SLUM housing may get a boost next year from the $26 billion savings and loan business. The U.S. Savings and Loan League, comprised of 4,100 state and federally chartered savings associations and cooperative banks, wants Congress to pass a law authorizing federally chartered institutions to buy cleared slum land, put up low-cost housing.

TAPE-recorder fans will soon be able to buy hour-long concerts to play on their machines. Webster-Chicago Corp. and Pentron Corp. are planning to market prerecorded tapes of classics, eventually hope to put out two-hour tapes.

AIR France is shooting for the transatlantic luxury trade with a new twelve-hour, nonstop flight to Paris. Called the "Golden Parisian" the flight will use Lockheed Super Constellations fitted to carry only 32 passengers (instead of 56), cost an extra $25 above the $415 regular first-class fare. Travelers who want even fancier treatment can have a private cabin for one or two ($125 extra).

SHIPBUILDING in private U.S. yards, which has dropped to a postwar low for non-military vessels, will probably sink even lower. The cause: zooming costs and the vast amount of tonnage built during the war. As of Nov. 1, only 52 vessels of 1,000 gross tons or more (totaling 745,085 tons) were under construction or on order, most of them scheduled for 1953 and 1954 delivery.

RUSSIA, which used to supply 25% of U.S. chromium needs and about 35% of manganese, now wants to do big business again for the first time since 1949. It is reported offering 60,000 tons of the two metals for early delivery.

ALIEN property custodians may soon be able to sell their controlling interest in the $138 million General Aniline & Film Corp., seized as Nazi property during the war. A five-year lawsuit brought by Interhandel, a Swiss holding company that claims ownership of most of the stock now held by the U.S. Government, has just been thrown out of court for lack of proof of its basic proposition: that all connection with Germany was broken before the war. Interhandel will appeal, but Congress will be asked to pass a special bill letting the Government sell the property anyway.

MISSILE production is getting an increasingly big chunk of the U.S. defense dollar. Bell Aircraft Corp. has just landed a $35 million contract, reportedly to make a guided missile at its Niagara Falls plant.

THE fishing industry ir New England has slumped so badly that boats are sailing south to try for shrimp. Nine boats have already left New Bedford, Mass, for the Gulf, and ten others are scheduled to leave soon. Fishermen say skidding prices, rising costs and Canadian competition are ruining their business.

DIESELIZATION of U.S. railroads continues apace. Latest convert: the Virginian Railway, one of the biggest still using coal-burning locomotives. It wants to buy 25 big diesel engines, will use them for freight and mine-switching service in the West Virginia coal fields.

DROUGHT areas in 15 states and Hawaii will continue to get cut-rate emergency feed from the government even though the Commodity Credit Corp. has used up its special $40 million feed allotment. President Eisenhower has told the CCC to use some of its price-support funds.

AMERICAN Airlines will cut three hours off its previous 11-hr, flight time from New York to the West Coast when it puts its new Douglas DC-7s into service this week. With the 365 m.p.h. DC-7s, Douglas expects to keep ahead of Lockheed in the race for commercial honors. The company has just landed a $25 million order from Eastern Air Lines for 12 of the big ships, one of the few times that Eastern has bought four-engine craft from anyone but Lockheed.

BUSINESS faces a six-month period of adjustment, then a long period of unparalleled prosperity, predicts Edward T. McCormick, president of the American Stock Exchange. "New industrial developments, new products and new methods now on the horizon are so revolutionary that I can't help being optimistic."

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