Missouri Valley times. [volume] (Missouri Valley, Iowa) 1874-1931, 1919-08-14
WILL SOAKING PROFITEERS
LOWER LIVING COSTS

LOWER LIVING COSTS?
The papers are now as full of de-
mand and plans and propositions for
lowering the high costs of living as
they used to be of reports of the war;
and they all seem to have but one
idea-soak the profiteers.
These would-be benefactors all
seem to agree on one other thing
that dealers, both wholesale and re-
tail, especially in foodstuffs, are the
real profiteers. No one thinks OF
blaming either producer or consumer
No one loves profiteer, so let him
be soaked wherever he is found, and
he will be found in strange places
But will the elimination of the profit
GERS cause general lowering of liv-
ing costs?
Certainly not, because profiteerine
is merely incidental to the real situa.
tion, just as cooties are incidental to
a big army. Elimination of them may
allay an aggravating annoyance, bu.
will have little effect on the real
things sought to be accomplished.
Two Causes For High Costs.
There are two main causes for the
present high cost of living. One is the
war and the other is general extrava-
gance.
The war is over, but the effects of
war are not. The tremendous des-
truction of labor and property leaves
us now with supplies and production
SO far below the demand as to be in
calculable. That is considering
the whole world, and this country can
not do otherwise. We can't have a
FOOLS paradise of prosperity here
with destitution abroad. That point
is too obvious to need argument.
The old law of supply and demand
never takes vacation. Governments
may suspend it's action for time but
it always has to be paid in the end.
The law of supply and demand is
working right now. The supply of
goods and labor to produce them is
short, while the demand is great,
therefore prices are high. There is no
question about this.
Now comes the other reason, ex-
travagance. If we were all living as
we lived years ago, prices would still
be high, because of the great destruc-
tion of the war and the decreased sup
ply. But we are not living as we did
years ago; we are living at a rate
that would seem the height of ex-
trayagant folly in those days. Be-
cause we all have more money. due
to high prices, we aggravate the thing
of which we complain by spending all
the more. The world seems to have
gone on spree of high living, and
that has as much to do with the high
cost of living as anything else.
Some Examples of Extravaganza.
Examples of extravaganza are too
numerous to need citation, being
found on every hand, and every mer-
chant knows Of them, but it may be
we'll to mention the fact that the gov.
ernment reports the demand for dia-
monds to be the greatest in history,
not only in our own country, but in
Germany, Austria and Russia. When
people in those countries can buy
thousands of diamonds what can you
expect of the prices for shoes and
foods, when they are so scarce as to
be almost impossible to obtain?
| Wages being paid now are far be-
yond any precedent. When the street
car men of city like Chicago want
pay ranging from $35 to $50 per
week, when the same class of work.
men in Omaha want pay almost as
high, when coal miners, in the face of
a coming coal shortage, demand 40
per cent advance in pay and as large
a decrease III production, what can
you expect of prices?
Those men and their families now
have twice as much money to spend
as they ever had in their lives before,
and instead of conserving it and pro-
fitting permanently by this unusual
prosperity, they proceed to squander
| it by living on scale never before
known. They buy the highest priced
merchandise and demand the very
best. They Buy luxuries in all lines.
They pay any price that is asked, just
so the goods are what they want,
what other are buying. And when
money will not cover all the desires
more money is demanded, with less
working time so as to have more
time in which to spend and enjoy
When the point will be reached in high
prices where the public refuses to
buy, but that point does not seem to
be in sight yet. Buying continues at
a furious rate everywhere, because
people have more money to spend
than ever before. There is more mon
ey and credit in the country, but that
wouldn't affect prices if people did
not spend any more of their money
than they did when money was scarce.
1t is free spending that makes it pos
sible for the profiteers to operate,
and their operations tend to advance
prices and costs for everyone else.
| In an exhaustive editorial on "Real
Cause of High Costs" printed one
day last week, the New York Journal