Business: The No. 1 Phrase

The No. 1 phrase now used in every economic argument is "administered prices." It crops up in union charges that business fails to cut prices in response to slackened demand, instead reduces volume and employment. It turns up in management charges that unions have set wages so high that wages, in effect, administer prices, keeping them high. Like an insistent musical theme, the phrase recurs in high-level talk that the Government may have to restore wage and price controls to keep down inflation. Where did the phrase originate? What does it mean?

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