We may approach this question from the angle of several bodies of statistical information. First, the question may be raised: what is there in the country which could be bought and sold enough in the course of a year to give us anything like so great a total? The subtractions which we shall find it necessary to make will still leave us an enormous total.
The United States Census Bureau[251] in 1904 reached the conclusion that the _total wealth_ of the country was only $107,000,000,000. Of this, over $62,000,000,000 was in real estate; $11,000,000,000 in railroads; street railways, over $2,000,000,000; telephone, telegraph, water and light, and similar enterprises total nearly $3,000,000,000 more. None of these things enter into ordinary wholesale and retail trade. The items that one would ordinarily think of are agricultural products, $1,900,000,000; manufactured products, $7,400,000,000; mining products, $400,000,000. Can these things be exchanged often enough in the course of a year to account for $387,000,000,000!
These figures are for 1904,[252] whereas Fisher's figures are for 1909. If the Census Bureau had taken an inventory in 1909, the figures would doubtless be larger. The inventory for 1912 made by the Census Bureau does show a very considerable increase, the largest item being due to a rise in real estate values. The figures for agricultural, manufacturing, and mining products are, also, figures for a given time rather than for total production through the year. But, making all the allowance one pleases, it is quite incredible that one should reach a figure of $387,000,000,000 by taking only the exchanges necessary to bring raw materials through the various stages of production to the consumer. The greater part of the $387,000,000,000 is to be explained in another way!
A detailed analysis of Kinley's figures, on which the estimate of total trade is based, leads clearly to the same conclusion. Kinley's figures for the banks that reported on March 16, 1909, are as follows:
Retail deposits 60 millions Wholesale deposits 124 millions "All other" deposits 502 millions
The "all other deposits" are vastly greater than retail and wholesale deposits combined! Notice, too, with reference to the question as to how often goods need to be turned over in getting to the consumer: wholesale trade uses only about twice as much money and checks as does retail trade. Goods are not, if these figures are in any way typical of actual trade, turned over many times in the process of reaching the consumer. The "necessary," or "physically determined" number of exchanges, in the routine of trade, is small, per item.
