Strana 22
V S TNIE
23 cents 52 22 cents 53 54 21 cents 55 and over 20 cents Take the case of a man now 30 who served in the war. Suppose he took out service insurance on July 1, 1942, when he was 23, and had the full amount of $10,000. Up to July 1, 1948, the anniversary of his insurance, he had paid premiums for 72 months. A look at the table shows that he will receive 55 cents for each $1,000 of insurance for 72 months. That means he'll get a check for $396. Who Gets the Most? That would be a man who took out b. maximum policy soon after the insurance started in October, 1940, and kept it in effect at least until 1948. If he were 40 or under when the insurance was issued, he would get $528. That's 10 times 55 cents, times 96 months. Most veterans of World War II will get their dividend checks in January, February and March, provided they have made formal applications to VA. Others will get refunds by June. A few may get their dividends in Deeember, in time for Christmas shopping. But the exact date on which the checks will begin to move cut has not yet been decided. )•
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New Homes Wanted After three years of a home-buying spree, U. S. families still are in the market for a vast number of houses in years immediately ahead. Demand for homes appears to be about, as strong for the period between now and the end of 1953 as it was in the first three postwar years. 'This is made clear by a sampling poll of families, taken for the Federal Reserve Board early this year by the University of Michigan's survey research center. Results, just mae public, are shown here. In the last three years, 1946 through 1948, about 6 million families bought or built houses for their own use. In the next five years, 1949 through 1953, 10 million plan to buy or build. This means average sales of 2 million hemes a year—enough, if plans are realized, to keep the postwar housing boom running at full speed. These figures cover only those nonfarm families who said they definitely or probably would buy houses for their own use. They do not include any houses for rental. Nor do they allow for any new families who might come into the market. FRB, making allowances for changes in family plans, concludes that the market could contract to 7 million or expand to 12 million in the five-year period.
WEST, TEXAS
New houses, rather than used houses, are demanded by enough families to keep the building industry busy, assuming the public's plans for 1949 are typical of what to expect in years ahead. At least 1 million of the 2.3 million families in the 1949 market wanted newly constructed houses. That is mere than will be built this year f or both sale and rental. Some of these people will have to buy used houses, or wait until later for new houses. Outlays for housing have reached huge proportions and show little sign of diminishing. These expenditures promise customers for many industries and a cushion for the whole economy. Customers for houses. in 1949 appeared more willing to accept high prices than they did a year earlier. Homeowners paid 4.5 billion dollars on their mortgages, in 1948. Improvements and repairs to homes. cost 6 billion dollars, a new record. Taxes amounted to nearly 2 billion dollars. Renters paid their landlords 7 billion dollars. Thus, total of housing costs of American families for one year was well over 19 billion dollars. Homes are owned, by 20 million nonfarm families, a rise of 1.5 to 2 million in 1948. Fewer than 18 million pay rent. The rest occupy quarters that, for one reason or another, are rent-free. Debt on homes does not appear heavy enough to rule many owners out of markets for other things, including home additions and improvements. About 55 percent of homes are free of mortgage debt, and annual payments on the others average less than $500. Turnover in the housing field suggests an active market. Half of U. S. homeowners have bought since Pearl Harbor, and three out of 10 since the war. Two out of every 10 nonfarm families moved at least once during 1948. Construction rate for new homes so far in 1949 supports the survey findings. The building industry has been turning out houses this summer at around 100,0 000 a month. Now the Government is making plans for new programs of easy credit for house buyers. The public is a little more selective about quality and price. Still there appears to be no shortage of customers for good houses, at prices the public can afford to pay. ) • 4. • ( Once upon a time a business was a business. It made or sold or did something, and that was that. Nowadays a business must also be a tax collector, a record keeper for the government, and a social welfare agency for employes. •( )• Just a little change in methods makes a big difference at times,
Ve stf.edu , dne 12. fijna 1949.
`It Ought to Rain" (The following excerpt is a translation from Karel Capek's book, "The Gardener's Year." Karel Capek was an outstanding Czechoslovakian writer. In his play R. U. R.—Rossum's Universal Robots—there appeared a large number of artificially manufactured persons, "robots," mechanically efficient, but devoid of feeling and sensibility. Hence, the term "robot." adopted in English, denotes a brutal, efficient, insensitive person. — Karel Capek died brokenhearted shortly after the Munich debacle.) Every one of us must have inherited a bit of a farmer in his blood, even if we have no geraniums growing outside our windows; for when the sun has shone steadily for a week we look anxiously at the sky and say to one another as we meet: "It ought to rain." "It ought to," moans the other. "For a week at least," says the first, "on the grass and crops." "It is too dry," groans the other. When your watch stops you take it to the watchmaker; if your car , you send it to the garage. With everything in the world it is possible- to do something, but against weather nothing can be done. No zeal, no ambition, no newfangled methods, no meddling or cursing is of any use. And it is never quite right.' The temperature is either five degrees below normal, or five degrees above; if it is not too dry, it is inevitably too wet. If people who are not "oncerned with the weather have so many reasons for complaining about it what should a gardener say! But nobody minds us gardeners, and nobody asks us what things ought to be. The gardener, however, knows very well what ought to be. "We need a shower," he says in his characteristic way. One would think watering a little garden, during a dry spell, to be quite a simple thing, especially if one has a hose. But until it has been tamed a hose is an extraordinarily evasive and dangerous beast, for it contorts itself, it jumps, it wiggles, it makes puddles of water, and dives with delight into the mess. it has made; then it goes for the man who is going to use it and coils NOTICE! MI News for the English Section should be sent directly to Associate Editor, 6402 Prague Street, Houston 7, Texas.