Facts & Figures

High Gear. In the first quarter of 1948, the British automobile industry nosed out the U.S. as the world's largest exporter of passenger cars. The three-month score: Great Britain, 56,812; the U.S., 55,444. (During March, Britain's carmakers, whose export quota is 75% of total production, edged this up to 78%.) Most U.S. motormakers, selling all they can make at home, have not tried to push exports.

Bumpy Air. U.S. airlines were feeling the hot breath of foreign competition in transatlantic aviation. In the first six months of 1947, American Overseas, Pan American Airways and T.W.A. carried 75.4% of all passengers. In the second half, CAB announced, their share was down to 71.2%. For both U.S. and foreign lines, traffic volume was well up: the total of 114,128 passengers was an increase of 42.5% over 1947's first half.

In the Open. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp. showed other steelmakers what they could do about the steel grey market. J. & L. filed suits against two steel brokers (it asked $100,000 damages). The charge: the brokers said they had an "in" with J. & L. and could get 7,500 tons a month for the Ford Motor Co. at $75 a ton (the mill price was then $36). In Brooklyn, a federal grand jury indicted roly-polyIsadore Ginsberg, 52, and his son Maurice. (Ginsberg was scored as a "vicious grey marketeer" by a congressional committee probing the grey market in building materials, TIME, Jan. 26). The charge: using the mails to defraud 31 contractors of $15,921 for materials never delivered.

Rise. Despite stratospheric prices, more & more people were building houses. In April 90,000 non-farm dwelling units were begun in the U.S., 34% above last April.

Fall. Westinghouse Electric, following the lead of many another radiomaker, cut its radio prices from 13% to 20%. Samples: $79.95 retail for an AM-FM table model (formerly $99.95), $499.95 for a radio-phonograph combination (formerly $625).

Outsider In. The vast (assets over $4 billion) New York Life Insurance Co. went outside the company for a new president to replace George L. Harrison, 61, who was upped to chairman. Picked for the job was Harvardman Devereux C. Josephs, 54, onetime partner in Philadelphia's Graham Parsons & Co. brokerage house. Later he headed the Carnegie-endowed Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association, and since 1945, has been president of Carnegie Corp. where he supervised spending (about $5,000,000 in 1947) on philanthropic projects.

Colt's Jolt. In Hartford last week, Colt's Manufacturing Co., one of the biggest U.S. small-arms manufacturers, drew a bead on C.I.O.'s United Electrical, Radio & Machinery Workers of America. Colt charged that the union's record "of obstructing national policies" might endanger the company's fulfillment of armament orders, and refused to renew its contract. Under the Taft-Hartley law, the union could not bring charges of unfair labor practices before the National Labor Relations Board; its officers had refused to swear they were not Communists.

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