The Lockwood Concern Read Online Free PDF Page B

"Both. "I hope you go slow about involving the Company." "Well, because before you involve the Company, I think you ought to hear what I have to say." "I always do, but you've touted me and the Company off some pretty good things. You've been so God damn busy with this country estate of yours. How's it coming along, by the way?" "It's finished. Ready to move the furniture in." "October. Well, I'll give you credit. You said the first of November. But I started to say, why do you think your judgment is more reliable, sitting there in Swedish Haven, and I'm right here where things happen?" "My judgment isn't more reliable, Pen, and I never claimed it was. And I never really touted you off anything." "Oh, the hell you didn't." "Now don't say that. I didn't. All I've done, and will continue to do, is make you count to ten, so to speak. And while yoifre counting, consider all the factors. In this market today, generally speaking, if you miss out on something good, something equally good will be along tomorrow." "If you hear about it in time," said Penrose Lockwood. "It isn't quite as good, you know, if a lot of others have heard about it too." "At the moment, almost everything is good, if you're not too greedy." "Well, then, you can call me greedy if you like, but I've made money for you, haven't I?" "Yes, and I've made some for you. But Pen, it isn't only a question of making money, I hear of all sorts of people making pots of it these days, so it isn't any great accomplishment." "What is?" "Holding on to it." Penrose Lockwood laughed. "Holding on to it? What's this house of yours going to cost, if it's any of my business?" "It isn't any of your business. I don't ask you what you do with yours, and you know damn well that isn't what I meant. Holding on to it means having it twenty-five, fifty years from now. For instance, things get a little bad in the automobile industry, and that man Ford orders an eight-hour day and a five-day week. He doesn't have anybody but himself to think of. But suppose all the big industries behaved that way?" "It may not be so bad after all. He cut down over-production and made new jobs." "That's what he wants you to think. But don't you see what this inevitably leads to? The immediate effect of course is to cut down over-production. But if every big industry followed suit, all production would slow down. All production, and this is a high-production country. You can't run this country on a five-day week. That is socialism in disguise. The labor union people know it, and they welcome it." I don't follow you." "Look, Pen. Put this country on a five-day week, and you have to employ more men. But they won't be skilled men. They'll be incompetent, lazy bastards, getting the same money as the skilled men. That's the way I feel about spreading the work over a greater number of men. You have to hire the incompetents. That's something I've been learning with my new house. I don't mind paying a good carpenter good wages, but I've had to pay lazy men the same money I paid good men. I'm talking now about unskilled labor. I wanted some fences removed, so I hired some ordinary laborers. Were they uniformly good workers? No. About half of them did an honest day's work, and the other half did as little as they could, as slowly as they could." "What's this got to do with the stock market?" "Oh, Pen! What's any stock going to be worth if an industry has to overpay its labor? All materials will be overpriced because labor is overpaid, and the country will have inflation, just as they have it in Germany and Austria. You can buy a fine Mauser for fifteen cents today, in our money." "Thank you. I've heard about their inflation." "Well, then you know what I mean by holding on to it. I sometimes wonder if I want to make any more money in the market." "What?" "Oh, I will. I'm greedy, too. But I wish people like us would get out of the stock market and stay out for a while. We won't. It's foolish to think of it. But there are a