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Show i Big Bankers Failed There will probably be more talk about governmental finance and taxation this year than ever before. States, municipalities and all subdivisions will have their fiscal fis-cal policies and financial statements state-ments heavily criticised, especially espec-ially by the so-called big bankers. liw governmental agencies are able to borrow much money. Nobody No-body else is. The big bankers during the past few years have made a mess of financial operations, opera-tions, have run out of money to loan and become scared, and now blame every government for having hav-ing used their offerings in the past. The truth is that worldwide conditions and the world financial finan-cial situation makes it impossible to float notes readily. The big bankers, by the way, are as much responsible for the present financial plight as anybody; any-body; in fact, much more so, because be-cause they encouraged borrowing, stimulated speculation, and hac more to do with the conditions which precede the collopse than any other class. They encouraged the American investing public to buy hundreds of millions of dollars dol-lars worth of foreign bonds, which the bankers sold at a magnificent profit, and today these bonds are in default. However, the bankers sold them all and only kept the profits The- investing public trusted them. Now, they talk about educating the investor to exercising more discriminaion in what he buys. This does not mean that there has been any excuse for any government gov-ernment spending more money each year than an income was provided to meet. Legislators who helped decide the size of the appropriation ap-propriation bills in recent years and the revenue bills to pay them are now in a panic because the bankers who encouraged the former form-er loans criticize the borrowing. A state should balance its budget. There is no excuse for a legislature legisla-ture seeking to curry favor by expenditures ex-penditures and then failing to have the courage to levy the necessary nece-ssary taxes to pay for these expenditures. ex-penditures. However, the condition which is faced is one of abnormal characteristics. charac-teristics. As long as the world's financial structure is "as is" a state must listen to the dictation of big bankers. They wrecked Germany's finances, forced a Briish government out of office, and exercise a large authority upon up-on every government. |