The Economic and Political Hazards of an Inflationary Defense Economy: Materials Prepared for ... by the Committee Staff1951 - 96 pages |
Common terms and phrases
$75 billion additional taxes adjusted agriculture American Bankers Association amount Assumes Federal consolidated Austrian bank basis billion dollars billion in fiscal Billions of dollars Bureau business demand cash budget Chart civilian commodities Communist consolidated cash expenditures consumer and business consumer demand Consumers Union corporate profits corporate taxes credit controls defense expenditures Defense Production Defense Production Act direct controls Economic Report effects employment estimates excess consumer excise taxes Farm Federal budget Federal consolidated cash Federal Reserve System fiscal year 1952 gross national product industries inflation inflationary excess inflationary pressures January January 25 June labor force levels ment monetary Nation's economic budget national defense National Farmers Union output pengö percent personal income price and wage price controls price rises purchases receipts savings Soviet stabilization sumers supply tax and nontax U. S. Department wage controls wholesale prices workers World War II
Popular passages
Page 15 - Lenin is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the capitalist system was to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. By this method they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily * * *. Lenin was certainly right.
Page 15 - Lenin was certainly right. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.
Page 16 - ... the ability of the revolutionary classes to carry out revolutionary mass actions strong enough to break (or to undermine) the old government, it being the rule that never, not even in a period of crises, does a government "fall" of itself without being "helped to fall.
Page 16 - ... to live in the old way; (2) when the suffering and want of the oppressed classes have grown more acute than usual; (3) when, as a consequence of the above causes, there is a considerable increase in the activity of the masses, who uncomplainingly allow themselves to be robbed in 'peacetime', but, in turbulent times, are drawn both by all the circumstances of the crisis and by the 'upper classes' themselves into independent historical action.
Page 16 - ... taking one form or another; there is a crisis in the policy of the ruling class; as a result, there appears a crack through which the dissatisfaction and the indignation of the oppressed classes burst forth. If a revolution is to take place, it is usually insufficient that "the lower classes do not wish...
Page 16 - ... allow themselves to be robbed without protest, but in stormy times are drawn both by the circumstances of the crises and by the "higher-ups" thenfselves into independent historic action. Without these objective changes, which are independent not only of the will of separate groups and parties but even of separate classes, a revolution, as a rule, is impossible.
Page 3 - If we are willing to appropriate money for defense but unwilling to take it away from ourselves, we are trying to escape the basic fact of diversion of resources, and the necessity of initial curtailments of civilian supply. We are supporting national defense with one hand and sabotaging it with the other. Such a policy is consistent neither with efficient defense nor with social equity. The indispensable first condition for success is that the American people be prepared to impose on themselves...
Page 59 - Labor force data are based on a survey made during the week which includes the 8th of the month . Detail will not necessarily add to totals because of rounding. Sources: Department of Labor (1929-39) and Department of Commerce (1940-51). Total labor foree (including armed forces) ' Civilian labor foree Unemploy ment as percent of total civilian labor force Period Armed forces...
Page 16 - ... themselves into independent historic action. Without these objective changes, which are independent not only of the will of separate groups and parties but even of separate classes, a revolution as a rule is impossible. The coexistence of all these objective changes is called a revolutionary situation. This situation existed in 1905 in Russia and in all the periods of revolution in the West, but it also existed in the seventh decade of the last century in Germany; it existed in 1859-1861 and...
Page 59 - Data for 1940-50 exclude about 150,000 members of the Armed Forces who were outside the continental United States in 1940 and who were therefore not enumerated in the 1940 census. This figure is deducted by the Census Bureau from its current estimates for comparability with 1940 data.