Flying Start

WPB had promised that when the time came for big-scale reconversion, all of industry would get off to an equal start. Last week it followed up these comforting words with comforting action. It set aside top priorities for some $102,000,000 in machine tools and new construction for all of the 72 major industries which had converted their facilities to war work.

This put the makers of pianos & piccolos on the same footing as Detroit’s automakers, who have long hoped for special reconversion favors. It disappointed the automen, but it pleased those who had feared that WPB planned to shift the U.S. back to peace cautiously, industry by industry, and thus penalize some.

Out with CMP. By September, WPB hopes to have industry shifted from producing for a two-front to a one-front war. By then, it hopes that most materials will be so plentiful that it can drop the Controlled Materials Plan completely. All that industry will have to worry about will be a simple priority system for war orders and essential civilian production.

WPB expects to keep an eye on materials through a check on inventories, thus nip any hoarding. Actually, there may be little reason to hoard. Last week, steelmen told WPB: war-expanded steel plants are now big enough to supply all the steel needed for the Japanese war and still have left more than the whole civilian economy used before Pearl Harbor.

Manpower controls will also go by the board as the labor pool fills up. Within 30 days Manpower Boss Paul V. McNutt tentatively plans to suspend most of his job controls. WPB estimates that within six months 1,500,000 men will be released from war plants, plus a net gain of 500,000 from military releases.

Steady Prices. At first, OPA Boss Chester Bowles will move slowly. In the first few months, ceilings will be eliminated only on materials like aluminum, magnesium, etc., where supply will be ample. For at least six months, few ceilings on consumers’ goods will be abandoned. Reason: unless production expands far more rapidly than now scheduled, there will still be too many shortages.

Rationing will be slapped on many a new civilian product, will be lifted only when it is plentiful. Example: autos will be rationed until they are coming off the lines at a 100,000 a month clip.

OPA Boss Bowles has still not made up his mind how much the automen, and the makers of new products, will be allowed to charge the public. But he is sure of one thing: the price will be set, not on the high cost of the first few articles, but on the much lower cost of eventual mass production.