March 28, 1983

New orders for domestic machine tools improved modestly in February from January, but were down sharply from those in February 1982, the National Machine Tool Builders' Association said yesterday. Economists consider statistics on machine tool orders, shipments and order backlogs as indicators of the domestic industry's production plans. But the steadily rising volume of imported machine tools has clouded this economic barometer.

New York City's buses break down four times as often as those on the streets of Los Angeles and Chicago, according to an audit released yesterday. But the Transit Authority responded that the three cities were not comparable. And, according to a second audit on bus air-conditioning, more of New York's buses are hot than cool during the summer months. The Transit Authority did not dispute this.

Hundreds of thousands of pounds of carp from Saginaw Bay in Michigan, samples of which have been found to contain residues of the chemical dioxin, are annually shipped to markets in New York, Chicago and other Northern cities. The Federal Food and Drug Administration says that it has not found reason to stop interstate trade in the fish. But the Michigan Department of Health has issued warnings that consumption of such fish should be limited. About a third of the fresh carp sold in New York City comes from Saginaw Bay, according to wholesalers. Asked whether the fish should be eaten, the New York City Health Commissioner said people should follow guidelines issued by the State Health Department on consumption of fresh-water fish caught in New York State. The guidelines say that no more than one meal a month of fresh-water fish should be eaten and that pregnant women, women of child-bearing age, nursing mothers and children under 15 years old should not eat such fish.

Integration came no more easily to the corner of this city known as Cramer Hill than to any other part of America. But over the last 10 or 15 years, come it did. Blacks moved beside Germans, Hispanic people next to the Irish, and though some people fought, others accepted, even befriended, their new neighbors. Now all that is being tested by the death of a little boy. Seven-year-old George DeCasonova was Hispanic. Gerald Gerlock, the young man who hit him with his car on March 15, and who grew up in this neighborhood, is white. Such a circumstance worried people enough in Cramer Hill. And then, last Friday, Camden County authorities charged that the accident was no accident, and that Mr. Gerlock had driven his car into the boy after telling passengers that ''the lives of minorities - blacks and Hispanics - had a certain point value to him,'' according to Dennis Wixted, an assistant county prosecutor.

Business profits, widely regarded as a ready barometer of the pulse of an economy, recently have been a cause for alarm, particularly among those who would like to see increased investment and growth. Most economists do, of course, look for sizable increases in profits as the economy recovers. But just how substantial the rise will be is a matter of much debate. What concerns some analysts is that corporate profitability appeared to be on a long downward slide even before the United States entered the recent recession and could be continuing despite the temporary upturn that comes with recovery. ''As I look at the data, it is very clear that in the United States, and in other industrial countries, there has been a remarkable decline in the return on capital,'' said William B. Nordhaus, a professor of economics at Yale University. He said 1982 was the year of lowest profitability, but noted that ''over the past 10 to 12 years, profits of American corporations have been markedly lower than they were in earlier years.''