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Page 12 · column 4 of 6 · from the scan, no model involved
CREDIT BUYING MEANS NEW KIND OF ECONOMY
In the present propensity to live off the cuff it’s Mid that this is the normal instinct of a new generation to whom the monthly payment has become as natural as breathing. .
The present generation differs from its predecessors in dedicating most of its income to contractual payments before earning it. Whereas the present day housewife's abiding anxiety is to keep the family credit alive, her, mother operated almost wholly on a cash basis, although just as despairingly perhaps.
If this were the crux of the matter there wouldn’t appear to be much cause for alarm even though corguimer and mortgage indebtedness are reaching fabulous proportions. But when there’s evidence that the majority of American families are spending their income before earning it certain other extremely relevant considerations arise. Obviously people^ who obligate themselves in dollars of a certain purchasing power will stand to gain if they are permitted to repay in depreciated dollars.
Perhaps they would have as much to lose if their personal savings exceeded what they owed on their homes, cart and other possessions bought on term payments.
But it’s doubtful whether liquid savings exceed personal indebtedness except in the case of the upper 10 per cent of income earners.
What this ascending scale of indebtedness is doing, accordingly, • is to. create a large and growing category of people with a vested interest in inflation. And when this circumstance is combined with the fact that government at all levels also is living chronically. beyond its means, the political bias on the side of more inflation becomes practically overwhelming.
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