Time for a New Frugality

Use it up

Wear it out

Make it do

Or do without.

-- Old New England maxim

That advice has long been out of fashion in a nation surfeited with material abundance, but now it may be on the verge of a comeback. At the height of its biggest boom, the U.S. seems almost to be based on an economy of scarcity. Shortages of an astounding variety of goods--fuel oil, nonferrous metals, wool, copper, cotton denims, vinyl records, plastic bottles, to name a few--are jacking up prices, interfering with production, and in some cases directly threatening American living standards.

The most chilling danger, by far, is a winter heating-oil shortage (TIME, Oct. 8, 1973). Last week the White House ordered the first mandatory allocations of fuel that the U.S. has imposed since World War II. The Administration announced a wholesale rationing program for propane gas that will give first priority to rural residents and farmers, who use the fuel to dry crops. It also promised to have details of a similar program for heating oil worked out within two weeks. In general, the aim will be to make sure that refineries continue to sell heating oil to all wholesalers, rather than cut any off.

Administration officials were quick to emphasize that these steps by no means end the danger of a shortage; they will do nothing to increase the supply of scarce fuels. Interior Secretary Rogers C.B. Morton said the Administration will be satisfied if it can merely "spread the discomfort out and spread it out so thinly that it is not going to have any kind of drastic effect on the economy or the lifestyle" of the public. Whether that goal can be accomplished, Morton added, is "dependent on Old Man Winter and where he strikes, how long he strikes and what the temperatures are."

Even if the winter is mild, there will be no shortage of other supply bottlenecks for consumers to gripe about. Motorists continue to encounter spotty shortages of gasoline, aggravated by continuing protest shutdowns by gas-station owners. The dealers, who are being charged more for wholesale gasoline by major oil companies, demand that the Cost of Living Council permit them to post bigger increases at the pump than the 1-c--to 2.5-c--per-gal. boosts they have been allowed so far.

Long Wait. In New York, the National Association of Purchasing Management polled its members and found that products ranging from aluminum, copper and zinc to paper (both shipping boxes and office stationery), cotton, chemicals and corn syrup were available only after long waits for delivery. The McDonough Power Equipment Co., which makes lawnmowers and garden equipment, fears that the new plant it will open next spring will not be able to operate at capacity because it will not be able to get enough steel. In San Francisco, Levi Strauss & Co. is having to ration blue jeans to stores because of a scarcity of denim. In Los Angeles, American Chemical Corp. is having trouble getting enough raw materials to make plastic steering wheels, garden hoses and bottles. Capitol Records is trying to eke out supplies of vinyl by recycling old pressings.

Some of the shortages stem from short-lived causes. Early this year, for example, Mississippi floods drowned some cotton fields. But most of the trouble points to basic imbalances in the economy. Demand has now pushed production in U.S. major industries to an average 94% of capacity, a pace that is almost bound to create bottlenecks and long waits for deliveries. A number of industries, notably paper, steel and oil, have been unable to build as much capacity as they now need; their executives often grumble that environmentalists are to blame.

Many economists and businessmen stress a third reason for shortages: price controls. Critics charge that by preventing companies from raising prices of finished products as high as the market will bear, the controls have also made it impossible for American industrialists to pay the high prices that such materials as copper, cotton, wool, lumber and chemicals now command on world markets. Inevitably, the goods are being carried off by foreign buyers, especially the Japanese. ("The Japanese have bought up every pound of wool in the world!" a New York buyer hyperbolically exclaims.) Says Alan Greenspan, a member of TIME's Board of Economists: "We have prices being suppressed by the control program under the world level. We would have no shortage at all if prices were allowed to rise."

Even such liberal economists as Arthur Okun of The Brookings Institution concede that controls could be lifted on the products that are most scarce. But that is not the only answer. The increasing dependence of the U.S. on foreign raw materials indicates that the nation has been living beyond its means. In the energy field, in particular, the country badly needs a conservation program to prevent waste. As Government spokesmen have pointed out, if every thermostat in the U.S. were set three degrees lower this winter, the nation could save at least 300,000 bbl. of fuel a day. If motorists would slow down from 70 to 60 m.p.h., their cars would consume 11% less gasoline; a car driven at 50 m.p.h. will burn 23% less. After decades of congratulating itself on its abundance, the U.S. could use a dose of old-fashioned New England frugality.

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