BIGGEST worry of Detroit automakers is not whether they will sell their huge new car output, 47% higher than last year; it is the used-car glut. Prices are dropping, and finance companies are refusing loans on all but the cleanest, late-model trade-ins. Dealers who refuse to take their losses in order to move used cars now will probably be stuck with full lots and larger losses later.
THE big, rich A.F.L. Meat Cutters and the C.I.O. Packinghouse Workers are getting ready to sign a "no raid" agreement calling for joint negotiations with the nation's meat packers. For the packers, long accustomed to trimming down the unions' wage and welfare demands by playing one off against the other, it will mean tougher bargaining.
PROCTER & Gamble, which has far outdistanced rival Colgate-Palm-olive-Peet in both soap and detergent sales, is now getting ready to challenge Colgate in its specialty: toothpaste. Already on sale in nine states, P. & G.'s new "Gleem" dentifrice will get national distribution next year.
CUTS in the price of titanium, the wonder metal needed for jet engines and planes (TIME, June 15) are in the offing. A new process, developed by United International Research, Inc. to produce titanium sponge directly from titanium dioxide and bypass expensive steps in present methods, may cut the cost of sponge (from which plates, sheets, etc., are made) from $5 to $1.50 a pound.
DESPITE the downtrend in farm incomes, U.S. poultry growers are crowing about bigger receipts for poultry and eggs, up 11% in the first five months of 1953. By year end they expect to top even 1951's alltime high of $4 billion.
SALES of non-corrosive plastic pipe have boomed so fast (3,000% since 1948) that Republic Steel last week bought pipemaker Owings-Sharpe, Inc. of Magnolia, Ark. Already widely used by mining, chemical and oil companies to carry corrosive fluids, plastic pipe is generally easier to install and cheaper to maintain than corresponding metal pipe. Sales, which reached $15 million last year, are expected to hit $250 million by 1960.
WORRIED about Western Union's long-range prospects, a Senate subcommittee last week strongly urged that the company be permitted to take over the teletypewriter and leased wire facilities of the Bell System. A one-third drop in revenues since 1945, said the subcommittee, meant that Western Union would eventually have to make sharp cuts in its nationwide service, concentrate on its more profitable routes. But Wall Streeters were guessing that Western Union's fortunes had improved, at least temporarily, and that its 1953 net would hit $8,500,000 v. $1,277,789 in 1952.
ALLIS-CHALMERS is planning to buy famed old Buda Co. (diesel engines, railroad and mining equipment), hopes to sign final papers within a few weeks. The deal, which would increase Allis-Chalmers' sales by an estimated $40 million, would also give it a wholly owned source for the diesel engines that power its heavy tractors and construction equipment . . . Houston's First and Second National Banks are negotiating a merger which would combine assets totaling one-half billion dollars, make the new bank the largest in Houston, third largest in Texas.
THE Sheraton Corp., which has 30 hotels in 24 cities, will build a $14 million, 1,000-roorn, air-conditioned hotel in Philadelphia's new Penn Center (TIME, June 1). Planned to be 20 stories high, it will be the first new large hotel to be built in Philadelphia in almost 30 years.
AFTER a three-year feast, machine-tool builders are facing slimmer rations. Although civilian contracts are still coming in, a drop in defense business has cut total new orders 10%. With capacity expanded 25%, record output has whittled down backlogs from 23 1/2 to 7- 1/2 months' work.
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