GENERAL MOTORS will shoot for an even bigger share of the auto market in 1956 despite antimonopoly rumblings from the Justice Department. With 50% of U.S. auto sales thus far in 1955, G.M. is boosting prices on 1956 models less than its competitors, has upped Pontiac, Buick, Oldsmobile and Cadillac between 2% and 5% v. increases of 3% to 8% for competing Ford and Chrysler models.

ELECTIONEERING on the air should break all records in 1956. Just getting started, Republicans have already signed up for $2,000,000 worth of choice radio and TV time (v. $3,447,735 all told in 1952), largely for major speeches in the closing weeks.

SALE OF FORD STOCK will be announced within the next few weeks by the Ford Foundation, which is winding up final details with the Internal Revenue Service and the SEC. The stock offering could hardly come at a better time: the annual Ford Motor Co. balance sheet filed with the Commissioner of Corporations of Massachusetts, the only state where Ford is required to do so, shows that the company's 1954 surplus rose by $144.2 million, giving Ford estimated earnings of at least $40 per share (plus dividends) on the basis of 3,452,900 shares outstanding.

UNION HARASSING TACTICS during contract negotiations are legal, says the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington. The court set aside part of an order by the National Labor Relations Board in a case involving the C.I.O. Textile Workers and the Personal Products Corp., ruled that slowdowns and walkouts do not constitute a failure to bargain in good faith as required by the Taft-Hartley Act.

AIRLINE MERGER between Eastern and Colonial Airlines is finally set to go through. After blocking the move because Eastern put the cart before the horse by acquiring control of Colonial before getting CAB permission, a Board examiner has ruled that Eastern no longer controls Colonial, recommends that the two lines be allowed to merge.

NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS will provide some 23% of the world's electricity by 1980, predicts Samuel Untermeyer II, General Electric Co. reactor expert. Atomic power projects are increasing so fast that a recent $200 million Government program for peacetime industrial development of the atom by private companies "has been dwarfed before it is well under way."

CARPET MERGER being arranged between Mohawk Carpet Mills and Alexander Smith will result in the biggest U.S. carpet firm, topping both Bigelow-Sanford and James Lees. To cut costs and boost sagging sales, the two companies will form Masco Industries on a stock exchange of four shares of Masco for each share of Mohawk, one share of Alexander Smith for each share of Masco. Combined sales: $94 million v. $68 million for Bigelow-Sanford, $62 million for James Lees.

TIRE PRICES are going up for the fifth time in a year. Firestone, Goodyear, U.S. Rubber and others have boosted prices from 1 1/2% to 5% on all tube-type passenger, farm, and industrial tires. But most rubber producers will not increase their tubeless-tire prices.

JORDAN OIL LANDS will soon be opened up to U.S. oil prospectors. California Oilman Edwin Pauley has signed a 55-year agreement with the Jordan government which gives him the right to prospect one-third (12,659 sq. mi.) of the Middle Eastern nation in return for a 50-50 split on any future profits. If the deal is approved by Jordan's Parliament, Pauley will send in the first prospectors within two months.

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