100%

As steel goes, so goes the U.S. economy. Last week, as U.S. steelmen turned out more steel in one week (an estimated 1,912,000 tons) than ever before, new orders for steel piled up almost as fast.

"There is no indication now of a decline from the present high operating rate," said Ben Moreell, president of Jones & Laughlin, the fourth biggest U.S. steel company. "I think production will stabilize at around 100% . . . for the rest of the year," National Steel's Chairman Ernest T. Weir cheerfully predicted: "All steel production records will be broken this year."

Despite the coal strike, the steel companies' first-quarter earnings had held up remarkably well. Though U.S. Steel's profits were off just a shade (from $49.9 million in the 1949 quarter to $49.2 million), its rate of profit on sales had actually risen, from 7.5% to 7.8%. Profits of Bethlehem also dropped (to $25.5 million), but its directors felt confident enough to boost the quarterly dividend from 60&$162; to 75-c-.

With bellwether steel in such fine fettle, the rest of the economy seemed in good health, too. In March the Federal Reserve Board index of industrial production rose to 186, which was 25 points above the low mark of the 1949 recession, and within 9 points of the 1948 postwar peak. In the same month, manufacturers had booked the greatest amount of new business ($20.6 billion) since the war, 14% more than in March of 1949.

The sudden scramble for materials had once again brought a few familiar whiffs of inflation: steel scrap jumped as much as $1 a ton last week, and the prices of copper, zinc and lead had all bounced higher. Prices of building materials also had moved steadily upward with the upsurge in building. Even Leon Keyserling, acting chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers, who had been gloomy about industry's capacity to keep expanding and make more jobs, said: "I am enormously encouraged."

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