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Commodlty Prices . 



Long-time trend: Strongly upward 

 Intermediate trend: Steady to upward 

 Short-time trend; Downward 

 There seems to be at least a temporary lull in the upward 

 trends of commodity prices^ This is probably brought about, by the 



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stabilization of industrial activity and the proposals for price fixing, 

 increased taxation, forced savings, limitation upon bank credit expan- 

 sion, and other factors that would help to prevent inflation. 



The latest proposal originating in Washington that has an 

 important bearing upon future prices is the suggestion credited to the 

 Secretary of the Treasury that the social security payroll tax be in- 

 creased from 2 per cent to 6 per cent. President Roosevelt has also 

 indicated that the social secu$*ity system of old age pensions might be 

 doubled by the addition of some ^0 million persons not now governed by 



the act. These would probably include 2.5 million domestic servants, 



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 ^•5 million farm laborers, ^^-.5 "to 5 million self-employed, 1 to 3 



million part-time workers, 3 to ^ million public employees, 3 to ^ 

 million charitable workers or W.P.A. employees, and 6 to 7 million feirm 

 operators. Regardless of the desirability or merits of the proposal from 

 other points of view, it would certainly have a tendency to curb infla- 

 tion to the extent of taking about an extra 2 billion dollars out of 

 the pockets of employers and employees combined by simply raising the 

 rate to 6 per cent instead of 2 per cent. If another 30 million to H-0 

 million people were involved, their contributions would greatly increase 

 this amount. At the same time that the money was being taken out of the 

 hands of the income recipients, it would be paid to the government and 

 that would make it unnecesssiry for the government to borrow equivalent 

 amounts from other sources. The government could merely borrow the 



