Biting their nails like so many prospective fathers, businessmen have waited for third-quarter earnings of the "reconversion" quarter. Only then would they know what cutbacks and the shift to peacetime production had done to profits. Last week, as the first batch of reports came out, the nail-biting stopped.
There were few catastrophes, chiefly because the drop in gross income after V-J day was often balanced by the drop in taxes. And many a company, notably those selling consumer goods, was still coasting along on the momentum of the war boom. But if earnings reports were reasonably cheery, they were also often...
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