Economists today are increasingly concerned with the problem of economic growth. They are inquiring whether it is possible for our economic system to continue the seemingly miraculous business of putting more people to work, making more goods, and adding to the national income. Back in the 1930’s their major concern, however, was with depression and instability. The economy then was heading downward in what seemed to be a never ending plunge. The rate of population growth had dropped rapidly, and nineteenth-century chatter about race suicide revived. The limits of our territorial frontiers had long been reached. National output moved sluggishly, and the unemployed huddled with puzzled brows around makeshift fires and apple boxes. Then came the war, and there was a burgeoning need for men in jobs. But, despite expanded income and overtime pay, fewer goods were available than might have been expected. This was the anomaly of inflation, and economists had on their hands a new, though not unfamiliar, problem, which stayed with them even after the war.