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Prlce fixing . Further inflation of cominodlty prices will be 

 practically impossible if the program initiated by the Office of Price 

 Administration is carried through in connection with all classes of 

 goods and services. There is still one loophole, however, and that is 

 the fact that wages have not been definitely fixed, and according to the 

 law as it still stands, prices of farm products are tied to parity. That 

 means that prices of farm products are, to a limited extent, tied to 

 wage levels. 



On the average, farm prices are 99 '9^"^ cent of parity, but 

 there is a very wide variation between the different commodities. For 

 example as of April 15 the parity price of soybeans was ?1.43 on the 

 basis of present methods of figuring parity for that particular crop. 

 As a result of the effort to bring prices of farm products more nearly 

 into line with parity, May soybeans dropped almost four cents a bushel 

 Thursday. Another commodity that is far above parity is beef cattle. 

 However, the new price regulations of the Office of Price Administration 

 set the ceiling price on products not at ppjrity or 110 per cent of parity, 

 but at March levels. The recent price of beef cattle has been above the 

 price ceilings either at March, 19^2, levels or at the level specified 

 in the earlier legislation affecting prices of farm products. The 

 grains, including both wheat and corn, are considerably below parity and 

 hence should not be greatly affected by this week's price legislation. 

 The price of corn is more likely to be affected by any reductions in the 

 price of beef, the present price limits on pork and the policies of the 

 Commodity Credit Corporation with respect to sales of government owned 

 grain for feed. 



On the whole the Administration's plan for preventing inflation 

 should be a great improvement over the temporizing of recent months. With 

 any over-^all plan there are bound to be enormous inequities develop, and 



