Evening star., 1942-07-19

always lllC boGS vi CSoilollAtSo'
That's why you won't have any
depression that amounts to hill Of
beans after this, war is over"
Fails to Gee With Politics.
why" said George, "do you think
for a minute this country is going to
stand for another period of 10 or IS
years of jobless men and idle ma
chimes when we have just won a war,
are the only reasonably solvent
country in the world and have the
biggest and most efficient production
machine in the history OF the
world?"
Don't be a ninny. You ought to
know that it just isn't feasible,
politically.
And anyway" George said, real
good times for business depend on
lust three things: Whether people
want the goods. whether they have
the money to buy them, and whether
we can supply them.
people will want them, all right,
could use a new car right now
and bet you could, too. And be-
fore this thing is over there will be
plenty more things I want and
haven't been able to get during the
war.
And this war production shows, II
we didn't already know it, that we
have enough materials and enough
factories to make almost anything
we want in any quantity we want IT..
And when we win the war we will
get our hands back on tin and rub
Der and the few other things we
don't produce for ourselves
Not Worried About Money.
The question then, George thinks,
ooils down to whether we can scram-
BILE together the money to pay Tor
what we want.
Certainly we can" George said.
Industry itself will supply us with
the money.
Before this war is over hardly q
store in the country will have a de-
cent inventory of the things we
want to buy. .
They will all have to be stocked
again almost from the ground up
with peacetime goods.
And to do that industry will have
to go through a huge reconverslon
from war work; that will be the big
gest retooling job in the history OF
the world, even bigger than the war
lob of tooling, because it takes more
kinds of tools to meet peace needs.
This job alone ought to tide us
over for quite while after the war, !"
George said. -
And then" he added, people will
have more stored-up buying power
than they ever had before in their
lives.
Nearly everybody will own nest
egg of War bonds. If we don't buy
them voluntarily, we will probably
have them paid for out OF our pay
envelopes before the war is finished.
Few Debts to Be Left.
And, on top Of that, nearly every
body. as individuals, will be pretty
well out of debt Installment credit
is already hard to get, and we Will
have paid off the old installments
we owed before the war started. We
won't make many new ones. because
there won't be automobiles and
washing machines to get in debt for.
Even the armaments industry" :"
George said, II think is here to stay.
"If we are going to be the worlds
policeman after this war. we will
hardly just stop building arms. We
tried scrapping battleships after the
last war, and look what happened to
us. Armament factories will slow
down, but they'll still hire lot OF
men.
I'm not even convinced that
we're going to have several million
young fellows from the Army dumped
hastily back on our hands looking
for work before we have chance to
readjust things so we can take care
of them.
We're going to have too much
policing to do for while, and, be-
sides, we saw what happened after
the last war, and we ought to have
sense enough to feed them back to
civil life gradually
And you can tuck this away as a
sure thing" George concluded:
with the whole world crying for
our goods when the scrap is over, We
will find some way to supply them
If we have to abolish our high
tariffs and buy more of other coun-
tries goods, or even set up some new
kind of international money backed
by our $4,000 100000 of buried gold,
we'll still produce the goods and sell
them"
It goes without saying that George
is whale of lot more optimistic
than many other well-informed fel-
lows about what to expect when the
war is over.
But" George said, as get older
I don't get nearly SO worried about
what will happen to the human
race