RETAIL TRADE: Credit Suggestion

In Manhattan's glittery Hotel New Yorker last week, more than 1,000 members of the National Retail Credit Association argued for four days and adopted a resolution: to tighten the screws on installment credit.

Because of the rush to buy automobiles, refrigerators, radios, other installment goods, total retail credit outstanding has already soared far above 1940's record $4,036,000,000 (1929: $3,300,000,000). This not only threatens inflation. It also means that consumers are finding it easy to buy many goods (autos, e.g.) whose production must be curtailed for defense, and that many U.S. citizens, mortgaging their future now, will have less money to spend...

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