Show GIVES NATIONAL ECONOMIC PLAN by ROME former president american bankers association WE hear much f future economic planning to save the nation from a repetition 0 depression and promote more stable bus ness activity I 1 know no better plan to suggest to insure future bet ter times than that every wage earner e v e y family and evora business through out the country lay down as soon as they are able a program of proper savings as R C the foundation jf their financial policy I 1 know of no better plan than athla to build tor the nation as a whole a stronger economic situation that Is through a common structure of in working earning and saving and I 1 know of no better plan to revive activity in a depression than to spend a proper volume of past savings to keep the momentum of business going but unless there are savings in prosperity there cannot be spending during depression those who practiced this plan dur ing the past period of prosperity have a security and a protection against present adversity that could be provided in no other way those who did not are the ones who are now most dependent upon others it there had been more preaching of this doctrine when it was more feasible to put it loto effect than it Is BOW there would be less depression and less financial insecurity today however while there should have been more emphasis on savings during prosperity a measure of the cm today might properly be the other way at least to the extent that those who can safely do so may well increase their spending instead of overdoing their saving while many have seen their earnings fall there are millions who have not suffered so seriously in respect to the real purchasing power of incomes it we listened to all the scare stories of the day one might get the imbres slon that everybody was out of a job and nobody s business was earning anything many of our people who are able to continue a normal program of prudent buying are curtailing their expenditures beyond reason A business stimulus the sum total of this unreasonable curtailment of spending Is an economic influence contributing to the stagnation of trade by the opposite token I 1 believe the resumption of normal spending on the part of those who are able to do so would be an important tonic toward the tion of trade I 1 do not mean by this that we should have indiscriminate spending merely tor the sake of spend ing but the very motive power of our economic life is the interchange of goods and unless we have that we cannot have prosperity I 1 strongly believe that we are at that point in the depression stage of the business cycle that any sou ad stimulating influence will start a real movement in the direction of a return toward prosperity so much of the weakness of the old state of affairs has been liquidated so many malad Just ments corrected and such large volumes of our consumers goods have been used up or worn out that the pressure of necessitous purchases must sooner or later be felt when that time definitely comes we may consider it the first impulse of a new era of normal business |