Of course
the proposals were not put in any such crude fashion, and I think that
quite a lot of people sincerely believed that if large credits were
extended abroad even without a hope of the payment of either principal
or interest, American business would somehow be benefited. It is true
that if these credits were taken by American banks, those who had
high-priced stocks might have gotten rid of them at a profit, but the
banks would have acquired so much frozen credit that they would have
more nearly resembled ice houses than banks. I suppose it is natural to
hang on to the possibility of profits until the very last moment, but it
is not good business.
Our own sales, after the cut, increased, but soon they began to fall off
again. We were not sufficiently within the purchasing power of the
country to make buying easy. Retail prices generally had not touched
bottom. The public distrusted all prices. We laid our plans for another
cut and we kept our production around one hundred thousand cars a month.
This production was not justified by our sales but we wanted to have as
much as possible of our raw material transformed into finished product
before we shut down.
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