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Show See Good Times j When War Ends i j Unparalleled Prosperity for ! U. S. Is Envisioned by J Commerce Department. ! WASHINGTON. A potential era tot "unparalleled prosperity" faces the United States as soon as the war ends, the commerce department reports. "The major potentials," it said, "will be present the day after victory vic-tory is won employment on an un-; un-; precedentedly high level, the great-' great-' est productive plant of all time, national na-tional income at a peak hardly dreamed of in prewar years, with a large volume of accumulated savings, sav-ings, and an unmeasured demand for goods denied to the consumer by the war's exactions." j The "big problem," the depart-'ment depart-'ment asserted, is to prepare now to so manage these factors as to translate trans-late potentials into realities, adding that this is "primarily a job for pri- vte enterprise, aided and supported by government." i Markets After War. i The department's report was based on a study of "markets after the war" made by its bureau of foreign and domestic commerce. The study was designed to assist marketing market-ing analysts to "set their sights on a common goal of greatest postwar opportunity for American business." The report estimates that by 1946 there will be 10,000,000 more persons in the labor force than there were in 1940 and that national output will be 40 to 50 per cent greater than in 1940. The department said a major postwar post-war problem of industry will be to convert speedily and make peacetime peace-time goods available for the tremendous tremen-dous accumulation of purchasing power, the extent of which "will depend de-pend on the length of the war and on federal fiscal policies which have not yet been determined." If the war should last through 1944 the total savings for three years might exceed $100,000,000,000 as against a normal tendency to save no more than half that amount," it added. "This total includes a number of items of varying importance as reservoirs res-ervoirs of purchasing power. Included In-cluded is the liquidation of consumer installment and other short-term debt which would make possible an expansion of about $10,000,000,000 in such debt after the war. May Not Hold Bonds. "Many of the people who are buying buy-ing war bonds because of patriotism or other compulsion will not wish to hold them until maturity. Part of the large increase in individual hold-tags hold-tags of currency and bank deposits represents a natural tendency to carry a larger cash balance commensurate com-mensurate with higher income, but much of it is money which the holder hold-er would like to spend if the desired goods were available. "The amount of accumulated savings sav-ings which might be spent after the v ar defies even approximate measurement meas-urement . . . Since the production of goods and services after the war will in large part create its own market, this accumulation of purchasing pur-chasing power should be more than ample to assure an aggregate demand de-mand for all the goods the available manpower can produce. In fact, it suggests that the problem after the war may be to control a boom rather than prevent a depression." |