Show NEWS PHIN 1 I L' L THE rN 1 By PAUL y yI Released by Western Newspaper Union I ECONOMIC FORMULAS FOR MISSED l TilE THE BOAT I WASHINGTON Full W Full Full employment has been placed alongside international international I peace as an equal objective of the British government for the thc postwar world In an official pro pronouncement pronouncement I by the chancellor of the exchequer Kingsley Wood No doubt our government also will w I seek seck ment at all aU costs with equal ardor But in the full lull I employment discussions both here and in Britain the talk is of new sensational artificial methods oi 01 achieving this result result result-II a annual federal deral budget to finance public works a hour 20 work week yes 20 and various other devices S The groove in which all this con eDn conservative and liberal thinking is go go- going going ing is the one we dug for ourselves in the last depression the depression the line that thai everything which happened In the previous thousands of years of the world was wrong that this Is the age of the liberation of man in which economic formulas are the solution I to all problems that the former nat flat natural ural laws of both God and Nature are henceforth to be repealed by what the economists call the su supremacy su- su supremacy of economic man THEY TilEY ALL FAILED This Is strange in view of our re reo recent cent experiences with economic e for for- mulas Not one has worked among the many we tried in the last 14 years years the the gold buying policy to I I I raise prices the normal ever-normal gran gran- granary granary granary ary to provide eternally balanced food production the public works wads expenditures deficit financing the Keynes plan the shorter work worle week all all to restore full employment but they did not do so Some of these steps proved polito politically popular temporarily but did not achieve their economic purposes As economic formulas they did not riot do the job Yet the postwar full employment remedies pow now being of of- offered offered cred propose to go further along this narrow rut in which we have been unsuccessfully plodding for 14 years Now they talk of nearly tripling the old New Deal peacetime spend spend- spending spendIng spending ing budget and cutting the hour 40 work worle week in half halt with no greater assurances that these new steps would work any better than the old II I any government wants to pro pro- provide provide vide full employment in the future It must first lIr t free itself from these unsuccessful grooves of thought break out of these reactionary shackles of the mind and search for valid vaUd ways and means that seem likely to do the job lob What makes full fun employment Good business Nothing else ever made it in a democracy What makes good business The expectation expectation tation of the people that they can make a profit No other formula In a II democracy ever made spend and invest buy and sell seU MAINTAIN l PROFIT MOTIVE Governments Gover ments then must direct their search for full employment into frito one line maintenance line maintenance of the profit incentive If they want formulas they must seek new ones to keep an expectation of profits In the pub pub- public lie lic mind 1 The line on which they are now going lies clearly in the opposite direction A budget would require such heavy taxation upon the people as liS to make their wages profits worth less and be beso beso beso so onerous on business as us to dis discourage courage the expectation of profits In n fact the higher you raise taxes the less chance there is of profit good business and arid full employment In n following this line you ou defeat your own objectives A hour 20 work week That is work the not riot full employ ment meat Does Docs this suggestion search In the right direction when you con con- consider consider sider the fall tall of France due to her Inability In to get production on the 35 and hour 40 week Are we in this war ar winning on the production front by reducing the work week or are we not now proving conclusively that full production with full employ employment menU meat requires a reasonable work workweek workweek workweek week A hour 20 work week would cut salaries in half leaving that much less to spend that much less to pro pro- produce produce duce juCI that much less to buy It would be a depressant to full em em- employment Clearly it appears to me our think thinkers ers are on the wrong Tong track Let i them look in the opposite direction and devise lse means of maintaining a I steady expectation of I profits and arid that is all aU they the will have to do I I 1 I have ha heard of neighborhood prat prato prattlers I not not in my neighborhood how how- however I ever cv spreading spreading r drivel against bond I buying bu ing on the ground that there will willse wille se e inflation I Maybe Mabe there will be a limited amount of or price inflation or at i least continuation of the inflation we weave bave lae la ave e experienced in this war Ev Ev- E I knows that But these bonds I are ue being bought not only by 00 people but by every large cor cor- corporation and investor in the country The wise financial brains fully realize reaUze the possibilities of 0 inflation I |