Time Clock

DESPITE recession talk and scattered layoffs, many industries, such as steel, are headed for one of their most profitable years. Overall corporate profits this year now seem likely to hit near-record peaks, second only to the alltime high in 1950.

HALF of the 54 million families in the U.S. have assets of $500 or more--enough to pay all their debts--and one in ten is worth $25,000 or more. Net worth of the median U.S. family, according to a Federal Reserve Board survey, has climbed $500-$1,000 since 1950, now stands at $4,100.

TEN airlines that fly air coaches will crack down on "no-shows" as soon as CAB gives its expected approval. Passengers who fail to appear, or who cancel their space less than three hours before flight time, will be penalized 20% of the price of their tickets (minimum penalty: $5).

ADVERTISERS, notably the book clubs, will find it easier to plug their products in the future, under a new ruling of the Federal Trade Commission. The commission reversed its 1948 position that merchandise might not be offered as "free" if customers had to buy something to get it. Under the new rules, a "free" offer may be made if (1) the strings are clearly defined, and (2) the regular price is not increased or quantity or quality reduced.

HOUSEWIVES can expect to pick up bargains at next January's white sales. Three big sheet-and-pillow-case makers have slashed wholesale prices 5% because of poor sales, but it will take some time for the savings to show up at retail counters.

PAPERBACK book publishers are astonished at the record-breaking sales of Signet's 75-c- reprint of James Jones's From Here to Eternity, especially since many of them thought the price too high. When the first printing of 500,000 copies sold out in six days, Signet ordered a second edition of 300,000 copies, sold it almost as fast. Signet now expects to sell more than 1,000,000 copies by the end of the first month.

AS an aftermath of General Motors' $70 million Livonia fire (TIME, Aug. 24), insurance companies are rewriting their recommendations for industrial plants. They will demand greater use of sprinklers, curtain boards and other fire-retarding devices.

CHRONIC electric power shortages in the Pacific Northwest are beginning to ease up, and utilities are now edging up to a new problem: selling all the power produced by the big new dams scheduled for the area. Washington Water Power Co., the state's second biggest private utility, will soon start its first sales-promotion campaign in ten years.

ALUMINUM producers are heading into a buyer's market. Predicts Reynolds Metals President Richard S. Reynolds Jr.: "We will be pounding the pavement [early next year], instead of having customers knocking at our doors."

MERGERS and liquidations are killing off small banks so fast that only one bank is being started for every two that close their doors. One financial expert predicts that by 1978 there will be only 10,500 banks in the U.S., 25% fewer than today.

HEADIEST prediction of the week came from Hoffman Radio Corp.'s President H. Leslie Hoffman. Said he: "The electronics industry . . . will, within the next few years, replace the automotive industry in position of importance to the country ... I predict that electronics . . . excluding television, will show [gross sales] of $7 1/2 billion during the next three years."

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