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Show The UTAH INDEPENDENT January 24, 1972 economics! New Economic Dictatorship welcome even the most drastic Continued from Page 6 George Santayana once observed that those who will learn nothing from history are condemned to repeat it. Off and on for at least four thousand years, power-seekin- demagogues have g inflicted wage and price controls on their people under one excuse or another. And always with results similar to those cited above. If you dont believe the same thing can happen in our own nation, we suggest that you Federal controls to limit pay increases. But at the very same time the workingman has been encouraged to blame inflation on big business" and its greed for profits, and therefore to welcome even the most- drastic Federal controls on prices and rents. - Consequently, for opposite reasons, both business and labor and most Americans have been persuaded that price and wage controls are desirable. - - simply clip out the above summary and tack it to the After noting that The primary cause of inflation is government itself, Congressman Schmitz proceeded to report: pass. President Lyndon Johnsons budget, for his last year in office, bulletin board in your kitchen or work room, where it can be reviewed as the weeks and months It cannot be stressed strongly enough that the real culprit behind the devastating inflation of recent years is the federal government and its unprincipled policies of deficit spending and currency debasement. Price and wage increases are the result, not the cause, of inflation. Yet the Administration has been able to lay the groundwork for wage and price controls by cleverly and deceptively dividing the American people against each other on the issue of inflation. As Congress- man John Schmitz pointed out in his letter of November 10, 1971 ia) news: America has been encouraged to blame inflation on the labor unions and therefore to Middle-clas- s was .$185 billion. President Nixon's budget this year is $230 billion. For next year it will beat least $250 billion, and the Trea- sury Department admits there will be at least a $27 billion deficit - assuring that inflation will continue, controls or no controls. The importance of federal spending policy in the control of inflation is well known by the very Administration offocials now leading the drive to blame business and labor for inflation in order to justify their dictatorial controls. In his very first new's conference, on January 27, 1969, President Nixon asserted that the primary responsibility for controlling inflation rests with Clearly, the Nixon Administration knows that its own un- the national administration, and its handling of fiscal and monetary affairs. And in a message to the House of Representatives on January 27, 1970, the President exclaimed: The inflation we have at the start of the Seventies was caused by heavy deficit spending in the Sixties. In the past decade, the Federal Government spent more than it took in $57 billion more. These deficits caused prices to rise 25 in a decade. In just three years, however, Nixon Administration deficits have totalled over $65 billion. The Readers Digest for November of 1970, printed an article written by Under Secretary of the Treasury Charles E. Walker. The Digest article of a year ago began: precedented spending sprees are responsible for our inflation, and that the real cure for inflation would be to place controls on not on government spending the private economy. But the private sector is now serving as a scapegoat, and productive Americans everywhere are being forced to wear a financial strait jacket while the Administration plots ever larger Budgets and inflationary deficits, t Time and again, Mr. Nixon has stressed that his program of conrelies basically on the trols voluntary restraint and cooperation of the American people. Voluntary? In many instances, huge fines and other penalties await those who test the voluntary nature of the controls. And even in those areas where no legal sanctions have yet been placed on the books, the governments formidable extralegal powers have been brought to bear to coerce compliance. In the matter of corporation dividends, for in- stance, economist Milton Friedman noted in the New York Times of October 28, 1971 : The President has requested firms not to raise dividends he has no legal power to do more. The request has been accomplished by surveillance, a calling down to Washington and public lambasting of the handful of corporations that did not conform, and a clear implied threat to use extra-legpowers. These measures have no legal basis at all. Yet I know of only one small company that has had the courage to refuse to cooperate on grounds of principle. And as a further example of how Big Brother is now working - al Continued on Page 10 support those objectives steadfastly and vigorously." a is of Chairman Reader's Digest, tAs just one relatively minor example of this duplicity, on October recently formed front organization aimed at rallying support for President 13, 1971 (one week following his Nixon's dangerous New Economic "Phase Two" broadcast to the nation), Policy. The membership roster of Mr. Nixon sent to Congress a message I am calling in which he said: Citizens For A New Prosperity inb. Excessive wage increases dea re also wh individuals cludes many today for significant expansion of manded by labor unions. members of the Establishment our minority enterprise budget. In addition to the $3.6 million appropriaInsiders' Council on Foreign Relations c. Federal spending. tion which we originally requested for (such as Robert B. Anderson, Fred J. C. the Office of Minority Business EnterT. John Conner, Douglas Borch, 2. The basic cause of high interE. H. Fowler, Najeeb prise in fiscal year 1972 we have asked Dillon, Henry est rates has been: The V. Robert the and Roosa). Congress to budget an additional Halaby, for Post a. Bank lending policies. September 27, $40 million bringing the total Washington e advertisea budget for the current fiscal year to b. Tight money" policies of 1971, carried I intend to propose ment sponsored by the new group. $43.6 million. the Federal Reserve System. that OMBE be given a budget for fiscal Among other things, it proclaimed: c. Federal spending. "Citizens For A New Prosperity is a year 1973 of $63.6 million. AltoIf your answer to each ques- group of Americans . . . who believe gether, we are asking for a new two-yeobiectives of the program of $100 million." It is to the head of the that the tion is in are new economic President's worth noting, also, that welfare policy class. If its any of the other all Americans. Putting the interest of recipients were specifically excluded choices, back to your textbook in other differences aside, we intend to from the wage freeze. Ready for a short multiple-choic- e quiz on the economy. Here goes: 1. The basic cause of the rising cost of living has been: a. Price gouging by business. lt is perhaps worth noting that Hobart Lewis, President of the "... full-pag- ... ar far-reachi- c,go Here's Your Chance To Make Money! is looking DEVC (For people witih IDEAS! Clip and mail or call DEVCO'S services can help turn your idea into a profitable product. DEVCO can develop your idea into an attractive, useful product, and present it to manufacturers for manufacturing and marketing, with a profit for all. Please send me free information Name Address DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION AND DISTRIBUTING COMPANY OF AMERICA 1935 South Main Street, wharf your idais ara brought ta light Page 7 Suite 407 Surety Financial Center, Salt Lake City, Utah 84110 Telephone (801) 466-86- 68 |