THE presidential proclamation of an unlimited emergency offers to every individual and firm in the Surplus Machinery Industry a stimulus for further effort to help in this tremendous job of reallocating machines for defense jobs. The willing acceptance by this Industry of the regulations already imposed is a conclusive demonstration that the dealers in Used and Rebuilt Equipment will be playing an important role in accelerating our armament program.
There is one point regarding “ceiling prices” on machine tools that the Office of Price Administration & Civilian Supply have asked us to emphasize, and that is that all manufacturers offering surplus machines for sale must abide by the same price regulations governing the used machinery dealers.
Since Washington put a halter on the “runaway” prices on used machine tools, conditions in the trade have been anything but satisfactory. Regulations in any industry usually work hardships on some, but the fellow whose “style” is being cramped seems to forget that this emergency is having a proportionate effect on every one of the 130,000,000 people in the United States.
The patriotic spirit in which these regulations have been accepted by the individuals in this field is typically American, but there are still some controversial subjects which have yet to be cleared up.
Due to the recently proposed ruling defining the term “rebuilt,” we are offering this month a few suggestions which may help to clear up some of these technicalities.
After all, there is only one definition for the word “rebuilt.” Either it is, or it isn’t. However, our analysis of it is being offered with the idea of helping straighten out the various interpretations.
We can lay down rules and regulations from now until doomsday, and you’ll always find some guy who figures out a loophole. The natural laws of supply and demand, retribution and ethics, takes care of about everything. If interpretations were not so flexible our courts and attorneys would spend half their time twiddling their thumbs. At any rate, this article is based upon an accumulation of some two decades of observation and association with the principal individuals in this Surplus Equipment Field. It was written with the hope of providing a satisfactory answer to a much maligned term, generally accepted as having only one answer—“Rebuilt from the ground up.”
