Parade Down

Tired of waiting for lagging sales to pick up by themselves, more & more manufacturers and retailers were prodding them last week in an old-fashioned way: they were cutting prices.

Sears, Roebuck & Co. was up with the parade. Sears slashed refrigerator prices 8%, trimmed automobile battery prices 15%, and reduced overalls, blue jeans, dungarees, etc. by 9%.

General Electric Co.'s President Charles E. Wilson also moved fast. He trimmed an estimated $40 million a year, at present volume, off the retail prices of his products, and put out a new 10-in.-screen table model television set at $239 (compared with $325 for G.E.'s cheapest old model in the same size). Willys-Overland's President James D. Mooney found that he, too, could trim prices. He cut $25 to $270 off his Jeeps, trucks and Jeepsters.

Dress manufacturers, who had pushed high-priced fancy items in the days of shortage, were producing dresses at an average wholesale price of less than $9. Philco Corp. cut its radio and radio-phonograph prices as much as $60 (sample: a $44.95 table model cut to $14.95). Consolidated Cigar Corp. put a 9-c- price on its 10-c- Harvester and La Palina cigars.

Was all this price-cutting a forerunner of serious trouble? In Chicago, Edwin G. Nourse, chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers, said: all the signs pointed toward a sustained high level of profits and employment, if U.S. businessmen would "lead the process of downward price adjustment, not fight it."

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