The Chips Are Down

The Chips Are Down But there will be one notable difference in U.S. business in 1953. There will be so much civilian production that business men will have to tax their ingenuity to improve their products and sell them.

Some industries will probably have their own recession, or "readjustment," just as the textile industry had a recession in booming 1952. There will be price cuts, and some have already begun. In its first 1953 catalog, Sears, Roebuck & Co. trimmed its prices an average of 9%. Said G.E.'s President Ralph Cordiner: "The chips are down. This year the weak sisters will fall by the way." Businessmen generally feel that 1953 will be a "hard sell year," notably in such items as refrigerators, radios and farm equipment, which show signs of saturating the market. To keep up sales, Interna tional Harvester's President John McCaffery had a salesman's remedy. Said he: "We've got to develop better equipment to make them want to replace the old ones. Planned obsolescence is the lifeblood of U.S. business."

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