FIRST HALF DIVIDENDS for the 1,500 U.S. companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange topped the $3 billion mark for the first time in history, 9.6% higher than 1954. Total company dividends for the first six months were 8% better than 1954, totaled $4.6 billion.

MEAT PRICES will probably go up this fall despite mountainous supplies of beef, lamb and pork. Reason: rising labor costs resulting from the 14-c- hourly wage boost given packinghouse workers by four big packers (Wilson, Swift, Armour, Cudahy). If (as seems likely) the 14-c--an-hour increase becomes the pattern for this year's labor contracts, the cost to the nation's packing industry will be $50 million annually, more than the whole industry's profits in 1954.

AIRPLANE-AUTO combination will be marketed successfully within the next three years, predicts George H. Weitz, chief of CAA's experimental aircraft division. Though airplane-autos have proved commercial flops so far, Weitz believes that the increasing clutter on U. S. highways will make a sizable market for the first safe and economical plane-car that can land, fold its wings, and drive off.

AUTO RACE between Ford and Chevrolet for No. 1 spot is grille-and-grille. For the first six months of 1955, R. L. Polk & Co., the industry statistician, reported: Chevrolet, 756,317; Ford, 741,481.

HOUSING BOOM will in no sense be slowed down by the recent tightening of Federal Housing Administration and Veterans Administration loan terms, says FHA administrator Albert M. Cole. The purpose--and the effect--of the mild credit tightening, says Cole, is to forestall inflationary credit expansion, which would in turn bring higher home prices.

PRIVATE BUSINESSMEN will soon take over more businesses operated by the U.S. Government. Though patronage-minded members of Congress have tried to thwart the program of getting the Government out of business through legislation requiring the Administration to clear every cutback with committee chairmen (TIME, July 25), President Eisenhower has said that he will ignore the demand, has ordered 14 more federally operated businesses closed down. Among them: four coffee-roasting operations, two paint-manufacturing plants, a rope factory.

THROUGH PLANE SERVICE between New York and South America is finally starting after seven years of controversy. Braniff and Eastern Air Lines will start the first plane interchange at Miami this week; Pan American and Panagra will start a second interchange service with National Airlines by early September. Under the plan, planes heading north and south will land at Miami, take on crews from their partner airlines for the last leg of the flights to New York and South America.

LOUIS WOLFSON'S strikebound Capital Transit Co. will be put out of business. President Eisenhower signed into law a bill passed by Congress revoking Capital Transit's franchise to operate in the District of Columbia, and giving the company a year to wind up its affairs. In the meantime, the District Commissioners will negotiate a new wage settlement with striking workers, foot the bill for any loss that Capital Transit might incur during the year because of a pay raise.

FAST TAX WRITE-OFFS will be cut back still more by the Office of Defense Mobilization, thus slowing the rapid pace of defense-industry expansion. ODM has ended 19 categories of fast write-offs (asbestos, lead, tungsten, etc.) as no longer essential, indefinitely suspended 38 others (commercial aircraft, iron ore, etc.) leaving only 20 (copper, aluminum, atomic energy, etc.) of the original 225 expansion goals still in effect. New cutbacks will either cancel or postpone some 900 applications from U.S. business for $9.3 billion worth of fast write-offs.

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