Nixon, Simon & Dunlop on Economic policy and Wage and price controls

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What were you trying to say?

But I think the question that I want to raise here, and the question I want to raise is the one that you heard, which it will be inevitable now that in view of the numbers that came out yesterday,

do we have enough teeth?

Are we using them?

Are we short of them?

And are we going to have to resort?

My guess is, you know, in a situation like this, there will be a lot of pressure to move on some of these things, which would probably be wrong.

I should probably be wrong, because probably it wouldn't work, but all that.

The only factor that I pray is that I...

is that I think we're doing the right thing.

I think if we didn't have the problem of political pressure in hand, that we would see this shape.

The thing that I fear is that the labor demand

may blow the lid on everything due to the fact that they'll be able to point to wholesale price rather than price names.

So if that is the case, then the equine, let me say from a political standpoint, we're going to have a limit.

But from the standpoint, but if some, and not the equine, can't agree at this point,

dealing with the wage, with the price side, would tend to moderate some of the wage things, then it's worth trying.

That's the way I would look at it.

Now, that's the layman's view.

I would not... Now, the other thing is to let go and hang on and so forth.

Then, I wonder if the meaning, etc., etc.,

with very good reason to say, you know, we have more and more, and, you know, and the little things go up and up, and eventually we have to oppose the reason and go through the agony.

So, uh, why don't we hear from you first, sir, about this, uh, new state of your views?

Remember how you raised this the other time, yeah?

We haven't had these last numbers.

That's right.

Well, Mr. President, John would know much better what, what will influence the, uh,

the reaction of the labor people, I think that...

I'm very doubtful that the gimmick really will affect their behavior, but I think they understand it pretty well, and they will know if we do something that's purely...

Supposedly, Greece, you know, I may say, for the Greece, or maybe just Greece, probably, you know, that's what they're...

Supposedly...

Well, that's, I guess, what I would consider to be quite a lot of what I get with that.

That's true.

That's a real act.

And I think that would cross some serious problems that we talked about last year.

We think that it would, even in a kind of moderate period, have, again, have some effect on food supply.

I think that you would get that with all kinds of beef, or let's say a price later, in other words, a higher price.

I feel more confident about that than about anything else in the crisis.

The supplies will be forthcoming, and the food prices at the farm level will be declined.

After we have another half of the second quarter, our estimates that we have, based on quite a lot of work that went on, that in the first quarter, food prices at retail were going down to 315%.

In the second quarter, that's rated 9%.

And in the third quarter, that's zero.

And the fourth quarter, it's going to happen.

So the question is, can we get you down to your number?

Provided that the other thing that I was surprised at was the seeding, not the figure for food, which I expected, but the figure for the number of industrials, the non-food things, which at one point I could figure that out.

The story, and your analysis of it, I read these figures.

And your paper said that while it was referred to, you know, the bulge after Phase 2, is that an effect?

Well, there's a lot of that.

Half of it, Dr. Ellsworth, the petroleum product, has lumbered, and we have now done something.

If I can interrupt you there, John, when I saw that petroleum thing, you know, I wondered what that does to our energy.

Thank you.

Well, it's a fair question, and I think what we have to look at really is the long haul.

When we come out with a policy statement, what is that going to do?

And that's the thing we'll be getting.

We have a Tuesday on the plan.

Before anything comes to you for a final decision, we'll have this all factored in.

As I told you, I think on the whole energy thing, John, that we also might say this about the journey.

That might be a very useful one to have a candidate in there.

All right.

It is so big.

In other words, have a considerable number.

In other words, something like we did before.

Remember, we're based on one.

We've got a big table there.

We can sit there and we can all talk in confidence.

All day saying, I want to be there all day.

What do you think?

I need to be fine.

But when we're ready, right?

Everybody gets there, and they all sit and concentrate on each other.

I would say when George gets back, oh, yes, when John gets back on that, the other thing is that I do still want to be sure that you bring the outside interest in.

I have done a great deal of that.

Going through the line at one of those dinners last night was one of them.

One oil man, who said, will he talk to you or not?

He said, I don't think you're getting enough of the private sector here.

The one that was just back from Libya.

I talked to two there.

One was just on turn from the Mideast.

He said, you're not getting enough.

And I said, well, we're helping him with the common degrees on the other side.

I just got a stack of stuff from common.

Well, I told him there was no question about it.

We do have adequate...

Do we do have adequate input from the private sector?

I believe we do.

We have input from the API, which is their main lobbying group.

We have colleagues.

We have a private, a small independent refiner from the Midwest.

We have Max Fisher.

We're getting input from all these people.

I think he was just complaining that he wasn't in.

Well, every major oil company, independent refineries,

last month.

They've been just coming in live, obviously, through a blacklight invitation and an error request.

Okay.

I've got an answer to all of that.

I just want to say we're okay.

All right.

Now, where do you go?

What will labor do in this trial?

It seems to me that the problem is that it's only the food price increases that really concern George Meade in this sense.

I mean,

Eventually, of course, the negotiations have some kind of cause for living escalators, and at all costs, it doesn't end with those.

But the emotional element, the dramatic element, the thing that has stirred the pothole up is the food price situation.

And the thing that has caused George to, meaning to, do that is to, what he said on the case, is that he recognizes

so the problem of doing something I think looks to me like this that we we could do a number of measures to move back in the direction of phase two if you wanted to we could do some more industries along the lines that were the only action that

and taking a hard look at industries like cigarettes, cans, free water.

The lumber problem is one which is very serious.

But it seems to me that we're not going to go on the price side of that thing until we can work out some of the things the Forest Service has got to do and the people in Ontario to expand output.

And I've been meeting with Mr. Buss

to try to get a constructive program there.

But from the labor point of view, the most serious problem, the emotional problem, is the food crisis situation.

And I know we're trying to do every measure we know to increase food outcomes, but those effects are prices that are not down the way.

So there's no doubt that

prices under control would be very, very well received.

I think the question is whether you do any good or you aren't good.

That's an issue.

Now, there's one other adjustment process.

We have a meeting of our Labor Management Advisory Committee in about two weeks, I guess, again.

And there are a number of ways that

We've got to get that information across to the

to the country and to our union fellows, because they don't believe it.

They are operating at a stage where everything is going up, and all they do is to project that forward, and they're not ending right.

And it is important, I think, to put some credibility or some information out that this thing really will turn about health.

But of course, the food processing is a hard one.

Let me put it this way.

Thank you.

If, to the extent you find symbolic things that will not be dead to them, I think there might be, as the law of earth says, I think the chance to show, it's basically the chance to bury them.

Yes.

It may tend to reassure.

And I also agree with the other point about making the program a little more efficient.

We could find a few more cases, a few more in the streets.

that people can stand closely, have public hearings, and maybe put them back under control, or it might have a very good explanation of why we didn't do it.

I think we've got to go to the public response.

Absolutely.

And I was just thinking about how we tell this food story.

We had been discussing it with the Council of the Council, the Secretary of the Council, and he was making a speech about it.

But I think to me that maybe we ought to take on some of more

For a white, maybe we should write something like a white paper on the food problem.

You see the difficulty with, the difficulty with bloodstream.

And he is, as he should be, the representative of agriculture.

And no matter how he states it, he always gets that into his speech.

That's the way to tell us.

And that won't do.

And let us face it as far as the farmers are concerned.

They're doing damn well.

And the meat packers are doing well, the cattle growers are doing well, and the chicken farmers are doing well.

Anyway, the part is that, let's face it, anything that seems to put the boot to the farmer and the processor, I know that the middleman does a fine on just a good ratio.

And I know, too, that the margins of change stores are terrible because it's so very competitive.

But what I'm getting at is tilt your rhetoric.

And what you do here, I would urge you to tilt it in a way that it's away from the market.

If you reach out, I don't think we have to be buttering up the agriculture community.

They're doing very well.

And they'll continue to do well regardless of what you do because there is...

Yes, but it's very, one of the things we've got in front of our minds is how you get those price actions out of agriculture each week is a series of battles over leavens.

Is it resistance?

But primarily, or is it bureaucracy?

I don't know.

Secretary goes along reluctantly, but then it has to be implemented by some people who, knowing that he's not characterizing about it, have moved very slowly and fighting at every ditch.

Now, if you need to get that bureaucracy in, then I'll talk.

That has to be done.

We're going to have to talk.

That bureaucracy is going to be around.

Mr. President, the last three months we've worked on emptying bins, and it's gotten lots of publicity.

And I have personally monitored the auction.

I get a different excuse every time.

Now, Dan, we haven't done that.

Oh, we've sold about $113 million or $150 million.

That's not fair.

Well, I'll tell you what we'll do.

Just for openness.

Unless you feel that you're talking to the right people, you're wrong, because

Anything we should do is to empty the bins.

Good God, would you agree with her?

I mean, that's the question.

Do you think I agree with that?

All right, get them in.

They're going to empty those bins, and I want to report.

As a matter of fact, if you need something, write it directly and tell them I want to report every 24 hours and get out that day.

Because they have got to shape up.

He's doing great.

He's the great friend of the farmers.

Now he's got to pay all that money out of the bank a little.

We all have to.

They're going to blame the railroads and those other things.

They've got to answer for the railroads.

A shortage of power.

The export to Russia is just...

It's not there.

It's a partial excuse that that can be mitigated.

You see, that's an action that speaks well.

You can say, well, we're pushing the ground to the bins and so forth and so on.

I really feel that... What do you think, John?

I'd be glad to arrange something where we get them all over and sit them down on the Roosevelt Railroad and pound away at them if you want.

I don't know how.

Yeah.

We've just got to say we're not going to tolerate any more excuses on this.

Now let's get going.

When everybody on this railroad car is getting a secretary of transportation and telling them to get going, I don't think that's going to affect the meeting, which we've made in all the progress.

That's why you came, too.

And George Paul, after the January time the PR came out, there we got a lot of decisions made.

But then, all right, Monday, that's where Monday to get these people in.

I'll tell you the problems, John.

Cast the characters.

As a matter of fact, if you want, put in the cost of living council, not other people.

Have them get the act done.

We'll just rip right into it.

But I need to have a talking paper, make a presentation, give me a talking paper, and I'll lay it out there.

It'll be fairly cold.

And that's just by asking for the report.

We'll get it done.

Sometimes this kind of stuff, you know, we all, you know, sometimes it helps us.

And it certainly helps the public attitude to think we're trying to do something, and we're fighting the problem, rather than just having to get out and say, well, things are going to be better.

We're sorry.

There's a world shortage of food.

After all, food is the slowest percentage in the United States.

We all know that.

And anybody in the American world who works less hours for more food than they work in the world, that's all well and great.

But that doesn't help pay the goddamn grocery bill.

We all know that.

Right?

Yes, sir.

Well, I would, if I could try to worry more about it, I would say this, that the, I get the message on the matters that, of course, many councils can do, and there are some things that we can do more visibly and further, and perhaps, you know,

But it does seem to me that the agricultural thing, and I've been trying to get along with Earl, getting acquainted with him, or visiting with him longer, particularly.

But it does seem to me that this munging, or some meaning of the sort you talk about, the grain is a great idea.

But my experience is that it's that way across the board, the cheese thing.

I'd like to get, let's have a good meeting, maybe.

We're not moving into the market.

The prices are just going out of sight.

We're sitting on all kinds of federal longer and not moving in.

And we are.

Yes, sir.

Why?

I will, because they're bureaucratically constipated.

What about this?

Now, there's one thing, or maybe I should ask, but what about these silly stockpiles in the event that we have on everything in the event of war?

Now, I have told everybody around here that there is not going to be that kind of war.

The stockpiles won't be the next.

It's a clean-up-the-crack mandate.

I think that's been done.

Okay, that's why this stockpile thing is a joke.

It really is a joke.

Everybody's going to tell you, look, unless we build bomb shelters and all the rest, all this stockpile, the United States does not have that kind of policy.

Forget the stockpile thing.

Get that stockpile sold.

Now, by God, let's get it sold.

And so now I'm linking this up.

All right, as you know, we've never had any cooperation because the bureaucracy wants to keep the stock market.

The Congress wants to.

The best interests want to because they want to hold up the price of the copper and all the rest of it.

I don't want to hold up the part that takes legislation.

Well, I'm trying to get legislation.

I'm a congressman.

All right, well, anything that we can do without legislation, let's do it.

The stock market is ridiculous.

It's absolutely ridiculous.

I know all the arguments on the other side.

National security no longer requires or can justify these huge stockpiles.

It cannot be done.

Now, let's get going on that.

And that's one of the things, too, about this, by the way, I'm not sure.

I must say, I don't know how long it would be, a couple of years ago, because we had such, I'm sure, a team of our own and our producers here, but now it's turned around.

Well, we've got to have a production here because of this or that or the other thing.

We might have to supply it off here and there.

Oh, well, we can't produce enough.

So you've got to open it up.

We've got to get it every place we can.

Use up their stocks, not just our own.

But you see, the national security thing is always the dodge by people who don't want to sell a stockpile for other reasons because it will depress the prices.

If you're down, I say it will.

And I want to depress them.

John, who's going to follow through?

Who can help?

Mr. President, I'm going to suggest that you want to get by all of your radical ideas, just move the selling process, the implementation of the selling to another department.

Why not?

Say, I bought them.

I do.

Really?

I'm not an expert.

No, really, why not?

Why shouldn't it be?

Well, you can always think about it.

We'll go on at the end of the day.

But Herb, this has always been a joke.

Well, he's studying the extension of the subsidy on the rest of the week.

All right.

Now, look, John, you get that agency, whatever it is, to talk to her all day Saturday and Sunday and pay over time, whatever it is you do.

And not a bunch of, not a bunch of, not a snow job.

We've got to get going on.

I mean, anything in stockpiling can help.

Anything.

I understand we don't have any food in stockpiling.

We don't have much.

Well, we have 120 million bushels of meat.

Oh, yeah.

But we went through the last, the last, the last, the last two weeks, we're going to sell the, the Army surplus stock, or the Defense Department surplus stock.

I suppose we did that right now.

Yeah.

They were not required in a certain way.

That's right.

They need to be sure.

I'll send you money to go over to the Pentagon and around there.

There's a hell of a lot of meat and biscuits and other stuff.

So if I pay you money, now Richardson's a good man.

Or whether you get that percent.

You tell him it's his ass unless he gets that stuff.

Okay?

Use those words if he understands that.

Okay?

All right.

People love it.

But they don't eat it.

They do not eat it.

They all hoard.

Government hoarders mine.

It's hard to budget piece of land out to another.

They don't eat.

They hoard stockpiles.

They don't eat everything else.

And it's wrong.

It's wrong.

And we have a situation where you've got these prices

You may want to put something in the stockpile in order to see if the market is held up again.

But right now, good management requires a compound, right?

I don't find it like the artist would have the excellent.

Perfect.

Okay.

Well, for Monday, if we get hit back with cultural stocks and forest fires, is there anything else that we could hit that's good?

Or maybe that's not the right plan.

I think the word will get around if we get one set of bureaucrats in and we jump on them hard.

That will have a sedentary effect on our quarters.

Do you think of anything else, sir?

Well, we will proceed with some of these other factors.

With all the types of hearing, we probably won't do the hearing for all of them.

Sure.

We'll put those to be done early.

We'll be ready to cooperate with you.

I spoke to George before he left about this, and he said, well, he'll be back in two weeks if we have a meeting.

But I'm used to it.

Why wait two weeks?

We're all virtually... And he said he would be here, so that's why I said, all right, let's get it done.

All right, ready to go.

Why can't Ash go follow us on this?

He's got a big office.

He really has, and he'd love to do it.

All right, give him some assignment on it.

I don't have any national security orders.

I'll take care of that.

Fair enough.

Well, it's something, as I said, that we would not be concerned about except for this.

I think it's going to work out a great time.

It's the fact that they don't want you to be confronted with some unconscionable wage demands.

Oh, that's a problem.

And I think that on a food product, probably it never counts.

Also, if I had to remember what it's making me, I would try to always say it.

We're catching it from the mountain.

It's not very true, I understand.

That's a track marker, isn't it?

I think it was.

Yes, it was.

Well, you see, we've got a special problem there.

It's very close to the mountain.

Or should I say, it's very much in their pocket.

As a result, I'm over and out of speed.

I'm sure I can see Congress in a great space on this East 4th.

He raised hell for me.

I thought he was caught.

So, that's just a matter.

But I'm prepared to take him on.

I will say for the cops.

After this, I was, we had a meeting in Salt, and I was constantly in Salt.

Oh, it's a little complicated.

You want to quit the job.

All right, good.

Good to see you.

All right.

I know you're working very, very hard.

Well, everybody take off and strap down.

Good.

Thank you, sir.

Sir, we thought you would be able to adapt to the sun.

There you go.

I have to go.

Yes, Henry, we did.

You're coming.

All right.

Yes, he's here.

All right.

Joseph, down to you.

The last Wednesday, the President was made aware of the illness.

He was asked to speak on his behalf.

The President wants to express his personal appreciation to the government of the People's Republic of China for this decision and for this action.

Then we'll be released on the border.

We'll be able to publicate China and Hong Kong on March 12th.

And then you said that... Well, then I'm...

In addition... Then I'm going to split this down.

Rob says it was a wallbanger.

Oh.

Yeah.

Did you do it on... Who did have the...

I don't know.

I don't think so.

Thank you.

Nixon, Simon & Dunlop on Economic policy and Wage and price controls

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Also recorded on March 9, 1973

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