INSURANCE AGAINST PANIC
Insurance Against Panic ONE of the most provocative proposals for guarding against wholesale unemployment in the postwar period was advanced recently by James G. Patton, president of the National...
...3 Create a reservoir of hope and confidence, so that each little recession need not create a panic...
...Patton proposes that the Federal Government underwrite full employment after the war by making employment available on sound, useful projects whenever and wherever private enterprise fails to provide jobs for everybody...
...2 Provide the Federal, as well as the state and local units of government, with useful inventories of needed work...
...Action now would accomplish several major purposes: "1 Assure returning veterans that they need not go on breadlines or sell apples if private industry fails to provide full employment...
...Government underwriting of full employment would eliminate the hazard of a sudden collapse which is the most pernicious accompaniment of a planless economy...
...There must be jobs, and by jobs I mean jobs that pay sufficiently to enable Americans to maintain a decent standard of living...
...The fact that the cushion is there will help enormously to banish the fear and hysteria which always give wings to the deflationary spiral...
...Business would be assured that- there would be a continuity of steady markets...
...We can't tell from where we sit whether 40 billions is the correct amount required as a yardstick, but that is something that could easily be determined by experts...
...It is hard to conceive how any consideration of military security could enforce such a policy...
...He said that flagrant violation of child labor laws has contributed to the increase of juvenile delinquency...
...Insurance Against Panic ONE of the most provocative proposals for guarding against wholesale unemployment in the postwar period was advanced recently by James G. Patton, president of the National Farmers' Union, who knows so well that farm prosperity is dependent on urban employment, just as industrial production is dependent on farm purchasing power...
...Other causes of crime, Lawes said, are slums, lack of recreation facilities, and the closing of schools because of a shortage of teachers...
...It cannot too often be emphasized that the present proposals are tentative and as yet incomplete...
...cent successful...
...it has three wheels.' Or, as a Washington columnist put it, 'The egg was 90 per cent fresh.' " Jobs And Crime (From Labor, publication of the Railroad Brotherhoods) IF there is such a thing as a "crime expert," Lewis E. Lawes, for many years warden of Sing Sing prison, should qualify...
...Those who are charged with the official duty of carrying forward the work begun at Dumbarton Oaks invite critical and candid scrutiny of the present work...
...During his service more than 100,000 criminals of various types came under his observation...
...Just as in the case of the Federal Bank Deposit Insurance plan, the existence of the guarantee fund could act as an automatic brake on any incipient panic...
...Much of the Federal guarantee fund need never be used...
...Since the risks which business now faces in expanding production would be very much reduced, private investment would be stimulated, and it is quite possible that additional public investment could be held near the minimum necessary to even out minor fluctuations in private enterprise from year to year...
...Diplomacy In Darkness (From the St...
...In this instance, one can only suspect it means relations in secrecy...
...It's like saying, 'I have a 75 per cent perfect automobile...
...Undersecretary of State Edward R. Stettinius has expressed a more cautious and more democratic attitude...
...Louis Fischer, the noted foreign correspondent, put it this way the other day: " 'The President says Dumbarton Oaks was 90 per...
...Louis Post-Dispatch) SO now the United States and Great Britain are resuming diplomatic relations with Italy...
...The Patton plan would set up $40,000,000,000 as the "amount of capital investment required annually to provide jobs for all workers, and then authorize the Government to put up any part of that amount which private capital fails to provide...
...Patton's proposal is sound Progressive doctrine...
...If there are no jobs," he said, "there will be an upsurge in robbery and burglary...
...Such a program of public works would serve as an insurance against severe economic dislocations...
...MR...
...Why is the armistice secret after all this time...
...Lawes declared this week that whether there will be a "postwar crime wave" in this country depends on the extent of economic dislocations...
...In its widely discussed Declaration of Principles, adapted at its Milwaukee convention last May, the Progressive Party of Wisconsin unanimously adopted this plank: "Progressives believe in the preparation and formulation now of a sound program of useful public works, to be used only when and where necessary to take up the slack in private industry as may develop in the years after the war...
...Tentative' And 'Incomplete' BOTH President Roosevelt and Governor Dewey have acclaimed the results of the Dumbarton Oaks conferences and have called for quick approval of the world security scheme without extended debate...
...If not military security, then what is it...
...Lawes scouted fears that veterans will start a murder wave "because they have been so thoroughly trained in the art of slaughter," adding: "The urge to kill will disappear with the goad to kill—war...
...THE Patton suggestion should be acclaimed by private enterprise...
...Price Administrator Chester Bowles summed up the feature in the Patton plan which should be most attractive to private enterprise when he said: "One of the most important aspects of any such program is that, if private business were assured that the Government stood ready, through public investment, to underwrite the huge markets that go with full production and full employment, there might be very little need for the Government actually to undertake investment above the normal amount involved in immediately essential public works...
...It's the principle we applaud— the principle that the people—through their own instrumentality of Government—can insure themselves against the waywardness of the business cycle by having ready at all times a program of decent, self-respecting jobs on needed public works \*> fill whatever holes are left by private enterprise...
...When the terms of the Italian armistice are still known only to a few top officials, how could it be otherwise...
...If we wait until the acute need is upon us, the result can only be a hastily-formed, ill-advised program of made-work —boondoggling...
Vol. 8 • November 1944 • No. 45
