"The economy," said the President last week, "is in effect taking a breather after a long surge of rising effort of all kinds that have produced almost a miraculous upsurge in productivity and prosperity of America." The state of business last week: mixed. The reason: the U.S.'s sharp campaign to kill inflation was beginning to take hold, beginning to hurt.
That well-publicized public thermometer, the stock market, sank at week's end with the chill caused by the news that railroad freight-car loadingsa key index of business activitywere down from last year's levels (see BUSINESS). Manufacturers' sales for September were...