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Show MILLAB5 ESSSTt CHRONICLE Delta. Utah, Thurs. July 18. 1957, This Week's SPECIALS V4" 4x8 AD Plywood FULL SHEETS AT ........ . . . $335 6B WE HAVE A GOOD STOCK OF LOW PRICED GLOVES 12"x12" Ceiling Tile ONLY...... 15c ea PLUMBING Fittings All Sizes up to 2" at TODAY'S LOW PRICES Are You Heeding o Remodel job on your house or outbuildings? We have ONE-STOP service. ser-vice. Materials, plans, financing. This is all arranged ar-ranged for in one stop. . LIGHT FIXTURES at low costs . FIRST QUALITY Stop in & see for yourself WE HAVE YOUR LIGHT WEIGHT SHOVEL FOR YOUR AUTO AND PICNIC USE ATOHLY .... S3i0 3 Store Hours 8:00 - 5:30 MON. - SAT. I WCTM 1 cowrie a j WE STOCK GRADE STAMPED LUMBER J r . tn exclusive mK cur wore. Construction loan lot new home. Remodeling end repair loans for homes end farm structures. J i GIVING OUR WORLD THE Once Over By Dick Morrison CONCENTRATOR OF WEALTH? Where does banker-created money This column does not exist just get its vaiue? for the purpose of critizing the common knowledge that Banning system, iV u.b wfaen ft banker makes a , he it has its being primarily for the simp,y wrfteg out & d purpose of engaging in discus- sions of religion or any other single that is credited t0 the Grower's subject, so with a few additional account) which new money the observations here today we 11 drop hfl.w.r mav nut in rirflllintirin the money question for the time simply by wrmng checks; anJ thjU being and get on to something through a slightly more complex 6lse. nrnpp t h n a trre on to nf ci i rH Last week I - offered a little ioans may be used as a base for friendly criticism of the existing i t,e issuance of new currency in fractional-reserve banking system the form known as Federal Re- based mostly on the following counts: 1 Under this system, which we'll call the "debt system" for short, the volume of currency issued bears no direct relationship to the amount needed by the business world If stability of the dollar is to be maintained . 2. The "debt system" tends to foster the growth of Big Government Govern-ment 3. In effect, it gives banks the power to levy toll In the form of perpetual interest charges against the business of the nation, which interest charges now run at a rate of some $27 billion per year, be cause - - 4. Under the "debt system", an ever mounting total of interest-bearing interest-bearing debt is the nation's only alternative to depression. There are several additional counts which might be stated in a full indictment of the fractional-reserve fractional-reserve banking system, but for now I'd like to offer up a little proposition more as food for thought than anything else. It is one I have never heard discussed, or seen in print, in spite of the fact that for several yeaers I have sought out and read a number of the best books I could find on the subject of money and banking. It is this: the fractional-reserve banking system seems to be a de vice ideally adapted to the pro cess of concentrating wealth in a few hands. My reasons for think ing it may be, and for offering the idea here for consideration, are as follows. In order to get the gist of the train of thought, it is nec essary to ponder this question: HAIL -HAIL We Cannot Stop ; A Hail Storm, ; But We Can PROTECT YOUR CROPS with HAIL INSURANCE Insure with JOHN A. DAY AGENCY serve Notes. Obviously, this new money has some value. The fact that the borrower bor-rower can take it out and spend it proves that it has value. But where does it get its value? The answer is that it gets value from wealth that is already owned own-ed by everyone who happens to own a dollar anywhere. Just as certainly as an issuance of "greenbacks" "green-backs" by a government printing press skims a little of the value off every previously existing dollar, so does new bank-check money do the same thing. And while any one small bank loan, of itself, can have only a scarcely measurable effect upon the value of the billions bil-lions of dollars already in circulation, circu-lation, the fact remains that in the aggregate, any significant increase in-crease in the total of new bank-check bank-check money created does have the effect of reducing the value of the dollars already in existence. Now in some circumstances, when the general total of industrial and agricultural production is Increasing, Increas-ing, the increase in the total of things offered for sale on the markets mar-kets may balance out against the increase in the volume of money, with the result that the value of the dollar remains practically unchanged. un-changed. In such a happy circumstance circum-stance ,our money system can be said to be acting as a good money system should, though quite by chance. But our economic system has long since passed the stage where the matter of stability of the dollar can prudently be left to chance. It should be quite clear that the banking process is one through which the bankers can, by creating creat-ing new money and lending it to their customers, appropriate for the use of those customers values which rightfully belong to other people. What a trick of leg:-erdemain! leg:-erdemain! And it seems equally clear that since bank credit in large amounts is normally made most easily available to people and corporations who are already rich, the fractional-reserve banking sys tern serves as a device through which control of values which right fully belong to a multidue of little people is placed in the hands of a few large users of "bank credit.' Once big business, financed large ly with bank credit, is established little people find it difficult to compete. .-.. So while the money-creating, and money-retiring processes of the fractional reserve banking system may be shown to be uneconomic to the extent that they are the source of continuous changes in the value of our money, they may also be shown to be unethical. Who can claim any inherent Tightness in the mysterious process which enables bankers to appropriate part of! the value of the dollars you may have put away ror your own future use, and which enables en-ables him to collect interest on that value which belongs to you and not to him? Isn't it a proposition worth thinking about that, through this process, wealth gets channeled into the hands of a few wealthy borrowers, without the actual owners of that wealth being able to do one thing about it? Imagine a nation such as ours doing business with printing press money, issued by the government, instead of bank-check money issued is-sued by the banks. A most significant difference would be that the total volume of debt would be vastly reduced. Debt would be limited to such amount as would be made available by people who actually owned things and were willing to lend them. And there isn't, and never would be, very much debt of that kind, although al-though there would be some. Without With-out that incredible debt-generating mechanism, the fractional-reserve banking system, people would find it almost impossible to get into debt; and because enterpreneurs would not be forced to compete with others who were being financed fin-anced with bank credit, the intensity inten-sity of modern competition, and a host of sources of business uncertainty un-certainty would be eliminated. These, and other possible effects of such a reform, afford the basis for a vast amount of discussion and speculation. Take home a 6-PdkT.: the convenient way to buy at your favorite store and to take out at your favorite tavern 0r?Q Thi Cold Award 1 f aha Brcwbif Co, Sab Ukt City, Vt4 . Kmc ISM SparUe rewed to the Altftude Sparkle you can SEE . . . Sparkle you can TASTE The Gold Standard A goodly number of well-meaning people, observing some of the evils which have originated in the "debt system", and fearing the uncertainties un-certainties of future waves of inflation in-flation and deflation, advocate a return to the gold standard as the remedy. The so-called gold standard stand-ard therefore calls for a little examination ex-amination of itself. It is too bad, but true nevertheless, neverthe-less, that the gold standard never did do the things claimed for it. As most nations have known it, and as the U. S. knew it between 1913 and 1934, the gold standard was a snare and a delusion. It was a sham, mere window-dressing for the debt system. People who' advocate return to the gold standard have a most disturbing habit of overlooking the fact that our nation was on that standard through the years when the greatest fiscal upset in history struck. The gold standard, with "redeemability", was supposed to guarantee stability to the value of the dollar, and at the same time the Federal Reserve System, with its "elastic currency", was supposed sup-posed to make depressions impossible. impos-sible. And what happened? The depression de-pression happened, that's what haDDened. 1 have at hand some figures from the U. S. Department of Com merce, showing the Consumer Price Index between 1913 and 1955. The price indices are the statistical tables which show what the dollar is worth bv showing how mucn on average, it will buy. This is the only sensible measure of the value of money. So here Is what the figures show: during the period when we were on the gold standard, be- i,n 1913 and 1934, the purcnaS' ing power of the dollar fluctuated more widely than it did during the years from 1935 to 1955 when we were off the gold standard. That is something no gold-standard man can laugh off, And what it proves is that the volume ot ban creun in circulation was the dominant factor throughout the whole per ii rwiM didn't count as a stabil izing influence. Precisely, the price index showed a high of 236.4 in 1913. with a subsequent low of MR7 in im. the decline being ai mnst. exactly 50 all the while gold was held by law at $20.67 an ounce. . Then, in the next 20 years when we were off gold, the index showed a high of 170.4 in 1935 followed by a low of 87.1 in 1955, me amerc her heine 48. n u intprestinE to note here, too, -hat the 1955 dollar was worth iv 25 less than the 1920 dollar, Averaged out over the long term, our money hasn't declined as much ac selected fitrures comparing 1939 ith 1957 seem to show, btatisucs hnQintx too-sweening conciusiuua on the decline In the value of the dollar from 1939 to 1957 only tend to confirm the old saying that Mars fieure. Prof. Irving Fisher, one oi uie greatest economists mai evci HuoH whose commooiiy made a lot more sense man me bank-check dollar does, once show- d that the price of limberger cheese fluctuated less than that of gold over a period of years, ar remarked that a hmberger cneese standard would have given us a better dollar than the gold stand ard did. He was right. The trouble with the gold stand ard is that it Isn't gold and It Isn t a standard. . Conclusion Based on the apparent accuracy of the fact that our "debt system of bank-check money only works as a good money system should at rare intervals, and then only by accident; and that the gold standard stand-ard was provably worse than a limberger cheese standard, I submit sub-mit that neither provides the business busi-ness system with the ideal kind of money. The Ideal kind would be a man aged system of printing-press money, a managed currency, its volume' so regulated as to main tain a fairly stable general price leveL While such a system could b adapted to it, I reject Sumner Slichter1! theory that an advance oi 2 per year in the price level would be necessary or desirable. To me, a dollar of stable purchasing purchas-ing power, as measured by the average price of everything, would be the only honest dollar. Critics usually ask if this means a system of controlled prices. The answer is, absolutely not None but free markets could serve as a guide to the nation's money managers, to indicate when the volume of money in circulation was too great or too small. I am only advancing the thought that a debt-free system of individ- , ual enterprise debt-frea In the overall sense, that is, allowing for' u ii.-Ueiute volume ui Uue borrow ing and lending plus a dollar of dependable value, would permit a system of free capitalism to operate oper-ate at optimum efficiency. One important result would be elimination elimina-tion of the wide disparity between rich and poor. Of course I don't expect such a reform to be made in a hurry. Probably it will never be made. The extent to which the existing system lends itself to the Interests of entrenched wealth and power, plus the general lack of understanding under-standing of the subject on the part of the public, all but rule out any chance of the reform. The current Senate investigation Oi the nation's na-tion's overall money and . credit policies have not, and probably will not , touch on such basic questions. But I give it here Just as sort of teaser for interested people and idealists to mull over. And I'm not mad at anybody. Mr. and Mrs. Clinton Sampson, Durango, Colo., are annouacing the arrival of a baby girl July 2. Their family is now a boy and a girl. Grandparents are Mr. and Mrs. Lon Sampson, at Delta. ., " ,I-Sf",i'" ' 4'.: ybtwrfrfmtgL v 9 One Out of Every Three Convertibles Sold is a Ford I Vacationing begins the moment you slip behind the wheel in hi '57 Ford FairJane J 00 convertible . . . first choice of "lop downers" the nation ovei. It's the on that ridei you solid, safe and secure . , . that'i tent ibfy priced , to fit into your vacation budget. How about OcHon-rettma thii dreamboat? Only your Ford Dealer can offer you the deal Ford leadership makes possible today I J 4 f i DELTA MOTOR COMPANY IAIN & FOURTH WEST DELTA, UTAH 1(3SCM1 1(13(96 uraonasR good racncowi mv wrjno&i: tPciPis A. wide selection of wonderful meals, freshly prepared and graciously served, while you view, the passing panorama. Doubly thrilling atop a Dome Diner. For information, reservations, tkkeis, or help with your travel plane, see . your nearby Union Pacific Railroad , ticket agent. DTI BO BIT |