Forum, Oct. 14, 1974

Wins and Losses at Ford's Summit

To the Editors:

Most of the speakers at the recent economic summit seemed to be at the wrong meeting. Rather than participating in a war against inflation, they sounded like conscientious objectors seeking a pardon from the battle. The various groups seemed more concerned about protecting themselves against the effects of inflation. Those few who did recognize the need for belt tightening generally advocated tightening the other fellow's belt.

Yet the summit will make a difference. It showed that inflation, though the nation's primary economic concern, is not the only one. Policy is going to have to be broader than merely banging the drum for the "oldtime religion" of monetary and fiscal restraint. Though the battle against inflation will not be abandoned, economic policy will likely be taking on added dimensions, notably those dealing with unemployment, supply bottlenecks and the problems of the poor. Murray L. Weidenbaum Professor of Economics Washington University St. Louis The writer was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for economic policy during the Nixon Administration.

The summit, at this moment, must be reckoned a success in one major dimension: it exposed President Ford to a much wider range of views on the functioning of our economy than he was likely to get from his official advisers. Thus it represents a welcome opening of the White House after five years of a President who shunned outside views.

The summit also served to indicate to the public the complexity of the current inflation and the lack of agreement on feasible solutions, even among experts. These are important pluses. Beyond that, much depends on how President Ford weighs conflicting advice and melds it into a program. He may have missed an opportunity in pre-summit meetings to enlist the cooperation of labor and business in moderating wage settlements in exchange for Government agreement to reduce taxes. The major task before us is to prevent the commodity price inflation of the past two years from getting built into wages. If that happens, we will have inflation for a long time. To avoid it we need guidelines on wages, plus some tax support to low-and middle-income families to make the guidelines acceptable. I hope the President got this message. Richard Cooper Professor of International Economics Yale University New Haven, Conn.

Does no one else find the statement strange that the one thing we cannot use to bring inflation under control is controls? Thank God the fire department does not use such logic. J.G. Sweeny Atlanta

You say that there are jokes about Philosopher Ayn Rand's becoming the Ford Administration's primary behind-the-scenes adviser now that her friend Alan Greenspan heads the President's Council of Economic Advisers. If previous Administrations had taken Rand's advice to stop interfering in the capitalist system, the U.S. wouldn't be in its present economic mess. Woolsey Teller Indianapolis

The way and wherefore of Greenspan's sympathy for Wall Street brokers became clear when I read of his fascination with Ayn Rand's Objectivism. Certainly it is understandable that his concern would lie with captains of finance rather than with those of us unable to accumulate anything of our own.