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Show Looking CI Ahead Wljljl0 Dr. George S. Benson NATIONAL EDUCATION PROGRAM Searcy, Arkansas tion's "war on inflation" and he said that there was likely to be a rise (temporary) in unemployment as the economy began to slow down. The hope, he said, was to slow it down gradually and to get across to the American public the fact that inflation cannot be brought under control without some small and temporary pain to some segments of our society. Outcry Expected Dr. McCracken made it clear that the Nixon Administration knows how to halt inflation with the proper management of fiscal and monetary controls, but that there may be a loud outcry (perhaps mainly political) politi-cal) when unemployment begins be-gins to rise. Such an outcry, he said, could jeopardize the continuation con-tinuation of necessary inflation-control measures. This has been the trouble in past years. Administrations have bowed to group pressures when things began to slow down and have practiced expansionist fiscal and monetary policies. And now the economy has reached a dangerous rate of inflation. "There is no instant cure," he said. "We must move very carefully. The measures we already have put into effect a budget cut to produce a surplus sur-plus instead of a deficit; and a tightening of credit will not begin to show results until near the end of 1969. Such a policy of gradualism requires patience on the part of the people. We must not over-react to any development such as a slight increase in unemployment." unemploy-ment." Dr. McCracken expressed ex-pressed confidence that inflation infla-tion will be slowed and brought under control. He appealed for a better public understanding of the problems involved in fighting inflation. Land boom comes to Texas. GERMANY'S INFLATION VICTORY Dr. Heinz Pentzlin economics columnist for the West German newspaper, Die Welt, reported to Freedom Forum XXX that the fearsome German inflation of the mid-1960's had been slowed down through cooperation coopera-tion of organized and unorganized unorga-nized workers, the German industries and the German Government. "Our people," he said, "remembered the terrible inflation that tortured Germany Ger-many after World War I, when it required a million Marks to buy a newspaper. It crushed the nation and created a situation situa-tion out of which arose Hitler." The German workers, he said, quickly agreed not to push for higher wages that would be inflationary. He said another factor in slowing down the inflation that began to be felt in West Germany in 1966 after a splurge of heavy wage raises and a slow-down in German Ger-man industry was the absence ab-sence in Germany of "feather-bedding" "feather-bedding" in industrial work. He said there never had been any organized "featherbed-ding" "featherbed-ding" in Germany. He attributed attri-buted this in part to the pride of Germans in their individual workmanship. At the height of the runaway inflation of the early 1930's in Germany, Dr. Pentzlin said, "the masses of hopeless labor unemployed people joined Hitler and helped him to take over power. But it was the inflation in-flation of 1923 which paved the way for Hitler. This has been a warning to the German population pop-ulation at least up to now to fear inflation and its consequence. conse-quence. When Germans are asked in opinion polls what they wish most of all economically economi-cally speaking, they always want stable prices and stable money in the first place. "This has moved responsible authorities in Government to hold the money values stable. The population gives them full assistance. The harsh measures mea-sures which the German Central Cen-tral Bank applied to curb inflation in-flation a few years ago were looked at by the German people peo-ple with more approval than disapproval. Germany has a big surplus in its balance of payment account, it's Federal budget is balanced, there 'is no deficit spending, no printing-press printing-press money in circulation." President Nixon's Policy Dr. Paul W. McCracken, Chairman of President Nixon's Council of Economic Advisers, told the Forum that the back of inflation could be broken only if the people were patient with Administration fiscal and monetary policies that will not show their effectiveness until toward the end of 1969. He said frankly that the latest statistics (at the moment not even published) pub-lished) showed that an inflation infla-tion rate of from 4 to 5 per cent continued through the early months of this year. He described as "gradualism" "gradual-ism" the Nixon Administra- |