Economic impact

“ The economy, a mixture of private enterprises of all sizes and extensive government intervention, experienced enormous difficulties in the late 1980s, notably declining real growth, runaway inflation, foreign debt obligations of more than $100 billion, and uncertain economic policy. ”

“ Our courts of justice, our financial institutions, our methods of trade, and our schools of all grades are examples of social harmonies which found their form by long conflict, and settled down to smooth action by custom. The financial institutions and the methods of trade belong to the economic system. The system of production is modern and new. ”

“ Domestically, problems and risks that have been building up over the years are becoming more evident; the change of pace in economic growth, the difficulties associated with structural adjustments, and the transformation of the drivers of growth present interwoven problems; and downward pressure on the economy 1s growing. ”

“ Economists argue against government restrictions on trade and manufacture.
The economists wrote treatises on taxation, scattered pamphlets about, and conducted a magazine or two. They not only brought the existing economic evils home to the intelligent reader, but suggested remedies for them. ”

“ Many economic questions are treated fully in such articles as Banking, Federal Reserve Banking System, Federal Farm Loan Board, Excess Profits Duty, Income Tax, City Government, Interstate Commerce, Conservation Policy, Insurance, Cost of Living, Food Supply, Rationing, Marketing, Price Control, Profiteering, Profit-Sharing, Savings Movement, ETC. For industrial development see also the articles Shipping, Railways, Telegraph, Telephone, and Electricity Supply, as well as those on important industries such as Coal, Copper, Cotton and Cotton Industry, Dyeing, Petroleum, Iron and Steel. ”

“ The consequent shifting of the incidence of industrial returns may be ascertained by enumerating the respective beneficiaries and exploitees of the profit-taking process—the trade advantages of the one class measure the economic disability of the other class; and the attenuation of the incomes of the less favored, as a means to augment the profits of the more favored, is a significant attribute of changing social costs. ”

“ The Economic Function.—The nation has an economic function. It is its business to encourage trade by means that seem most likely to help, whether by subsidies, tariffs, or expert advice; to protect all producers, distributers, and consumers by just laws and tribunals, so that unfair privileges shall not be enjoyed by the few at the expense of the many, and to provide in every legitimate way for the spread of information and for experimentation that agriculture, mining, and manufacturing may be improved. ”

“ Herein flows the lifeblood of material existence. The economic mechanism is intricate and its parts interdependent, and has suffered the shocks and jars incident to abnormal demands, credit inflations, and price upheavals. ”

“ They are pre-eminently qualified to stimulate a brisk traffic in goods under conditions hitherto determined by natural economy and both are significant in economic history as mile-stones along the route of rapid dissolution of old economic organisations, of social crises and of the development of modern conditions, that is to say of the development of commodity economy to begin with, and further of the production of capital. ”

“ But if, on the other hand, growth in the supply of money does not keep pace with the economy's current production, then prices will fall, the nations's labor force, factories, and other production facilities will not be fully employed, or both. ”

“ We must also recognize that our own economic well-being is inextricably linked to the world economy. We export over 20 percent of our industrial production, and 40 percent of our farmland produces for export. ”

“ The savings of labor which have fallen so largely into the hands of the few, making them rich men, have built our railroads, steamships, telegraphs, manufactories, thus in many ways adding to the means of production, and the facilities of commerce at home and abroad. These saved earnings in the hands of men seeking investment for profit have increased the wealth, resources, and refinements of civilization, made abundance possible, and brought it within reach of all, except the unfortunate, or the indolent and improvident. ”

“ Before the individual will expend his maximum energy upon the economic process, he must see tangible results such as bread, shoes, schools, and holidays. One of the strongest arguments that the present economic system advances in favor of its continuance is the showing of large tangible returns in the form of economic goods. ”

“ The recent economic development of some few of these countries, and especially the extension of their agriculture and their mining, have naturally tended to give a practical turn to thought and action, fixing men's minds on business, on the public improvements which wealth makes possible, and on the enjoyments to which it invites. ”

“ With the emergence of modern industry, and its production of large amounts of surplus commodities, important industrial groups like Britain and Germany which depended for their prosperity on their ability to find foreign markets for their surplus commodities, have been driven to a fierce struggle for these markets. ”

“ The stability of trade, the money value of every description of vested interests, in fact, the industrial, commercial, and financial welfare of the country, all are directly involved in the rapid manipulation of such vast sums. ”

“ As I said, we've got experts from a wide range of business sectors, and what we're going to talk about is, are there mechanisms that we can start putting in place where we see the kind of growth that used to characterize the U.S. economy -- export-driven growth, manufacturing growth, growth that pays high wages and provides high living standards for a broad-based middle class. ”

“ Has the progress of wealth and industry no effect in regard to cost of production, but to diminish it? Are no causes of an opposite character brought into operation by the same progress, sufficient in some cases not only to neutralize, but to overcome the former, and convert the descending movement of cost of production into an ascending movement? ”

“ With an increased and increasing revenue, the finances are in a highly flourishing condition. Agriculture, commerce, and navigation are prosperous; the prices of manufactured fabrics and of other products are much less injuriously affected than was to have been anticipated from the unprecedented revulsions which during the last and the present year have overwhelmed the industry and paralyzed the credit and commerce of so many great and enlightened nations of Europe. ”

“ It is then that the weight of taxes, the high price of commodities, and the various causes which encumber those who live in wealthy nations, begin to produce a pernicious effect. The tendency of industry is to remove its abode, and the capital of the merchants, who know no country, but understand arithmetic, and the profits of trade, gives the industry the means of doing it with more ease and promptitude. ”

“ The inevitable result was to check production, and this check to production propagated itself in a cessation of demand, which checked production to the furthest verge of the wide circle of exchanges, operating with accumulated force in the centers of the great industrial commonwealth into which commerce links the civilized world. ”

“ The man who has a dollar in his pocket knows that speculators and gold-gamblers cannot, by some juggle, take five cents or ten cents from its value, in twenty-four hours, as they could a few years ago. The public burdens have been largely reduced. Our exports far exceed our imports, and our balance-sheet with the world shows an immense sum in our favor. The boom of business is heard in the land. The preachers of calamity are out of date. Commerce, industry, enterprise, capital, labor, all feel the impulse of substantial prosperity running through every artery of public and private activities. ”

“ In manufactures, accordingly, the causes tending to increase the productiveness of industry, preponderate greatly over the one cause which tends to diminish it: and the increase of production, called forth by the progress of society, takes place, not at an increasing, but at a continually diminishing proportional cost. ”

“ By such means society might obtain from its existing resources a greater quantity of produce: and to such means it has been driven, when the sudden destruction of some large portion of its capital rendered the employment of the remainder with the greatest possible effect, a matter of paramount consideration for the time. ”

“ Supposing, therefore, that the actual comforts of the labourer remain the same, profits will fall or rise, according as population, or improvements in the production of food and other necessaries, advance fastest. ”

“ The labourer may obtain greater comforts; wages in kind real wages may rise. Or the progress of population may force down cultivation to inferior soils, and more costly processes; thus raising the cost of production, the value, and the price, of the chief articles of the labourer's consumption. On either of these suppositions, the rate of profit will fall. ”

“ It means that enlarged production of which we have just spoken, which scatters more goods throughout the community and insures an addition to the real incomes of both laborers and permanent investors. ”

“ It caused the establishment of great new industries and the expansion of others; the maintenance of good wages for American workingmen; the supplying of the American market with American-made goods in place of foreign, often of better quality and at lower prices than the foreign; and at the same time an abundant revenue to be applied not only to the current expenses of government but also to the extinguishment of the public debt. ”

“ This thoroughly modern market economy features high-tech agriculture, up-to-date small-scale and corporate industry, extensive government welfare measures, an equitable distribution of income, comfortable living standards, a stable currency, a stable political system, and high dependence on foreign trade. ”

“ To any advance in the arts of industry or the comforts of life, a rate of production exceeding the rate of consumption, with consequent accumulation of resources, or in other words, the formation of capital, is indispensable. ”

“ Aiming at greater production, economy and efficiency, through their large means and modern improvements, than had been possible with small concerns, they marked a forward step in that progressive industrial, commercial and financial march which has created our vast national wealth and made this country the Wonder of the World. ”

“ Trade had developed under the new rule, and had expanded with improved means of communication. Capital had begun to accumulate, and the moneyed classes were in favour of a government that would support public credit and refrain from extortion. The mass of the people were contented, prices being cheap, wages on the rise and employment brisk. ”

“ Let it practice true and conscientious economy, not only in the expenditure and application of public moneys, but also in the method of levying them, so as to be equally just to all classes and all economical interests. ”

“ In industry, we must support our objective of higher industrial growth with investments in relatively labor-intensive finished consumer goods industries, the second stage of import substitution for selected intermediate and capital goods industries, and the generation of exports. ”

“ The development of industrial production has had the result of an increase in the volume of commercial transactions. These continue to look after themselves and, for the most part, they are on a cash basis. ”

“ To prohibit either is to paralyze industry, to stand still as a producing power, and to stand still is only the temporary pause before retrogression begins. Commercial prosperity is simply this expansion of industry and trade consequent upon the development of new resources. ”

“ The revenues have been greatly increased by the universal advantages conferred upon all kinds of industry and commerce by scientific knowledge. The additional taxes upon increased incomes from agriculture, arts, manufactures, mines; increased value of land and rents; investments in railway, telegraph, steam-ship and other companies, have been extremely great. ”

“ Economic growth has liberated societies from the natural pressures that forced them into an immediate struggle for survival; but they have not yet been liberated from their liberator. The commodity’s independence has spread to the entire economy it now dominates. This economy has transformed the world, but it has merely transformed it into a world dominated by the economy. ”

“ The great end of legislation in matters of national wealth, according to the prevalent opinion, was to create consumers. A great and rapid consumption was what the producers, of all classes and denominations, wanted, to enrich themselves and the country. This object, under the varying names of an extensive demand, a brisk circulation, a great expenditure of money, and sometimes totidem verbis a large consumption, was conceived to be the great condition of prosperity. ”

“ We have surveyed the field of economical facts, and have examined how they stand related to one another as causes and effects; what circumstances determine the amount of production, of employment for labour, of capital and population; what laws regulate rent, profits, and wages; under what conditions and in what proportions commodities are interchanged between individuals and between countries. We have thus obtained a collective view of the economical phenomena of society, considered as existing simultaneously. ”

“ First, it shifts our emphasis in public and private spending from consumption to investment, initially by jumpstarting the economy in the short term and investing in our people, their jobs, and their incomes over the long run. ”