The Waterbury Democrat., 1941-09-18
Problem Of Rising Prices
Connecticut Economic Council Urges Measures Be Taken Both by the Individual
 and Government.

The confusion of public opinion regarding price control grows worse confounded as the fear of @ rapid advance in prices irltensif1eS. This is an issue which immediately reaches home to every individual. We have urged that the following measures were necessary to prevent rapid rise in prices.
 The individual must:
 1. Exercise the utmost economy
 in individual expenditures; the
 savings to be invested in gov-
 ernment bonds, thus diverting
 the pressure of surplus pur-
 chasing power to buy goods
 and also reducing the amount
 which the government may be
 forced to borrow from the
 banks.
 2. Refrain from taking advan.
 tage of the emergency to de-
 mand higher hourly wages,
 which necessarily result in
 higher prices by increasing
 costs.
 3. Increase the individual output
 to the limit; the more pro-
 duced the less prices will rise. {. Increase the length of the work
 week from forty to forty.eight
 hours.
 The government must:
 1. Very definitely limit the bor.
 rowing of money from the con-
 fnercial and Federal Reserve
 banks, c process which pumps
 bank credit money into circu.
 lation, thus tending to push
 up the price level.
 2. Sustain public confidence in
 our financial ability and the
 will to meet our debts, and
 avoid the perilS of national re-
 pudiation by any further de.
 valuation of the dollar.
 3. Increase the proportion of the
 cost of defense to be paid by
 taxation and thereby reduce
 the amounts to be borrowed. {. Promote every possible source
 of saving on the part of the
 government itself, particularly
 in the field of non-defense
 expenditures.
 Stripped of some of its complica- tionS, the present problem of rising prices Is 6 comparatively simple one. The heart of the problem is that the emergency has created an un- precedented amount of purchasing power, coupled with an abnormal demand for goods far in excess of the possibilities of production. Un- less therefore, some control can be put upon the demand for, and the prices at which, goods are to be sold, 1t is inevitable that prices will get out of hand.
 The Connecticut Economic Coun- ell has urged the necessity for some measures of price control and in doing so, has clearly pointed out that 1t was not only necessary to control the volume of money in circulation and the credits available for spec ulation in goods, but to control the factors which make for the in- creased costs of goods. Outstanding among these are wages and the cost of foodstuffs. Tn the p resent emergency there can be no effective control of prices l without some regulation of wages either by labor itself or by the gov- ernment. To suggest control of prices without that of wages is an absurdity.
 It is equally absurd to suggest a | control of prices and leave out the regulation of prices of foodstuffs upon which the whole population | must depend. Every effort, however, to control prices has resulted so far in an increased pressure from the farmers for higher prices for agri- cultural products. Not satisfied with the level of prices determined by those which ruled in "The Golden Period" of farm production of 1913 and 1914, they are now insisting upon 6 level of prices 10 per cent to 20 per cent higher than even that golden mean. The farmers had even been successful in securing the pas- sage of a law to prevent the secre- tary of the treasury from selling the huge aecumulations of cotton and | wheat take mover in the last three years by the government as security | for loans. The market price of cot- ton has now gone to IT cents a | pound and wheat to si.30 c bushel at which prices the government would be reimbursed for its carry ing charges. The thought that the government q. c. all the taxpAyers) | should come out even onsany trans acvtion appears to be abhorFent to the farmers. The president very | propexly vetoed this attempt.
 Under present circumstances c dangerous rise in prices can only De prevented by c four.fold attack upow the problem.
 1. Enc rapid accumulation Of sure AnMM