During his 11 years in office as Secretary of the Treasury, he cut income taxes, reduced public spending, and brought an end to the excess profits tax, all while reducing the federal debt left over from World War I. The opening words are a classic summary of his tax policy: “The problem of the government is to fix rates which will bring in a maximum amount of revenue to the Treasury and at the same time bear not too heavily on the taxpayer or on business enterprises. A sound tax policy must take into consideration three factors. It must produce sufficient revenue for the government; it must lessen, so far as possible, the burden of taxation on those least able to bear it; and it must also remove those influences which might retard the continued steady development of business and industry on which, in the last analysis, so much of our prosperity depends. Furthermore, a permanent tax system should be designed, not merely for one or two years nor for the effect it may have on any given class of taxpayers but should be worked out with regard to conditions over a long period and with a view to its ultimate effect on the prosperity of the country as a whole. These are the principles on which the Treasury's tax policy is based, and any revision of taxes which ignores these fundamental principles will prove merely a makeshift and must eventually be replaced by a system based on economic rather than political considerations.”

    Articles from the early Soviet press on social and cultural issues in the struggle to forge new socialist women and men.

    Like the others, Satan's Bushel is a splendid book, not just from the point of view of economics but also as a piece of literature. What is Satan's Bushel? It is the last bushel that the farmer puts on the market that "breaks the price" – that is reduces it to the point that wheat farming is no longer profitable. The puzzle that afflicts the wheat farmers is that they sell their goods when the price is low and have no goods to sell when the price is high. Withholding goods from the market is one answer but why should any farmer do that? What is the answer to this problem? Working from this premise, then, as implausible as it may sound, but the central figure in this book is the price of wheat. It is the main source of drama. The settings are the wheat pit at the Chicago exchange (circa. 1915) and the Kansas wheat fields. Linking those two radically different universes is the mission of this book.