[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
dollars every day in the week. But, before this year is over, that almost unbelievable rate
of expenditure will be doubled.
All of this money has to be spent and spent quickly if we are to produce within the
time now available the enormous quantities of weapons of war which we need. But the
spending of these tremendous sums presents grave danger of disaster to our national
economy.
When your government continues to spend these unprecedented sums for munitions
month by month and year by year, that money goes into the pocketbooks and bank
accounts of the people of the United States. At the same time raw materials and many
manufactured goods are necessarily taken away from civilian use, and machinery and
factories are being converted to war production.
You do not have to be a professor of mathematics or economics to see that if people with
plenty of cash start bidding against each other for scarce goods, the price of those goods
goes up.
Yesterday I submitted to the Congress of the United states a seven- point program of
general principles which taken together could be called the national economic policy for
attaining the great objective of keeping the cost of living down.
I repeat them now to you in substance:
First. we must, through heavier taxes, keep personal and corporate profits at a low
reasonable rate.
Second. We must fix ceilings on prices and rents.
Third. We must stabilize wages.
Fourth. We must stabilize farm prices.
Fifth. We must put more billions into war bonds.
Sixth. We must ration all essential commodities which are scarce.
Seventh. We must discourage installment buying, and encourage paying off debts and
mortgages.
I do not think it is necessary to repeat what I said yesterday to the Congress in
discussing these general principles.
The important thing to remember is that each one of these points is dependent on the
others if the whole program is to work.
Some people are already taking the position that every one of the seven points is correct
except the one point which steps on their own individual toes. A few seem very willing
to approve self- denial on the part of their neighbors. The only effective course of
action is a simultaneous attack on all of the factors which increase the cost of living, in
one comprehensive, all-embracing program covering prices, and profits, and wages, and
taxes and debts.
The blunt fact is that every single person in the United States is going to be affected by
this program. Some of you will be affected more directly by one or two of these
restrictive measures, but all of you will be affected indirectly by all of them.
Are you a businessman, or do you own stock in a business corporation? Well, your
profits are going to be cut down to a reasonably low level by taxation. Your income will
be subject to higher taxes. Indeed in these days, when every available dollar should go to
the war effort, I do not think that any American citizen should have a net income in
excess of $25,000 per year after payment of taxes.
Are you a retailer or a wholesaler or a manufacturer or a farmer or a landlord? Ceilings
are being placed on the prices at which you can sell your goods or rent your property.
Do you work for wages? You will have to forego higher wages for your particular job
for the duration of the war.
All of us are used to spending money for things that we want, things, however, which
are not absolutely essential. We will all have to forego that kind of spending. Because
we must put every dime and every dollar we can possibly spare out of our earnings into
war bonds and stamps. Because the demands of the war effort require the rationing of
goods of which there is not enough to go around. Because the stopping of purchases of
non-essentials will release thousands of workers who are needed in the war effort.
As I told the Congress yesterday, "sacrifice" is not exactly the proper word with which
to describe this program of self-denial. When, at the end of this great struggle we shall
have saved our free way of life, we shall have made no "sacrifice."
The price for civilization must be paid in hard work and sorrow and blood. The price is
not too high. If you doubt it, ask those millions who live today under the tyranny of
Hitlerism.
Ask the workers of France and Norway and the Netherlands, whipped to labor by the
lash, whether the stabilization of wages is too great a "sacrifice."
Ask the farmers of Poland and Denmark, of Czechoslovakia and France, looted of their
livestock, starving while their own crops are stolen from their land, ask them whether
"parity" prices are too great a "sacrifice."
Ask the businessmen of Europe, whose enterprises have been stolen from their owners,
whether the limitation of profits and personal incomes is too great a "sacrifice."
Ask the women and children whom Hitler is starving whether the rationing of tires and
gasoline and sugar is too great a "sacrifice."
We do not have to ask them. They have already given us their agonized answers.
This great war effort must be carried through to its victorious conclusion by the
indomitable will and determination of the people as one great whole.
It must not be impeded by the faint of heart.
It must not be impeded by those who put their own selfish interests above the interests of
the nation.
It must not be impeded by those who pervert honest criticism into falsification of fact. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl rafalstec.xlx.pl
dollars every day in the week. But, before this year is over, that almost unbelievable rate
of expenditure will be doubled.
All of this money has to be spent and spent quickly if we are to produce within the
time now available the enormous quantities of weapons of war which we need. But the
spending of these tremendous sums presents grave danger of disaster to our national
economy.
When your government continues to spend these unprecedented sums for munitions
month by month and year by year, that money goes into the pocketbooks and bank
accounts of the people of the United States. At the same time raw materials and many
manufactured goods are necessarily taken away from civilian use, and machinery and
factories are being converted to war production.
You do not have to be a professor of mathematics or economics to see that if people with
plenty of cash start bidding against each other for scarce goods, the price of those goods
goes up.
Yesterday I submitted to the Congress of the United states a seven- point program of
general principles which taken together could be called the national economic policy for
attaining the great objective of keeping the cost of living down.
I repeat them now to you in substance:
First. we must, through heavier taxes, keep personal and corporate profits at a low
reasonable rate.
Second. We must fix ceilings on prices and rents.
Third. We must stabilize wages.
Fourth. We must stabilize farm prices.
Fifth. We must put more billions into war bonds.
Sixth. We must ration all essential commodities which are scarce.
Seventh. We must discourage installment buying, and encourage paying off debts and
mortgages.
I do not think it is necessary to repeat what I said yesterday to the Congress in
discussing these general principles.
The important thing to remember is that each one of these points is dependent on the
others if the whole program is to work.
Some people are already taking the position that every one of the seven points is correct
except the one point which steps on their own individual toes. A few seem very willing
to approve self- denial on the part of their neighbors. The only effective course of
action is a simultaneous attack on all of the factors which increase the cost of living, in
one comprehensive, all-embracing program covering prices, and profits, and wages, and
taxes and debts.
The blunt fact is that every single person in the United States is going to be affected by
this program. Some of you will be affected more directly by one or two of these
restrictive measures, but all of you will be affected indirectly by all of them.
Are you a businessman, or do you own stock in a business corporation? Well, your
profits are going to be cut down to a reasonably low level by taxation. Your income will
be subject to higher taxes. Indeed in these days, when every available dollar should go to
the war effort, I do not think that any American citizen should have a net income in
excess of $25,000 per year after payment of taxes.
Are you a retailer or a wholesaler or a manufacturer or a farmer or a landlord? Ceilings
are being placed on the prices at which you can sell your goods or rent your property.
Do you work for wages? You will have to forego higher wages for your particular job
for the duration of the war.
All of us are used to spending money for things that we want, things, however, which
are not absolutely essential. We will all have to forego that kind of spending. Because
we must put every dime and every dollar we can possibly spare out of our earnings into
war bonds and stamps. Because the demands of the war effort require the rationing of
goods of which there is not enough to go around. Because the stopping of purchases of
non-essentials will release thousands of workers who are needed in the war effort.
As I told the Congress yesterday, "sacrifice" is not exactly the proper word with which
to describe this program of self-denial. When, at the end of this great struggle we shall
have saved our free way of life, we shall have made no "sacrifice."
The price for civilization must be paid in hard work and sorrow and blood. The price is
not too high. If you doubt it, ask those millions who live today under the tyranny of
Hitlerism.
Ask the workers of France and Norway and the Netherlands, whipped to labor by the
lash, whether the stabilization of wages is too great a "sacrifice."
Ask the farmers of Poland and Denmark, of Czechoslovakia and France, looted of their
livestock, starving while their own crops are stolen from their land, ask them whether
"parity" prices are too great a "sacrifice."
Ask the businessmen of Europe, whose enterprises have been stolen from their owners,
whether the limitation of profits and personal incomes is too great a "sacrifice."
Ask the women and children whom Hitler is starving whether the rationing of tires and
gasoline and sugar is too great a "sacrifice."
We do not have to ask them. They have already given us their agonized answers.
This great war effort must be carried through to its victorious conclusion by the
indomitable will and determination of the people as one great whole.
It must not be impeded by the faint of heart.
It must not be impeded by those who put their own selfish interests above the interests of
the nation.
It must not be impeded by those who pervert honest criticism into falsification of fact. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]