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Show Taming Inflation In 1957, a farsighted man, whom we shall call Mn Brown, put $1,000 into a savings account as a reserve fund to pay for unforeseen emergencies. Ten years later, much to his dismay, Mr. Brown found that this same $1,000 was worth only $700 in terms of 1967 costs. Even the interest earned on his account ac-count had not made up for. the fact that the value of his 1957 dollar had dropped considerably. What happened to Mr.j Brown is happening to everyone. every-one. The answer is painfully simple: INFLATION! A 1957 dollar is worth only 70 cents today in terms of what it can buy. ; There are ways, however, j to help offset the eroding ef- I fects of inflation. One popu lar way is by investing in common stocks through a mutual fund. A mutual fund is a "variable-dollar investment". As explained in a recent magazine, maga-zine, "as the price of goods and services increases, the value of variable-dollar investments in-vestments generally increases. In the last ten years, while the average cost of living rose some 18 per cent, the value of common stocks has risen roughly 100 per cent." According to the Investments Invest-ments Company Institute, nearly four million people have approximately $35 billion bil-lion invested in mutual funds. Besides helping to offset inflation, in-flation, mutual funds provide a simple, convenient, way for individuals, regardless of economic eco-nomic status, to pool their money and become partners in American business and industry. in-dustry. Mutual funds offer professional profes-sional .investment management manage-ment and incorporate the sound principles of diversification, diversifi-cation, which tends to reduce risk, and continuous investment invest-ment supervision. One fund share represents a proportionate propor-tionate interest in a pool of assets making up the securities securi-ties of. as many as a hundred or more companies. |