ABSTRACT
National wealth expressed in dollars and the wealth divided by index numbers of prices of all commodities, with 1912 as 100. If commodity prices remain at pre-war values, national wealth will decline to the normal trend expressed in 1912 dollars, or to about 45 per cent above the national wealth of 1912. In 1929, debts were approximately three times the debts of 1912. An increasing amount of business is done by corporations, which raise a considerable proportion of their money by selling bonds. The debt of the federal government was rising rapidly. The federal government lent large sums to banks, railroads, life insurance companies, and cities. At the actual market prices in the winter of 1933, the property of the country was probably worth little more than the debts. Such a condition of universal bankruptcy was worse than anything that ever before occurred in the United States.
