A Letter from the Publisher

When I joined TIME in 1956," recalls Marshall Loeb, "I knew virtually nothing about business." Loeb learned fast. He wrote three stories for the Business section during his first week on the job and went on to become the section's editor. In 1971 he set up the Economy section (which merged with Business in 1974), and in 1973 he presided over the establishment of a new Energy section. Last year Loeb found a few empty moments in his Stakhanovite work week and began writing Executive View, a column about life and thought at the top. Much in demand on the lecture circuit, Loeb in one recent 18-day period delivered twelve speeches in five states and four foreign countries--and that was while he was on vacation. To reflect his diverse and unflagging contributions to TIME'S coverage of business and economic issues, Marshall Loeb has been appointed to the newly created post of economics editor.

Despite the new title, Loeb does not consider himself merely a business journalist. "Our section isn't only about dollars and cents," he says. "It's about ideas, individuals, trends. The line between economics and other areas of American life has become much fuzzier. Is affirmative action, for example, a political, social or economic issue? The answer, of course, is that it is all three, and more. Covering these kinds of stories gives us a very eclectic section each week."

As the issues have become more complicated over the past ten years, Loeb has observed a growing reader interest in his section. "I used to be asked only, 'Which stocks do you recommend?' " he says. "Now, people grab me at lunch and ask about our stories on the oil crisis. People are genuinely interested and confused about the causes and prescriptions for solutions of such problems as inflation and the energy crunch."

In search of those causes and prescriptions, Loeb in 1969 organized TIME'S Board of Economists, a distinguished group of experts who gather in New York City four times a year. "In the past, they have been as accurate as any economic forecasting service," says Loeb, who presides over the meetings. "They also put us onto a lot of stories.

Two years before the oil crisis, for example, Alan Greenspan, a leading consultant and former chief presidential economic adviser, was warning us about it, joking that King Faisal's picture would soon be on all the oil storage tanks along the New Jersey Turnpike. That instinct proved to be all too prescient." The board's latest predictions are summarized in this week's Economy & Business section. One forecast is not included, though the board is unanimous about it: Economics Editor Loeb is in no danger of an energy shortage.

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