People's Pilot, Volume 4, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 February 1895 — SUPPLY AND DEMAND. [ARTICLE]

SUPPLY AND DEMAND.

APPLIES TO MONEY AS WELL AS PRICES. Scarcity of Money Ha< Clos.d Factories and Thrown Thouaand. of Men Oat of Employment - Supply and Demand Work Both Ways. Yes; we adroit what Is said about supply and demandregulating prices. But why is money always left out of the discussion? A good crop of money would increase the price of everything elee. A poor crop—resu ting from destructive winds, Shylock reign, John Bull cattle in Congress, epidemics of yellow blight, hogs and gold bugs—increase of interest doubles our debts, and reduces the price of wheat, cotton, labor and everything else —except the price of liberty. Scarcity of money makes every day the situation of the American wage and debt slave more-hopeless. If one man or a dezefr'could monopolize the production of wheat in this country they would- combine to make it scarce in order .to secure a high price. So it is with money. A few men have been allowed to control the volume of money, and they combine to make it scarce, so that they, may secure, ail the produce of the" country as interest. As long as the production of wheat, etc.’ is not monopolized- the money power wants it plenty. But the manufactured articles which the .money power monopolizes/ it. wants-, made, scarce in order to buy more of the things which-it can’t ‘monopolize. Interest is regulated by the. supply and ’demand of money. Hence the money power wants a short supply to create a constant demand.

A shortage of the wheat, corn or cotton crop increases the prices of those products only. But a shortage of money not only increases the rates of interest, but reduces the price of every commodity in the market. Money is the representative of everything produced, and the amount of it in circulation regulates the exchange price of all things—except common sense and justice. Money serves in no capacity except in distributing the products of one section of the country or class of labor to another section or class and enabling the producer of one thing to swap what he don’t need for what he does need. Money is only a counter used in our improved method of swapping "a sow and pigs for a suit of clothes.