The Wallace miner. [volume] (Wallace, Idaho) 1907-current, 1918-02-14
War Time Purchasing Power of Money
stop the Production of Nonessentials
and Practice the Old Fashioned Thrift

ID FdSnlOMeQ / nflIt
have made the pleasure car for me
will make the truck for the army in
stead. That is the right way.
THE wrong method is employed il
insist upon buying that pleasure car
and so can buy the government Sc
curities only by borrowing the money
at bank. i have sacrificed nothing
out of current money income. / have
the government The bank which
lends me the money does so by writ
ing down a deposit to my credit on
it's books, which deposit transfer to
the government. This deposit pro-
vides purchasing power without re-
leasing anything to be purchased. The
result is that instead of labor and
capital turning from the making of
pleasure cars to the making of motor
trucks they are called upon to make
both. | give the government my check
to buy the truck, but at the same time
enter the market to prevent the gov
eminent from getting it. In short, the
public, by it's paper subscriptions, ap-
pears generous to it's government, but
is selfshly refusing to make the ac-
tual sacrifice.
THE principle is a broad one. If
we give up non essentials to buy gov
eminent securities, we allow the gov
eminent to buy war essentials, and at
the same time release productive en-
ergy from the making of non-essen-
tails for us to the making of essen
tials for the government.
Why Prices Advance.
But If we don't make the needed
sacrifice, and perhaps delude ourselves
into believing that we don't have to-
or even that we ought not to do so;
that, on principle, we favor business
as usual for ourselves while expecting
business unusual to be superadded by
the government; we simply &c
through the motions of giving over
billions to the government without
really giving them up. Thereupon
the government, in order to buy away
from us what we will not otherwise
surrender, bids up prices
And the rise in prices which comes
about from this sort of lending is
cumulative. AS the prices of war sup
plies rise the money cost of wal
grows and the government has to
borrow more. Bigger loans by us to
the government require bigger loans
to us from the banks. This further
further rise of commodity prices
starting the whole process over again
in a vicious circle.
Bidding Against the Government.
But rising commodity prices pre-
sent only one of series of evils which
will follow if we continue far on the
wrong road. In the wild scramble to
buy-the public competing against the
government and the producer trying to
satisfy both-there is increasing diff
Guilty in getting supplies. There oc-
ours railway congestion, car shortage
coal famine (for instance, from using
up coal in non essential industries
and from using the cars needed t.
move it, and other dislocations.
"The best and quickest way of find
ing the right road-the road of thrift
is by reducing consumption and in
creasing production. by depressing
non essentials and by organizing a
redirection of industry. President
Wilson has well said: 1T is our duty
to protect our people, so far as we
may, against the very serious hard
ships and evils which would be likely
to arise out of the initiation which
would be produced by vast loans And
again, Now is the time for America
to correct her objectionable fault of
wastefulness and extravaganza