Show NO BOON IN CHEAP MONEY one thing that has to be given up la the idea that cheap money is always good for or business farmers want cheap money business men want cheap money stock speculators want cheap money the U S treasury wants wanta to float government loans on cheap money socialists and old line groen green backora backers want very very tery cheap money everybody tools feels that when the money rate Is shoved shored up it Is an arbitrary damper on prosperity but we cannot have both a low rate awe on an money and a stable level of prices we can have one or the other not both together for or any length of time A low rate of mone means an inflated price level A stable price level means a fluctuating rate of dis count that is the public must learn to look at the price level instead ot of the bank reserves as their measure ot of expectation tor for a rise or fall all ot of the value of money now this tact fact makes me feel that a mistake Is made it if we do not fully explain to the public the power already exercised by the bank rate and the federal reserve doard board and reserve banks our bankers and economists see lea the bad use that thai Is lakey to bo be made ot of political control it banking and nd currency and they try to make the people believe that so intricate a question must be left to experts As a matter ot of tact fact our present methods encourage the very thing we wish to avoid we let everybody believe that low rates on money are necessary tor for prosperity and then than when bank reserves rei erves run low on account ol of the th effects ot of this beliet belief wo we are suddenly compelled to lump jump the rates to protect the reserves we ret both a cycle ot of prices and a cycle ot of bank rates rate whereat whereas it if the public understood that the rise ot of hank bank rates should not wait until bank reserves are low but the rates rate should be advanced several leveral months ahead tor for the very purpose of preventing a fictitious prosperity with its inflated price level then the public might be to the administrative regulations which rali raise the rates at a time when there seems to be no need ot of doing it john a commons university ot of wisconsin |