Mjk probably reach 120 billion dollars. That figure would seem to agree 

 fairly well with President Roosevelt's suggestion that it would take 

 about one-half of our national Income of 100 billion dollars next year 

 for war purposes. Another newspaper report suggested defense expend- 

 itures of one billion dollars a week for the duration of the war. 



A great deal of attention was devoted to possible methods of 

 preventing price inflation under circumstances calling for enormous 

 government expenditures, with more and more restrictions upon the 

 volume of goods available for sale to consumers. It is a general 

 belief that price ceilings will help to prevent drastic inflation, 

 particularly if the limitations are imposed upon the prices rf prac- 

 tically all commodities. The other alternatives for preventing infla- 

 tion would be to take away this income in excess of the amount needed 

 to purchase commodities at present prices, either by means of taxation 

 or some sort of "enforced savings." So far, neither Congress nor the 

 President has been willing to raise taxes or enforce savings adequate 

 to finance the war out of current income. Most of the financing has 

 been done through sale of government securities to banks. In the 

 absence of comprehensive direct price control, a serious inflation 

 would probably result if financing through the banking system were 

 continued. 



It is generally conceded that a post war boom or inflationary 

 price rise is likely. ' It would be based upon the need to replenish 

 consumer goods, some shift in factory output and the relaxatl'^n of 

 restrictions on credit. One speaker emphasized the probability of what 

 he called a post post-war collapse, that is, that we would have a 

 collapse, but it would be deferred for some time after the war ended. 

 However, other speakers thought there might be some means developed 



