Facts & Figures

OPA earmarked 101,536 new tires, 470,317 recaps for April release to salesmen, cabbies and defense workers. Other citizens can walk. If continued, present quotas would keep only 5,000,000 passenger autos on the road--one-sixth the U.S. total.

>After years of experiment, ingenious North American Aviation has found a low-carbon, low-alloy steel suited for airplane wings, stabilizers, rudders, elevators, flaps and ailerons. Combined with a plywood fuselage, it makes a top-notch combat trainer, weighing only 3% (150 lb.) more than an aluminum ship. The aluminum saved on 1,000 steel-plywood jobs would make 420 sleek pursuit ships.

>After a three-month study, OPA squashed a 9% cigaret price boost asked by big American Tobacco last December. Reasons: 1) tobacco-company profits last year were 21% of invested capital v. 17% in 1936-39; 2) current cigaret sales are 20% above 1941; 3) although production costs have risen 10-16%, they should be offset by greater volume.

>The world's biggest merchant--Sears, Roebuck & Co.--expects lower sales this year: 6% less in dollars (from 1941's record-smashing $915,000,000), 30% less in unit volume. Biggest expected loss is $100,000,000 in refrigerators, radios, washing machines and tires.

>Because frenzied buying had driven prices out of bounds, OPA slapped a "quick freeze" retail price ceiling on washers, ironers, radios, phonographs, stoves, typewriters.

>Proposed last week was the first reorganization plan for Income Tax Evader Howard Hopson's Associated Gas utility system since it went into bankruptcy two years ago. The plan: creation of a new grandfather holding company to liquidate the present parent companies and eventually distribute the shares of the operating companies to the security holders. Its proposer: Henry A. Stix, once Hopson's corporate accounting wizard, who turned State's evidence at Hopson's trial, and so impressed prosecutor Hugh Fulton that he helped get Stix several jobs with the Government.

>To encourage oil production in the Eastern States--and thus get more oil where it is needed most--OPA lifted Pennsylvania grade crude-oil prices 25-c- a bbl. (about 10%). To offset higher transportation costs (by rail instead of tanker), OPA also approved a 1/2-c--a-gallon boost in Atlantic coast retail gasoline prices (except in Florida and Georgia).

>This week, for the first time in 300 years, there is no regular ship service between New York City and New England ports. In 1937 the Fall River Line auctioned off its ships. Last December the boats of Eastern Steamship Line were requisitioned by the Government. Last Sunday the four-decked buff-funneled Arrow, last ship of the Colonial Line, ploughed down the Sound from Providence to New York, to follow its two sister ships (Comet & Meteor) into Government service.

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