The Ypsilanti daily press. (Ypsilanti, Mich.) 1928-1962, 1943-02-01
Observations
Installment Plan
Put in Reverse in
New Purchases
BY Charles p. Stewart

BY Charles p. Stewart
Central Press ColumnisD
Ever buy anything on the install
ment plan! II so. you know how
II works.
You make a small down payment
on what ever you are buying. Then
you get the goods. After that you
go on paying, at stated intervals
and In stated amounts until the
whole bill is settled or death comes
TO your relief.
II is not in the same classification
with a credit in. say, a piece Of
real estate. There Is something
legitimate about that though per
haps only as a matter of habit. Any
way, II your deal was in real estate,
you feel that you have purchased
an equity" rather than that you
have run into debt. It's the same
thing, but the term equity" sounds
more respectable. II you default on
an equity" installment, you're
foreclosed, and some very conse-
quential people get caught in fn-
ancial jams and go broke" on a
big enough scale to amount, almost,
to favorable advertising, or they
couldn't pop So ostentatiously.
Dollsr-down .dollar-s.week Idea
Reversed
A chap who Is shy on his current
remittance for a bit of home furni-
ture or a flivYer, or some such mer-
chandise that he is in hook for,
dies not rate as a life-sized bank
rupt. He simply is dispossessed.
The chap is not even life.sizod
failure.
ALI the same, small caliber in.
stalment buying is being conscrlpt.
ed for wartime purposes.
II is being put into reverse" &C
cording to Economist Rolf Nugent
OF the Russell Sage foundation, who
evolved the scheme, as a present
associate of the Office OF Price Ad-
ministration, Leon Henderson's
former outfit.
Reserve"
This is the way II works:
You are to pick out what you will
want after the war, and begin
paying for II. but you will not get
the stun you are buying for some
time. You will pay indefinitely,
month after month. at the rate of
the originally agreed-on price, until
you hit the total.
Still you will not receive your
purchased object while the war
lasts.
Instead, you will be urged to do
some more instalment buying until
peace is restored.
The plan has an immediate end
In view and an ultimate one.
Economist Nugent aims to take
q lot OF current funds out OF circu-
lation, as an initiation preventive.
By this method, he calculates that
1t can be done on a wholesale basis.
Six billion is the figure he reckons
on.
But after the war!
At that juncture there will be an
estimated six billions in orders
accumulated. Filling them will
keep labor busy indefinitely. Il Ia
argued. That is true. but the labor
already will have been paid for.
And what about the capacity OF
capital. paid in advance, TO meet
its postwar payrolls?
None Can Guess How New Plan
Will Work Out
There will be an enormous pre-
paid-for demand-but will capital
have the resources to meet the &C
emulation?
II capital does not have II, It
must be provided by the govern
ment.
That is obvious.
The whole thing is a completely
new gamble.
What we will get for our invest.
ment Is a matter OF speculation.
II is a new line OF economics.
How well II will or will not work
will be demonstrated in postwar
days.
The Treasury Department IL
monkeying with the notion, any
way.
How It will pan out, heaven alone
now knows.
Economist Nugent believes his
program is fool.proof. but. mas
much as II has not been tested, the
accuracy OF his opinion remains 10
be proved.
A lot of these schemes have been
tried out as means OF financing
past wars, preventing initiation and
receiving postwar hard times and
not one OF them ever scored a sue.
cess worth mentioning.
stu, perhaps. Economist Nugent
has hit in the right notion at last.