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Chapter Quotes

STORAGE AND STABILITY

 

Benjamin Graham, 1894-1976.
Benjamin Graham


PART. I. THE CHALLENGE OF SURPLUS


"It cannot be beyond the power of man so to use the vast resources of the world as to ensure the material progress of civilization.  No diminution in these resources has taken place.  On the contrary, discovery, invention, and organization have multiplied their possibilities to such an extent that abundance of production has itself created new problems."

- King George V
Opening speech at the World Economic    Conference
June 12, 1933

 

CHP.I. THE CHANGING ROLE OF SURPLUS STOCKS


"If there is not a saving of grain sufficient for three years, the State cannot continue."

- Royal Regulations of Confucius
Sixth century B.C.


"The world may now look forward to a temporary respite from burdensome wheat surpluses."

- Chairman of the Canadian Wheat Pool
1935

 

CHP.II. GOVERNMENT AND SURPLUS STOCKS


"And let them gather up all the food of the good years that come and lay up corn under the seal of Pharaoh and let them keep food in the cities."

- Genesis, XLI, 35.

 

CHP.III. THE PROBLEM OF CONSERVING SURPLUS


"One clear lesson of history is: Grain should be considered a matter of commerce and not a matter of administration."

- Prof. J. E. Boyle

 

PART. II. THE COMMODITY RESERVOIR


"Boulder Dam is a splendid symbol.  The mighty waters of the Colorado were running unused to the sea.  Today we translate them into a great national possession."

- President Franklin D. Roosevelt
Speech dedicating Boulder Dam
Sept. 30, 1935


"What we need is some financial engineers."

- Henry Ford
Saturday Evening Post,
Feb. 11, 1936

 

CHP.IV. A PLAN FOR CONSERVING SURPLUS


"There should be built a new extensive up-to-date warehouse system into which should be taken the surplus products of the soil which, as experience over the ages has shown us, have always been consumed."

- Bernard M. Baruch

 

CHP.V. THE RESERVOIR SYSTEM AND THE INDIVIDUAL COMMODITIES


"If we are to restore stability of prices and confidence in the future of the market for the great primary commodities, we must look for some means of regulating supplies in such a way that they shall not be from time to time completely out of relation to the absorbing capacity of their markets."

- Neville Chamberlain
August 1932

 

CHP.VI. THE QUESTION OF PRICE STABILITY


"We shall seek to establish and maintain a dollar which will not change its purchasing and debt paying power in the succeeding generations."

- President Franklin D. Roosevelt

 

CHP.VII. THE RESERVOIR SYSTEM AND THE GENERAL BUSINESS CYCLE :
                 IT'S RELATION TO THE PROBLEM OF UNEMPLOYMENT


"Perhaps the gravest problem that our modern economic and industrial structure has now to deal with . . . is the maintenance of some fair degree of stability of values and prevention of such a catastrophic fall in prices, and values, as has been witnessed in the last four years."

- Carl Snyder
September 1934

 

CHP.VIII. ULTIMATE USES OF THE STORED COMMODITY UNITS


"I expect to see the day - and it won't take more than twenty years - when the Government sees to it that one-third of the population which is at present insufficiently clothed and fed will have a decent living standard."

- Harry L. Hopkins
Federal Works Progress Administrator

 

TIP.IX. THE COST OF THE RESERVOIR PLAN


"A total of $17,359,000,000 had been appropriated and allocated for relief purposes up to Oct. 31, 1935."

- New York Times
Jan.6, 1936

 

PART III. MONETARY ASPECTS OF THE RESERVOIR PLAN


"There must be provision for an adequate but sound currency."

- President Franklin D. Roosevelt
Inaugural Address, Mar. 4, 1993


"The ladies could not, for a long time, comprehend what the merchants did with the small pieces of gold and silver, or why things of so little use should be received as the equivalent of the necessities of life."

- Samuel Johnson
Rasselas, Chap. XVI

 

CHP.X. THE CURRENCY OF THE UNITED STATES


"All forms of money issued or coined by the United States shall be maintained at a parity."

- 48 U.S. Statutes, 113

 

CHP.XI. THE STATUS OF GOLD AND SILVER


"Gold and silver in short seemed to be the only things in Cuzco that were not wealth."

- Prescott

 

CHP.XII. COMMODITY-BACKED VERSUS OTHER CURRENCY


"The admission of the principle that non-perishable staple commodities can be included in currency reserves to a limited extent would go a long way toward solving the world's monetary problems and also the present problem of surplus stocks."

- Dr. Paul Einzig

 

CHP.XIII. THE RESERVOIR PLAN AND CREDIT CONTROL


"The responsibility for drastic control of expansion has never yet been undertaken.  Still I think that control of expansion is more feasible than the control of contraction, and that the only safeguard against future depression is the control of inflation."

- E. A. Goldenweiser
Director of Research and Statistics,
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System

 

PART IV. AGRICULTURAL RELIEF AND THE EVER-NORMAL GRANARY


"An unprecedented condition calls for new means to rescue agriculture."

- President Franklin D. Roosevelt
in Message transmitting the
Agricultural Adjustment Act,
March 16, 1933


"The community, indeed, could not advance in prosperity and civilization if it were to continue indefinitely a policy of restricting agricultural production with a view to adapting it to dwindling demand. . . . Instead of leveling down, it must begin to plan coordinated expansion for employing the services of science and technique to the satisfaction of human needs."

- Report of the International
Institute of Agriculture
September 1, 1937

 

CHP.XIV. FARM PROBLEMS AND REMEDIES


"The Nation needs to build permanent defenses for agriculture against two directly opposite kinds of hazard.  One kind of hazard is the danger of price collapse resulting from production in excess of market demands.  The other is the danger of shortage of marketable supplies resulting form crop failure."

- H. R. Tolley
Agricultural Adjustment Administrator
Annual Report for 1936.

 

CHP.XV. THE 1937 FARM LEGISLATION - THE EVER-NORMAL GRANARY


"From the standpoint of the national interest, the consuming interest, and the agricultural interest, the increased stability of supply and price that would come with the ever-normal granary is essential."

- Secretary of Agriculture H. A. Wallace

 

CHP.XVI. THE RESERVOIR PLAN VERSUS CROP CONTROL AS A METHOD OF FARM RELIEF


"Now be it therefore resolved by the Senate and the House of Representatives in Congress assembled, that abundant production of farm products should be a blessing and not a curse."

- Resolution adopted by both Houses of Congress
August 1937

 

PART V. OTHER ASPECTS OF THE RESERVOIR PLAN


"It would perhaps be a permissible simplification to say that the economic problem with which the civilized world is grappling is, in substance, that of adjusting production and consumption so as to avoid both want and glut.  All the disputes over currencies, debts, tariffs, prices and trade are phases of the central riddle, since the aim of monetary efforts, price-raising and taxation is, or should be, both to stimulate production and to facilitate the consumption of what is produced."

- Harold Callender
New York Times
April 8, 1934

 

CHP.XVII. INTERNATIONAL ASPECTS OF THE PLAN


"The economic activities of the United States and England combined represent more than half of total world activity; and these countries are in normal times the main sources of capital.  World booms and depressions are more likely to spring from changes originating in them and carried outward than by the reverse process."

- Prof. John H. Williams

 

CHP.XVIII. PRECEDENTS AND RELATED PROPOSALS


"There is no reason why the farmer should not finance himself, as the gold miner does, but turning his output into money directly."

- Thomas A. Edison

 

CHP.XIX. THE RESERVOIR PLAN AND THE DEMOCRATIC TRADITION


"The important changes that have been made peacefully have always been made by an expanding economic system.  Where there is expansion, there is security; and where there is security, there are the time and the opportunity for men to give reason its right to empire. . . Accommodation is always possible in a society where new material benefits can be continually conferred."

- Harold Laski


"Political freedom is the condition of all freedom."

- Dorothy Thompson


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