. Wilson last week: "I could give you a record-breaking, one-word answer and retire, trouble."

The trouble, Wilson told the Chicago Economic Ciub, was coming from two sources: price controls and increased labor costs. Said he, "Every artificial control is like a dam across a stream. The stream either stops flowing, or is diverted to new channels. These diverted materials are either disappearing from the market or, for cost reasons, are showing up in black market channels."

If labor plans to strike for another round of wage increases, "it s certainly our duty to make it crystal clear to the American public, including the workers themselves, just what they are heading into. They are heading for depression and unemployment just as certainly and logically as night follows day."

Wage increases, said he, would mean price increases. But if prices go up any further, markets for many items will contract. Said Wilson: "This is the vicious path to depression."

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