[261] Professor W. M. Persons informs me that Mr. Silberling's results are in accord with calculations which he has made. Vide his article in the Am. Econ. Rev. of Dec. 1916.
[262] The Wealth and Income of the People of the United States, New York, 1915.
[263] See our chapter, "Statistical Demonstrations of the Quantity Theory."
[264] Loc. cit., pp. 78-79.
[265] Jour. of Polit. Econ., vol. v, p. 165.
[266] Even this is too high, for 1909, on the basis of our estimate for net income in 1909, in the Appendix to this chapter.
[267] The extent of speculation in wholesale trade is discussed in this chapter, infra. "Double counting" is discussed in the chapter on "Statistical Demonstrations of the Quantity Theory."
[268] The Use of Credit Instruments, p. 151.
[269] The figures for rent and wages are from W. I. King, op. cit. The other figures are from the Statistical Abstract of the United States, unless otherwise stated. King's estimates are for 1910. The other figures are for 1909. Compare this list with my discussion in the Annalist, March 6, 1916, p. 317, where I made computations purposely much too large. In that computation I clearly greatly exaggerated salaries and professional incomes, and rent as well as retail and wholesale trade. My figure there included the rent of houses as well as the rent of land. King's figure is only for land rent. However, in view of the fact that a high percentage of real estate is used by the owner, with the result that no rent-payments are required, I think King's figure high enough for the whole item.
[270] Professor Fisher has estimated total real estate exchanges in the country at less than 1% of the total 387 billions (op. cit., p. 226), and a colleague of the Harvard Business School has given me an estimate of $1,300,000,000 for total advertising in the United States. Neither of these items is properly counted part of the "static" trade that would occur were things in "normal equilibrium." If, however, we counted them, we should add only 1%, say, of the total. When it is seen how insignificant, in comparison with the 387 billions indicated by deposits, the figures for total manufactures, total farm products, and total wages, are, there really is little need to argue the case. It is impossible to find, in the "ordinary trade" we have not mentioned, items whose total will equal the least of these three. Moreover, we have allowed for a multitude of these items in permitting the figure for retail trade to be as high as it is, and have left large leeway in making no deduction for the speculation in wholesale trade, and in counting farm products in full. Interest and dividends I have not counted. They are not "trade." When we have counted stock sales, we have already counted the exchanges in which dividends were sold. The man who buys the stocks has already bought the dividends. To count the dividends in addition would be a case of that double counting of capital and income against which Professor Fisher has warned us in his Nature of Capital and Income. Rents and wages represent payment for current services, and are properly items of trade. Interest and dividends are one-sided money payments, completing transactions for which money has already passed, and in which a man is merely getting a delivery of something he has already bought. In general, loans and repayments are not properly counted as part of ordinary, or physical trade. If, however, we counted total corporate dividends and interest we should get only $4,781,000,000 (King's estimate, loc. cit., p. 262). This is a little over 1%. What else is there? In his article of March 13, 1916, in the Annalist, Professor Fisher failed to meet my suggestion that a bill of particulars was called for!