N-vinyl-2-pyrrolidone
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Vinv Dvrro idone This versatile monomer offers broad possibilities in upgrading polymeric products used for: ADHESIVES COATINGS & FINISHES COSMETICS GLASS-LAMINATING PROTECTIVE COLLOIDS SYNTHETIC FIBERS TEXTILE SIZES For example, vinylpyrrolidone copolymerizes readily with other vinyl monomers and contributes dye receptivity, emulsification, strength, adhesiveness and hardness. It also acts as a pigment dispersant, as a solvent for varnishes and other coatings, and undergoes addition reactions with phenols. Vinylpyrrolidone is completely miscible in water and most organic solvents. For a sample and a 24-page technical bulletin, send us this coupon.
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Please send me Butenediol literature Π and sample Π Intended application: Name. Title Company» Address City
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.Zip CEN11-4
26 C&EN NOV. 4, 1968
BUSINESS PERSPECTIVES
By DAVID M. KIEFER, Senior Editor
The case of the unexpectedly obstinate superboom The uncertainties that persist in controlling—or even adequately fore casting—the course of the national economy have rarely been more ap parent. Five months ago, the Administration finally convinced a reluc tant Congress to raise taxes (and Congress convinced an equally reluctant Administration that it must cut spending) to cool off an obviously over heated boom and dampen the flames of inflation. Economists were quick to predict a throttling of economic activity. Growth of gross national product was expected to be halved in the third quarter, dropping to an annual rate of no more than $10 to $12 billion, and to fall even lower during this year's final three months. It hasn't worked out that way, of course. Any throttling to date has been barely—if at all—perceptible. By saving less and borrowing more, consumers continue to spend exuberantly. Unemployment, which many business analysts thought would be rising appreciably this fall, remains unusually low. Interest rates, which declined selectively following the tax rise, are once more working their way higher. Even the stock market has confounded the experts by climbing sharply. Mean while, price increases continue unabated. Preliminary estimates now indicate that gross national product during the third quarter actually soared by about $18 billion, 50% or more above what generally had been anticipated when the quarter be gan. That's a rate of growth that would have come as no surprise had no tax increase been enacted. It continues to contain an unhealthily large component of inflation. Four or five years ago, when the economy was moving steadily higher, some disciples of the "new economics" were bravely suggesting, at least off the record, that government policy might at last have been refined to a point where, if applied with finesse, it was capable of "fine tuning" economic trends; prosperity could then be maintained indefi nitely, and at no sacrifice of price stability. Fundamental to this task, to be sure, was the ability to assess thoroughly the potential effects any shift in policy might have on economic developments. The lesson to be learned from recent experience, perhaps, is that in practice, if not in principle, the U.S. economy may be less responsive to "fine tuning," at least during a period of excessive buoyancy, than many economists of the new school had assumed. One of the great difficulties, certainly, lies in the limited power on the part of government policy makers to take timely action. The Administration's program for fiscal restraint probably would have been much more effective had Con gress enacted a tax hike last year, when the President first suggested it. Clearly, too, economic analysis still is incapable of foretelling with adequate precision the consequences of policy changes. The nation has had little experience with using higher taxes to stem an economic boom in the absence of other strict controls. The impact of this year's surtax was overestimated by many economists in part because they did not foresee the nation's money supply growing as rapidly as it did last sum mer. Moreover, they did not expect consumers to offset so much of the burden of higher taxes by reducing their previously abnormally high rate of saving rather than by cuts in spending. In the final analysis, the Administration's effort to rein in the economy remains a great experiment—one applied under difficult condi tions. Its initial results have been disappointing. Nevertheless, the forecasts of slowdown made last summer, which now look so poor, may very well still prove correct—in scope if not in timing. Most economists remain convinced that economic expansion will ease markedly, if not this year then early in 1969. It would be imprudent and premature to write off the new economics too soon as an inadequate or inappropriate tool for resolving the practical economic problems facing the nation.
