Vashon Island news-record. [volume] (Vashon, Wash.) 1919-1954, 1932-07-21
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Continual bowling about reduced
earnings OF many corporations Is do
ing much TO prolony the depression,
intim.date the individual and drive
money into hiding
Why shouldn't corporation and pri-
yate earnings fall below the peaks OF
two or three years ago2 We were then
living under abnormal conditions.
When an automobile salesman with
out any capital could open an OK
pcnsive show room and sell automo-
biles as fast os he could get them, We
were not living In normal times When
q bond salesman without any practical
experience, capital or knowledge OF
the intrinsic value of the securities he
handled. could open an office equip
ped with expensive furniture and ORR
entail rugs, and sell securities, bonds,
stocks. ETC.. TO clamoring public, and
make money faster than he ever
dreamed OF, ordinary caution should
have warned anybody conditions were
not normal. When a real estate oper-
ator could take practically worthless
lind and sell It q fabulous figures
which no normal crop value could
justify, It should have been self
evident that there was something
wrong. And so on through every line
Of industrial, agricultural and financial
activity
During ten years Of initiation, count
less persons came to think that by
their own ability and shredness they
were creating wealth for themselves
by speculation when, as n matter OF
fact, most of them were creating
nothing and saving nothing while they
lived in fools paradise which they
thought would last forever.
The majority of persons have more
today than they had In pre-war times
but they complain about having less
because they are making comparisons
on q false basis.
! This is true of individuals and 1t is
true OF companies, Industrial con-
Germs expanded beyond any normal
requirements They have endeavored
to maintain operations on an inflated
basis which cannot be done because
there Is no longer any artificial de-
mand to maintain such production.
All over the nation, one-man In
dustries and one man farms are start
ing again on a debated basis. You
can drive through the country and
see little "shacks" springing up on
cheap land and in the far-away places
The occupants of these little homes
are going to produce their living and
gradually make little surplus. The
big farmers who bought high-priced
land on the strength Of high-priceo
crops, as well as the industries which
built and equipped plants at peal
prices and built up peak overheads
are all going to have to readjust them,
selves to the basis of the man who \
starting at the bottom today. Tit
laboring man who enjoyed wartime
wages for the past decade, is in thu
same boat.
| The same initiation that affected in
dustry and the individual also affectet
government and taxation, and govern
ment is among the last to recogniz
conditions and reduce its mushroom
expansion accordingly. The troubl
, with government is that Its manager
(our public officials and public ser
vants) will not reduce their own func
ltions voluntarily. The reduction wi
have to be forced by tax-wear
: people who, after they have adjuste
| their own personal and business al
5 fairs, will turn to their governments
: problems which in large measur
? they have permitted to expand, b
their own indifference, without chez
Y during the past decade.
Emphasizing the term hard times
, lhas become more or less racket In
dulged in by a growing army
s theorists who would remedy our IL
4 through schemes which try to Great
: employment at public expense, theret
0 further discouraging industry throug
!, exorbitant taxation, thus creatir
: more unemployment. Most OF o,
: economic doctors are afraid to stat
: in plain English that we are on ne
p basis; that products of all kinds WI
d be selling at pre-war prices; that
large part of our unemployed are 81
ing to have TO make employment #
themselves at wages more nearly VIII
It they received before the war. Maj
! of the jobs they enjoyed will never r.
turn because the conditions that pr
/ duced them are gone forever unless
j. start another worldwide war, whit