OCR Text |
Show Billions In Checks, The great bulk of all payments In) this country involve a debit on thq books of a bank. Mostly they are mndej by means of a check, which Is chargecl to the drawer's account. Kecordeui clearings of bank checks last yean amounted to a hundred and eighty-odd) billion dollars. But, as we mentioned) a little while ngo, clearings Involve! only those checks tlint are deposited inj some bank other than the one uponj which they are drawn, and in cltlesj large enough to maintain clearing" ouse associations. An investigation by Bradstreet's Inj 17 cities lndicntcs that total bankj debits are two and a half times thai hmount of clearings. Tbls would implyj that payments made last year through, banks in cities large enough to maln-i tain clearing house associations werej nearly $500,000,000,000, the Saturday Evening Post observes. Add to that) payments In lessor cities and towns,1 p.nd you will have nn approximately correct notion of the amount of money which passes from one hand to anothen In the course of a year the amonntj that In one way or another we pay our-i selves for all exchange of goods, serv Ices and so on. It makes a prodlglousj pile. |