Show the voice of business S OUT TUT IS n I Y I fl I B B By I- Chamber of Commerce of the United At the end J of World War I. a A flood J of American veterans returned home for Many of them had learned to drive a truck in the And to many of those so a private bus company looked like a good way to make a they scraped together enough money to buy a suitable vehicle and went into providing irregular service on an irregular This was the era of the bus and it drove the franchised bus and trolley com- to The jitney operators thought that once they had made enough to cover their out-of-pocket the rest was fares tended to be lower than the established transit But most of them forgot one very important that machine under them began wearing out the mo- ment they started to use it and one day would have to be Thus the end of the ride came when Se overtook revenue and iS fa weH aside rover S v Some people think that our country as a whole is now mistake of the jitney bus The debate gets but the issue is an important capital represents foregone That you ac- quire some money either from your own efforts invest- ment you decide to in some income-producing rather than simply buy ng a fancier fancier suit suit ear car house house or or yacht Such capital formation and invest- ment has a lot to do with the economic fu ure of both individuals and nations How is America Not well I you looked at a chart of fixed capital format on as a Percentage of gross domestic you would find the U.S. at the bottom among Western industrial nations at and Japan at the top with Even Great widely regarded as the sick man of the capitalist world- did better at The real is not the rate at which we are accumulating but what we are doing it lour can money you earn and to spend You can lave it and invest if for own others- future cain The ment can take it from vou and B VV it to someone else The Government can it from VOu and invest it for future benefit of the In In the case p nf of options the own seed Ilke those bus operators In the and investors collectively or the government will make wiser 8 To the extent that the away our il substitutes ils own decision about the future use ot caPital for The current end is this and it comes not only from outright government con- of but also from seem- innocent government activities such as paying for government employee and Social Security pensions out of current tax rather than from income on invested The National Chamber has a commit- tee charged with examining the long- range consequences of such known as the on Trends and The Council has issued just a report n on thorny tt It is called Policy and Capital number and is available at a copy from the char f II D.C. The Council's study raises some very disturbing It is not a piece of but rather a thoughtful discourse on the policy alternatives available to I urge all Americans to give the issue some very serious con- |