“1912” dollar,[1] and if we employ this coefficient of expansion, we get a sum of 398.09 billion “1918” dollars.
As the National Bureau so neatly puts it, “We shall not indulge in any statistical finesse”[2] but will assume further that our actual accumulation of new wealth has been only in the same ratio as before, namely, 4.47% of our 1912 capital of 187.74 billion “1912” dollars, so that we have to add an increment of 8.39 billion “1918” dollars per annum, making an addition for the 6 years of 50.34 billion. Adding this to our previous amount of 398.09 billion, we arrive at a grand total of 448.43 billion “1918” dollars. This is only a very crude estimate, and if it were attempted for the purpose of a final adjudication many modifying factors would have to be taken into consideration. The method of arriving at this total is unfortunately much more like dealing with yeast than with such data as are employed in normal scientific calculations, where stationary units of value are available. However, if our wealth is capable of advancing from 88.5 billion “dollars” in 1900 to 107.10 billion “dollars” in 1904, and on to 187.74 billion “dollars” in 1912, there is nothing except sheer embarrassment to prevent it being as much as 448.43 billion “dollars” in 1918. The ratio of increase is not much more exciting than the increase in National Income, which rose from 33.0 billion “1912” dollars in 1912 to 61.0 billion “1918” dollars in 1918.[3] It seems highly probable, unless the “gold-standard” hawser is sharply jerked, to the confusion of all of us who are involved, that there is nothing to prevent us becoming as “rich” as the Russians or the Germans.
At any rate, we have in hand, for the moment, the imposing
- ↑ “Wholesale Prices 1890 to 1919,” page 15. U. S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Washington, D. C., 1921.
- ↑ “Income in the United States,” page 64. National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. Harcourt, Brace & Co., New York, 1921.
“Statistical finesse” is as well deserving of immortality as “metaphysical nicety” and our present use of the word “redeemability.” ‘“Redeemability,” as employed by the gold-standardist, means cleverly avoided demand; “metaphysical nicety,” as Jevons pointed out, means lack of basic precision; and “statistical finesse” is a priceless euphemistic apology for mathematical “rough-stuff.”
- ↑ “Income in the United States,” page 76. National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. Harcourt, Brace & Co., New York, 1921.
