Inflation (Contd.)

LIVING COSTS HIT NEW PEAK, cried the headlines. Up went the U.S. Consumer Price Index by one-half of 1% during the month of July to its eleventh successive monthly alltime high, adding up to a creeping 3.2% inflation since July 1956, a decline of 20.8% in the spending power of the dollar since 1947-49 (see BUSINESS.)

Up went doctors' bills, cosmetics, TV repairs, outweighing light " declines in clothing and household appliances. Up above all went the cost of food--bacon by an average 6/ a pound, round steak by 4-c- and frying chickens by 2-c-, eggs by 6-c- a dozen--to climb above its peak (before the farm recession) in August 1952.

Automatically, the new inflation will bring wage increases of one to 6-c- an hour for 1,300,000 workers in automobile, electrical, farm-equipment and trucking industries whose contracts are geared to wage-cost escalator clauses--thereby automatically creating more inflation.

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