A long, hard look at high prices.(Have You Heard?)

It's a challenge to find anyone who's not pondering how to spend less, or at least not more, as the costs of eating and driving and even just keeping your home at a comfortable temperature go up. This isn't new to CONSUMER REPORTS; we've always focused on them.

Leading an organization with such a rich history of helping consumers prompts me to draw from the past as well as the present. So I checked out the early years of CR for advice on consumer spending in a tough economy.

Cold enough for you? Our report on "mechanical refrigerators" in 1936 noted that the latest gizmos--Adjusto-Shelf, Eject-O-Cube, and Touch-A-Bar--had nothing to do with the essential functions of a fridge. Nor did the then-high-tech look called "streamlining," which we said "has no functional value unless, as someone has suggested, one contemplates throwing the box out of the window."

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Streamlining is hot again in pricey built-in refrigerators, and as you'll see on page 31, it's just as useless; interior space is being sacrificed for good looks.

Reliable enough for you? In 1940 we dissected the average phone bill, probably the first time consumers got that breakdown. Users shelled out an average $64 a year. A slice of that went to maintenance, partly for the handset, or "French phone," which Bell had introduced in 1927.

Great idea, poor execution. The European model had worked fine for 45 years, but ...