TRADE: Boomerang

That even a good Government order can boomerang was all too evident last week: a what-will-come-next buying wave skyrocketed department-store sales to 45% above 1942 in the first week after OPA’s shoe-rationing order (TIME, Feb. 15). Despite Government assurances that rationing of other clothing was not in the cards, customers bought up retail clothing stocks as if they were the last they would ever see. The U.S. public had not yet learned that the best way to avoid rationing is to avoid overbuying in the first place.