Page:Stabilizing the dollar, Fisher, 1920.djvu/35

Rh People unconsciously pick out special exceptional cases of commodities, the supply of which has decreased or the demand for which has increased, without realizing that they are exceptional. The more exceptional they are the more publicity is given to them, and the public is given a wrong perspective.

5. The Argument from Probability. Most would-be explanations make one fatal mistake of looking only at the goods side and not at the money side. When 216 out of 243 commodities rise in price between 1896 and 1913, the remarkable coincidence can be most simply explained by assuming a common cause, the cheapening of the dollar. Such a simple explanation is more likely to be correct than the concurrence of separate explanations for the many commodities.

6. The Argument from Statistics. Figures for crops and trade and estimates of national income show in general no progressive scarcity of goods between 1896 and the World War to explain rising prices but, on the contrary, a general progressive abundance. Even during the war the volume of trade in the United States increased somewhat. Mr. O.P. Austin has shown that during the war there has been a rise in the prices of goods not used in war, such as Manila hemp in the Philippines, sisal grass in Yucatan, and diamonds in South Africa, even in the countries producing these goods and far removed from the seat of war. Lord D'Abernon has shown that old books, prints, and coins, having no cost of labor and materials, have risen.

7. Price Movements Vary with Monetary Systems. Countries of like money have like price movements and countries of unlike money have unlike price