MEDFORD MAIL TRIBUNE. MEDFORD. OREGON
WEDNESDAY. OCTOBER 3, 1962
Your Money's
Worth
By SYLVIA PORTER
Copyright, Hall Syndicate, Inc.
j. OUR CHANGING SPENDING PATTERN
j When you buy an automobile, you buy a big chunk of
t materials ranging from steel to textiles and a big chunk of
labor, too. Your purchase makes jobs and paychecks for the
workers producing the raw materials. It makes jobs and
paychecks for the workers putting the materials together
to create a car. It makes jobs and paychecks for all involved
in selling and delivering that automobile to you.
When you take your car to the garage for repairs, even
J the most expensive, you buy the service of a man who
needs only a relatively few tools and a mechanic's training
1 to do your auto repair job. Your purchase makes jobs and
paychecks for those manufacturing his tools and training him
j and, of course, it keeps the garage going. But there is
simply no comparison between the impact on our economy
of your purchase of a big-ticket durable product and a big
ticket service.
Your buying of durable goods gives our economy a
much greater spur than ysur buying of even the most
coitly service. This holds whether the comparison is be
i tween your spending of $1,000 for your child's tuition or
" medical care or your spending of $1,000 for new kitchen
( appliances or furniture.
f Overall, we, as consumers, are buying more goods, dur
able and nondurable, and more services than ever before.
We're spending at a rate of $355 billion a year today, $17
billion over 1961.
But if you're typical of millions of us, the percentage
of each dollar you're spending for service has skyrocketed
while the percentage of each dollar you're spending for
goods has fallen substantially.
At the same time, the price of just about every service !
you buy has climbed steadily month after month while prices
of many goods you buy have held in a remarkably stable '
range or declined.
Here in this dramatically changed pattern of our spend
ing lies one key explanation for our sluggish rate of growth
in recent years. I
Or putting it simply, because we're spending so much
more on services which tend to stabilize our economy rather
than spur it and spending so much less on goods which
would give our economy a great stimulant, the whole
economy has flattened out.
The proof is all around us. To give just a few revealing
figures.
Item: Of each dollar we had to spend at World War It's
end, we spent 68.5 cents for goods, 31.5 cents for services. By
1955, the division was 64 cents for goods, 36 cents for
services. By 1960, the split was 59.9 cents for goods, 40.1
cents for services. Today, the total of each dollar we're spend
ing on goods is down to 58.8 cents, the total we're spending
on services is up to 41.2 cents.
In short, sellers of services have "taken away" from
producers of goods almost 10 cents of each dollar a bite
which tells a lot about the employment lag, idle capacity
and fierce competition for our dollar In industries across
the land.
Item: The cost of the services we have been buying on
an ever-widening front has been soaring, meanwhile. During
the last decade, prices of services went up twice as fast
as prices of goods. Between the late 1940s and mid-1961, the
general consumer price index rose 27 per cent but the prices
of services in that index jumped 52 per cent. Although the
upsurge in service costs is slowing now and in August, i
medical costs did not show a monthly rise for the first time
since June, 1954, the trend is still painfully clear. A full ;
70 per cent of the 1.2 per cent rise in the consumer price
index in the past 12 months is due to increases in service
prices medical costs, repair services, personal care, etc.
Item: A breakdown of our spending for goods and serv
ices underlines the shifting pattern. The amount of each
dollar we spend going to more and more expensive medical
care has risen from 3.8 cents in 1950 to 5.1 cents while the
amount we spend on appliances has fallen from 2 cents to
under Hi cents. The amount of each dollar we spend on aulos
and auto accessories has declined from 7.1 cents in 1955 to
5.1 cents while the amount we spend on private education
has increased from under a penny to Hi cents.
The basic point demands repeating: our rising spending
on services helps stabilize our economy but it doesn't spur
It as rising spending on goods would. We must curb the
rise in service costs. We must adopt policies and programs
to expand consumer spending on goods.
English Teachers To Meet Saturday
Members of the Southern
Oregon Regional conference,
Oregon Chapter of the Nation
al Council of Teachers of Eng
lish, will hold their annual
conference Saturday, Oct. 6, at
Medford High school.
The event is co-sponsored
by the county school offices
n( Jackson, Josephine, Klam
ath, Coos, Curry, Douglas,
Lake, and Harney counties
and Medford High school. It
is expected to attract English
teachers from northern Cali
fornia, particularly Siskiyou
and Del Norte counties, ac
cording to James J. Backen,
head of the Medford High
school English department.
Keynote speaker for the
conference will be Dr. Albert
Kitzhakcr, University of Ore
gon professor, whose topic
will be "Trends in English."
Other program participants
Include Miss Josephine Kirt
ley, Medford High vice princi
pal; Bill Ruck, Oregon Pro
gram director, Medford school
district; Florence Allen.
Southern Orcffon colleee: Ler
Mahoney, state department of j
education; Sister Marian Fran
ces. St. Francis High school,
Eugene; Dr. Richard Gilkey, !
director, Jackson county cur-'
riculum center; Dr. Richard i
Byrns, SOC; Backen. head.
English department, MHS;
Jeanc Hastie. SOC: Verne
Wolthoff. publications direct
or, MHS; Eleanor Baker, head,
English department. Mars h
field High school; and Bill
Russell, head, English de
partment. Crater High school.
Concluding the program
will be an evaluation session
in the afternoon.
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