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Prepare to Greatly
· Reduce
Your Standard
of Living!
t's time you knew the real
meaning of the present infla–
tionary spiral, rising interest
rates, and fears of entering a
severe depression.
There is far more to all this
economic concern than appears on
the surface. Its roots even penetrate
back into ancient history and biblical
prophecy. Where are the United
States and British nations mentioned
in Bible prophecy? What is prophe–
sied about these very conditions?
What does it all really mean?
What does it portend for the rela–
tively immediate future?
We in the United States have
enjoyed the most prosperous living
standard of any nation in all the
history of mankind. There is a reason
for this unmatched prosperity that
carne to us. There also is a reason for
thedevaluation ofthe dollar in foreign
markets, for our present abnormal
inflation, and the fear in financia! and
government circles that we may well
be in the beginning of the most severe
economic depression in history.
A number of times I have pub–
lished an economic analysis of the
real causes of the inflation spiral and
other economic distresses in the
United States.
But now the stranglehold of infla–
tion and other economic disturbances
a re tightening around our necks. This
12
by
Herbert W. Armstrong
trend ís going to reach out and
greatly reduce
your
standard of liv–
ing, in the next two years or more.
More Than Mere Economlc Factors
Actually, what is happening to us now is
much more than purely economic
causes and effects. Yet of course these
havecontributed their part.
I
havewritten more than once about
an incident in my personal experience
which took place in early January
1914.
This was before most of our
readers were born. But
1
was covering
a significant event.
I
was then an
editorial representative of America's
largest trade journal. I was traveling,
by train of course in those days,
eastward in New York state from
Buffalo. At Utica 1 received a tele–
gram from our editors instructing me
to catch the first train back to Detroit
to interviewHenry Ford.
Henry Ford was on banner front–
page headlines in that morning's
newspapers. The Ford Motor Com–
pany had just come out with a sensa–
tional new $5-a-day wage scale!
Don't laugh. Five dollars was a lot
of money in
1914.
My editors wanted
me to cover this story and get all the
facts in person.
In a sense, that was the beginning
of the highest living standard ever
enjoyed in any nation, although the
American standard was already per-
haps the world's highest. But with
Henry Ford's sensatíonal new wage
scale, our living standard was to
escalate to an all-time world peak.
I saw Mr. Ford, but learned that the
whole new plan had been devised and
was administered by John
R. Lee,
head
of the Sociological Department.
" 1
understand you are now paying
by far the highest wage scale in the
automobile industry,"
1
said to Mr.
L~e.
He smiled. "On the contrary," he
said, "we are paying the
lowest!"
1
was taken aback. " But isn't the
union scale $3.75 per ten-hour
day?"
"Correct," he confirmed.
"And are you not now paying $5
per day for only a nine-hour day?"
" Right again, but we don't figure
wbat we
real/y
pay on that basis. We
compute it on the basis of what we
get for each dollar spent. You see,
our sales volume is now great enough
to enable us to install a new conveyor
bel t or assembly-line system of pro–
duction. We take full advantage of
the fact that fewer men can produce
much
more
by machines than a
greater number of work:men by hand.
We start each car at one end on a
conveyor belt system. Each workman
has to do his part as it passes him.
This way we regulate the speed of
production. Actually, we now are
The PLAIN TRUTH