Books in Brief

The Management of Prosperity, by Arthur F. Burns (Columbia, $3.50). These three lectures, delivered late last year at the Carnegie Institute of Technology, provide a complacent description of our recent economic growth, a greatly useful discourse upon unemployment, and an elderstatesmanlike looking-for- ward-with-hope-but-on-the- other-hand. Throughout this extremely short text the former chairman of Eisenhower’s Council of Economic Advisers confounds inflation with its manifestation, price rises; all but ignores the role played by exported inflation in mitigating the initial effects of domestic inflation; and does ignore the problem of monopoly unionism. Even so, I’d recommend an acquaintance with the text if only for the lecture on unemployment, in which Burns goes more deeply into the problem than any but the professional would care to go on his own. There is a fine episode on the minimum wage, culminating in this season’s most spectacular forecast: “In the absence of any change in the general state of the economy, another increase of twenty-five cents in the minimum wage would be likely to raise the unemployment rate of nonwhite teenagers by as much as eight percentage points.” By the way, did you know that the minimum wage was 40¢ in 1950? W. F. RICKENBACKER

Sundstrand-Denver found that seal rings in their Sundyne centrifugal process pumps on a job handling liquid propane would wear out in about 1,500 hours, due to sulfide impurities in the propane. The propane was sealed at 120°F and at 180 psi with a pres- sure/velocity factor of 300,000. Early failure of the seals caused considerable expense in replacement costs and downtime.

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The Management of Prosperity, by Arthur F. Burns (Columbia, $3.50). These three lectures, delivered late last year at the Carnegie Institute of Technology, provide a complacent description of our recent economic growth, a greatly useful discourse upon unemployment, and an elderstatesmanlike looking-for- ward-with-hope-but-on-the- other-hand. Throughout this extremely short text the former chairman of Eisenhower’s Council of Economic Advisers confounds inflation with its manifestation, price rises; all but ignores the role played by exported inflation in mitigating the initial effects of domestic inflation; and does ignore the problem of monopoly unionism. Even so, I’d recommend an acquaintance with the text if only for the lecture on unemployment, in which Burns goes more deeply into the problem than any but the professional would care to go on his own. There is a fine episode on the minimum wage, culminating in this season’s most spectacular forecast: “In the absence of any change in the general state of the economy, another increase of twenty-five cents in the minimum wage would be likely to raise the unemployment rate of nonwhite teenagers by as much as eight percentage points.” By the way, did you know that the minimum wage was 40¢ in 1950? W. F. RICKENBACKER

Sundstrand-Denver found that seal rings in their Sundyne centrifugal process pumps on a job handling liquid propane would wear out in about 1,500 hours, due to sulfide impurities in the propane. The propane was sealed at 120°F and at 180 psi with a pres- sure/velocity factor of 300,000. Early failure of the seals caused considerable expense in replacement costs and downtime.