Page:Walter Renton Ingalls - Wealth and Income of the American People (1924).pdf/199

Rh It is in the group comprising buildings, mines, and railways, that the most serious development is found. Herein there is an estimated loss of nearly 4.5 billion dollars, and this is among the things that comprise many of the important items of our capital goods, i.e., the plant whereof the use adds to our wealth. Our buildings have become impaired, our steam railways have run down, and the position of our street railways has become all but tragic.

In stocks of goods, we have also experienced a serious shrinkage. I have estimated contraction to the amount of 1.6 billion dollars, but as I have previously pointed out, the actual amount of depletion may be considerably greater than that.

In the aggregate my estimates for the internal wealth of the country come to a little more than 268 billion dollars at the end of 1916 and 272 billion dollars at the end of 1920, there being an apparent gain of about 4.4 billion dollars. If it were possible to make a more exhaustive investigation and a stricter analysis I think it likely that this apparent gain would disappear, for in the estimate for 1920 I have been on the whole rather liberal with respect to uncertain items, and I think moreover that in some cases necessary reductions to the terms of the dollar of 1913 have escaped attention. But, anyhow, it may be safely deduced that from 1916 to 1920 the physical assets of the United States increased to only a trifling amount, if in fact they increased at all.

Of our internal wealth, Europe possesses about 2.5 billion dollars in the form of American securities. The United States owns property to the estimated value of about four billion dollars in foreign countries. There