In its annual report last week, General Motors showed the drastic effects on it of the defense program. Though 1951 sales of the world's biggest manufacturing corporation were off only 1% to $7.4 billion, G.M. reported that its net profit was down 39% to $506 million. Reasons for the drop were higher taxes plus curtailed civilian output, higher costs while car prices were frozen, and a bigger volume of lower-profit defense work. G.M., which has long been in the billion-dollar class in sales, is also in a billion-dollar class of another sort. Last year its tax bill came to...
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