New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1922-08-27
Sim plifes Finance

The central institution makes public
gnuaranty that all obligations incurred
/ by the industrial unit in its productive
| process will be liquidated out of it's
product 1t makes itself responsible
also for any possible deficit; but in
practice it will be found that that pos
sibility is nearly negligible, for tech
meal groups with their livelihood at
stake will very rarely earn less than
nothing.
This business of guaranteeing that
producers will pay--in thirty or sixty
or ninety days-for what they use UP
In the production process is priceless
service. 1t is also very nearly costless.
1t is like putting up responsible
but it costs you nothing. Such is the
essential nature ofinancal credit 1t
has been misunderstood The vast
mechanism of our actual industrial
finance is inefficient in proportion to
its intricacy. It's intricacy proceeds
from the notion that credit naturally
belongs to those who have money That
is not the case. Credit naturally be-
longs to those that can produce goods.
Its verb is not "have" but can
The complicated financial mechan-
simple one. The shapeless, purpose
less mass of documentary wealth will
cease to control the vital movements
of the commodity market. We shall
learn that credit does not belong to
the property system, but to the pro-
duction system, and that the latter is
not subordinate to the former, but SUI
perior in power.
Let it be announced tomorrow, in
Vienna or Chicago, that responsible
institution has opened its doors offer
iprr r. ,,,,lo J.
of any or all bona fide productive or
CARNATIONS for a 1.-THE of their net
earnings, the business deadlock would
be instantly broken. The movement
of the commodity market would gather
momentum from the hour of the an
nouncement. An army Of enterprise
and skill, now under equipped or over
exploited, would absorb the stagnant
inventories and put the goods to re-
productive uses.
Studies Needs
As for the general selling agency,
it is indispensable to any life sustain
ing system that has become too tech
nichal and complicated to keep it's
production balance by mere market
haggling. When demand" ceases to
be vocal in a real jostling market
place, it becomes necessary to create
some central organ of intelligence to
study the needs of the community as
whole and tell the producers in adj
vance-with approximating certainty
what is wanted and how much of it
and at what price. How else is it pos
sible to avoid the disproportionate
production that periodically throws all
business out of gear?
Our business organization is men
tally inverted for the lack of such an
organ of intelligence. Business begins
by asking, what can induce the public
to take? 1t would succeed better if it
began by asking, what does the public
need?
Proportion is more important than
statistics. If six things are necessary
to life, you will die if you have only
five of them. So it is with a social
system. You can kill business by a
coal shortage. Omniscience is not
necessary. But general view is.
Economic information is a govern
ing power. Where the information is
good and thousand production Is
are free to move along the lines of
maximum service and reward, there
is no need of mandates. The army
of the arts marshals itself. We ar
rive by the instigation of natural law
at general organization of productive
power.