THE ADMINISTRATION: A Little Tinkering

According to many an economic handyman in Washington, a little tinkering will make the old machinery of capitalism run a lot better. In 1942, Washington handymen began tinkering with meatpacking:

The Government froze meat prices. Meat supplies thereupon flowed to cities where prices happened to be highest. The Government set "uniform ceilings."

Meat packers found themselves jammed between the ceiling and the rising cost of meat on the hoof. A black market sprang up. The Government tried to fix that by giving the slaughterers' subsidies. Then it put a ceiling on livestock. Cattle raisers bemoaned high feed costs. So the Government...

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