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Show ECONOMIC ARITHMAGIC. In a speech at the recent progressive progres-sive conference at Washington, Senator Sen-ator Boarh declared that 75 per cent of the wealth of the United States is in the hands of four per cent of the American people. Statements of this kind are frequently fre-quently made; the source of such figures fig-ures is not given. Half of the people are under 21 years of age, and do not figure much as property owners. For every holder of . property there are a number of dependents who are legal as well as moral sharers of this property. Sixty-five per cent of the national wealth of the United States is in real estate. That it is "cornered" to any such extent as such figures would indicate in-dicate is clearly incorrect. The value of farm lands and live stock, exclusive pf the amount of mortgages upon them, is nearly one-sixth of the total national wealth, and few farmers presumably pre-sumably are to be numbered among the "malefactors of great wealth." . The per capita wealth of Idaho, as far I back as 1922, was $3,301, double what is was in 1912, and four hundred dol-' dol-' lars per capita above the national ) average. Do four per cent of the peo- pie of Idaho own 75 per cent of the state's wealth? Persons paying federal taxes in 1927 on incomes of. $10,000 or over received, according to the figures printed in the World Almanac, about ten per cent of the national income. This does not seem to fit in very well with this theory that four per cent of the people own 75 per cent of the national wealth. |