INFLATION

Evening Star, Issue 21632, 30 January 1934, Page 11

INFLATION

"WHAT THE SNOOTIN' IS "ABOUT' 3 .

After reading with some, perplexity] the arguments for and against inflation with which many noted profess sors of economics have been regaling the public through the newspapers, ai well-known industrialist in the. U.S.A.I found it necessary, recently, to relieve his feelings by setting down on! paper an impression of “ what all the shootin’ was about.” It is appended here because it reflects better than anything else the average, man’s state of mind.

“ Professor Dingbat of Wamdoodle College, and Professor Rocking Horse of Haywire College, lived in houses just one mile apart. They visited each other frequently; “ One evening they got into a discussion pf the fact that they lived al mile apart—quite a distance to travel to see each other, and that it took them half an hour to walk it. After a time the brilliant question occurred to one of them why f it would not ha just as satisfactory, and even more- so,in fact, to have the mile, 10,560 feet,instead of 5,280 feet. If that change could be made they would then live only one-half mile apart. “ That was pretty good so far as it went, but it would still .take theml half an hour to walk the distance between thie two houses. They then worked out the idea that if the hour) was 120 minutes instead of sixty minutes (and why should it not be?) they] could walk the distance in a quarter) of an hour. Then instead of being separated by one mile or half an hour; they would be separated by only onaj half-mile and one-quarter of an hour- “ But they used to carry books and other articles back and forth, so they, decided that the pound should have thirty-two ounces instead of only sixteen ounces, and then they would have; to carry only one-half as much weight.“This led to the thought that it they reduced the dollar from 100 cents to 50 cents they would reduce tlmir; taxi fares in bad weather and thly would have less weight of money, too, to carry round—if they ever had any. 5