US Presidency
1937

Let me give you an example: If we Americans were foolish enough to run every shoe factory twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, we would soon have more shoes than the Nation could possibly buy a surplus of shoes so great that it would have to be destroyed, or given away, or sold at prices far below the cost of production. That simple ( law ) illustration, that simple law of supply and demand equally affects the price of all our major crops. You and I have heard big manufacturers talk about control of production by the farmer as an indefensible economy of scarcity, as they call it. And yet these same manufacturers never hesitate to shut down their own huge plants, throw men out of work, and cut down the purchasing power of the whole community ( communities ) whenever they think that they must adjust their production to an oversupply of the goods they make. When it is their baby who has the measles, they call it not an economy of scarcity but sound business judgment.