The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 7, Issue 5 (September 1, 1932)
Credit versus Slump
Credit versus Slump.
In the United States, the fight to maintain standards—or, rather, not to lose them altogether—has led to a great Presidential programme of lending and spending. It has been called inflation. But inflation is a question of degree. Big as his anti-depression programme is, President Hoover can say that he successfully resisted a much greater inflation that had been endorsed by a Congress which, facing election, yielded to the old temptation to bribe the electors, and threw the onus of veto on to the President. In vetoing Bills sent to him, and in pointing out to Congress its own hypocrisy, the President said that those Bills would have created the greatest banking and money-lending machine in history. His own relief programme is in itself more than huge. It is estimated that Congress gives him 5,000 million dollars new credit to energise industry. But can State-authorised credit kill a world slump?