Salt Lake Telegram | 1937-07-17 | Page 6 | Wanted, a Genius

Wanted, a Genius r THE best of our knowledge, no one has ever worked out a satisfactory solution to the problem of eating one's cake and having it, too. It is just about the same problem which arises when the effort is made to raise wages and incomes, in-comes, increase production and consumption and still leave everybody happy and unhurt. What this country needs is a genius who can do this. When he finishes, then he can tackle the cake problem. Can anyone offer a formula for raising rais-ing salaries and wages without raising prices, and for raising prices without landing tut down demand for goods? A current bulletin from the Alexander Hamilton Ham-ilton Institute points out, as an example, the way this is about to work out in the auto industry. All signs have been pointing toward a substantial substan-tial increase in the demand for autos in the immediate im-mediate future; but now a 10 per cent price advance ad-vance is rumored, and if it comes, it may well offset the expected increase in demand. Wages in the auto industry have come up 14.8 per cent since 1929. The price of steel has risen by 13.4 per cent in the same period. Yet auto prices, far from having advanced, are about IS per cent under the 1929 level. Some sort of increase looks almost inevitable; when it comes, how far will it go toward offsetting off-setting the "increased prosperity" which increases in-creases in wages and raw material prices were supposed to effect? This example may be applied ap-plied to a long list of things people will want to buy if they can.