Modern Economic Problems Part 13

(c) It brings a savings inst.i.tution to many a small town and rural place formerly entirely lacking in facilities for small depositors.

The benefit of this has not immediately appeared to be great, but may in time prove to be.

(d) It pays interest from the first of the month following the date of deposit whereas the usual practice of savings and commercial banks is to pay only from the beginning of the quarter year or half year.

(e) It provides for the exchange of deposits for bonds bearing a higher rate of interest--a unique feature greatly simplifying for the small saver the process of buying bonds for more lasting investment.

In some respects, however, the postal savings system falls short of the advantages of the regular savings banks. These usually accept for deposit as small an amount as ten cents; they pay interest either quarterly or semi-annually; they pay on the average (at present) almost double the rate of interest, and the interest is credited to the depositor's account at stated intervals and automatically compounded. The postal savings system, as the law now stands, may be looked upon, therefore, as supplementing the regular savings banks rather than competing with them.

-- 9. #Collection of savings and education in thrift.# Small savings have been encouraged in many places by penny provident funds, dime savings banks, and school savings funds, which have been conducted at public schools, social settlements, and factories, by school officers and by charitable and educational societies acting through canva.s.sers.

These plans all call for much personal effort and cost, which must be provided by volunteer services and private gifts. These plans being undertaken mainly as a means of education in thrift and in the related moralities, their results are not to be measured merely by the magnitude of the sums collected. They are not rivals of the ordinary savings banks, but rather auxiliary methods of encouraging their use.

The funds collected by these agencies are usually deposited in local savings banks, and depositors are encouraged to open individual accounts there, whenever they have considerable sums saved.

In Germany the public schools have been furnished with automatic stamp vending machines, from which savings stamps in as small denominations as ten pfennigs (2-1/2 cents) may be had by dropping a coin into a slot.[10] This method could be used very effectively in connection either with the postal savings system or with a local savings bank. It ought to be made easy to deposit funds at every school house, at every post-office, at every factory counter on pay day, and wherever people pa.s.s in numbers. Allurements to foolish expenditures meet old and young at every turn; to spend the dime is made all too easy, whereas to save it and deposit it in a safe place too often calls for wasteful and discouraging efforts from the person of small means.

-- 10. #Building and loan a.s.sociations.# Building and loan a.s.sociation is the name applied to a cooperative organization of persons with the purpose of collecting regularly from members small sums which are loaned to some members for the purpose of building or paying for homes.[11] The first a.s.sociation of this type was organized in Frankford, Pennsylvania, in 1831. It and others of its kind have made Philadelphia notable among all the larger cities as "the city of homes." The number of such a.s.sociations has almost steadily increased in the United States. Pennsylvania continues to rank first in respect to amount of total a.s.sets, with Ohio a close second, and New Jersey third (the ranking first in proportion to population). a.s.sociations of this type have been hardly second in importance in America to the savings banks as inst.i.tutions for savings for persons of moderate means. The number of their members (nearly 3,000,000) is about one-fourth of that of savings bank depositors, and the amount of their a.s.sets (1-1/4 billion dollars) is about one-fourth that of the reported savings banks. But their relative influence in educating and encouraging to thrift is doubtless much greater than these figures indicate. There are more than three times as many of them as of reported savings banks, their management is much more democratic than is that of the banks, and many of their members attend and partic.i.p.ate in the meetings and understand how they are conducted. Moreover, the savings made through these a.s.sociations are constantly pa.s.sing on into the houses that are fully paid for, and which continue to yield their incomes to their owners. Each year these a.s.sociations collect from their members as dues and in repayment of loans (made to build houses) the sum of over half a billion dollars, which is twice as much as the annual increase in the deposits of the reported savings banks.[12]

-- 11. #The main features.# A building and loan a.s.sociation is organized by a group of persons in a neighborhood, uniting to form a corporation under the laws of the state, every member to subscribe for one or more shares. The officers elected all serve without pay excepting the secretary-treasurer, who receives a small fee for his services. All official meetings are open to all members. The shares vary in denomination from $25 to $200; the larger figure being common under the serial plan and $100 being usual under the continuous (or permanent) plan, described below. Whenever there is a sufficient sum it is loaned to one of the members for the purpose of building a house. The borrower must subscribe for shares to the par value of his loan.

The receipts of the a.s.sociation are of several kinds.

(a) Interest is received from members, usually at the rate of 6 per cent, and from banks at a lower rate on the small working cash balances kept on deposit. Usually the loans made are large enough to cover a large proportion of the cost of the house, but the land on which the house stands must be free from all inc.u.mbrance, and its value gives a margin of safety to the a.s.sociation. Then by the method of payment of dues the debt is, from the first month, steadily reduced and the security for the loan therefore grows constantly better.

(b) Premiums are collected in addition, sometimes in the form of a higher rate of interest, but the practice of charging premiums has been mostly abandoned and the total amount of premiums now const.i.tutes less than 1 per cent of all payments from members.

(c) Fines for delinquency also are less commonly imposed now and const.i.tute a small fraction of 1 per cent of total payments.

(d) Deductions are made on account of withdrawal before the maturity of the shares; under these circ.u.mstances it is usual to pay a portion but not all of the acc.u.mulated profits, sometimes a proportion increasing as the shares approach maturity.

Different plans have been and still are followed in respect to the method of issuing the shares. Under the _terminating plan_ all the shares begin and mature at the same time (for all members that continue to the end). Whereupon the a.s.sociation dissolves or starts anew. The chief difficulty in this plan is that the a.s.sociation has too few funds to loan at the beginning of its career, and a surplus of unloanable funds as it nears the maturity of the series. It is therefore necessary to encourage or to compel the withdrawal of non-borrowing members on the payment of estimated profits to date.

The better to remedy this difficulty the _serial plan_ was devised, by which new series of stock are issued at intervals--yearly, half-yearly, quarterly, and even oftener.

-- 12. #The continuous plan.# A further development is the continuous plan (usually called the _permanent_ or the Dayton plan), by which much greater flexibility is attained in the organization. Shares of stock may be subscribed for at any time, each man's separate subscription of shares being treated as a separate series, and maturing each at its own time. There is thus, after an a.s.sociation has been for some time in operation, a continuous stream of new members (or new subscriptions) flowing into the a.s.sociation, and a continuous outflow of shareholders whose shares have matured. The maturing shares of borrowing members discharge their indebtedness to the a.s.sociation; the maturing shares of non-borrowing members are paid in money, or may (if the a.s.sociation has use for the funds) be left as an interest-bearing loan.

Additional funds are obtained when needed by issuing paid-up stock to non-borrowers. This is convenient at the beginning of an a.s.sociation and when the movement in building is more active than usual. But if an a.s.sociation has funds that cannot be loaned, outstanding paid-up stock may be called in. In practice a large part of the paid-up stock as well as of the running stock is subscribed for and held not by large capitalists but by persons of small means, especially "the more frugal element in the working cla.s.ses." Non-borrowing members desiring to withdraw may do so at any time under certain conditions; but to safeguard the a.s.sociation, the laws usually require that thirty days'

notice of intention to withdraw shall be given, that not more than one half of the funds received in any one month shall be paid on withdrawals, and that withdrawing shareholders shall be paid in the order of the notices of intention to withdraw.

The most intelligent and prudent workers were formerly deterred from subscribing by the fear that sickness, unemployment, or other mishap might make it impossible to keep up regular payments. Now, however, fines for late payment have been almost entirely done away with. On the other hand, extra payments may be made at any time by borrowing members, to hasten the date when their shares mature and their debt be discharged. These privileges are possible because of the method of distributing earnings which will now be described.

-- 13. #The distribution of earnings.# Every six months is ascertained the amount of the gross earnings which, under this plan, consist almost entirely of interest paid on loans. From this amount are deducted expenses (and in some states 5 per cent of the total is placed in a "loss fund" to meet possible losses) and the rest is divided in proportion to the amount standing to the credit of each member, being credited to the account of running stock and paid in cash to holders of paid-up stock.

The payment of dues is correspondingly simple. The dues at twenty-five cents a week amount to $13 a year per share of $100. This is the whole bill; there are no extras. The interest at 6 per cent (the usual rate) is $6, and the rest, $7, is credited upon the stock. Thus at the end of the first six months the member has $3.50 to his credit, and is ent.i.tled to his share of the net earnings on that amount. Thus his share of the earnings is steadily increased by compound interest, and if he keeps up his regular payments the shares mature in about sixteen years. This means in most cases that a prudent tenant can become the owner of a house in sixteen years while paying no more than the rent would be. As the active investor he becomes his own rent collector and uses the house with less need of repairs, thus dispensing with services and costs which are included in contractual rents.[13]

These a.s.sociations are properly made subject to supervision and examination by state officials, in the manner of that exercised over banks. They have been favored by exempting the shares of members and the mortgages held by the a.s.sociations from all state and munic.i.p.al taxation. As the houses built or paid for are taxed, this is of course but just, but it is an exception to the rule of the illogical general property tax.[14]

-- 14. #Possible developments of savings inst.i.tutions.# The social importance of increasing and improving the agencies of savings for the ma.s.ses is being more fully recognized, but much more might be done in these directions. Some possible changes have been suggested above, and a few words more may be added.

Probably the greatest developments in the near future will be through the savings departments of commercial banks (favored by the reserve rules of the Federal Reserve Act) rather than by the increase in the number of special banks for savings. The initial expense and risk of starting a savings bank is considerable, and outside of cities of some size this is prohibitive. Whereas a savings department, with its funds and reserves separated, can be easily and cheaply operated in connection with a general bank. It is much to be desired, however, that a larger measure of popular cooperation might be made possible to the depositors, both for its educational value and to reduce the real evil of the autocratic or the plutocratic centralization of the money power in the small communities.

Savings banks usually limit the amount of an account to $3000. It is desirable that depositors should be able easily to convert their savings-bank deposits over certain amounts into good bonds, bearing a higher rate of interest (after the method of the issue of postal savings bonds). There is need of a central market in each community where such bonds can be bought and sold at any time; and the savings banks might easily serve to buy and sell for their customers in this way in the larger bond market. This would be of benefit also to the states and munic.i.p.alities which issue bonds for such purposes as schools, roads, and public utilities, by creating a more open and regular market to small investors than now is provided for such securities. This might somewhat reduce the rate of interest and there would be a gain divided between taxpayers and lenders.

The general plan and principles of local building and loan a.s.sociations might well be extended to groups of rural cooperators, enabling them to make loans to their members; and to groups of small investors, permitting them to hold real estate mortgages and bonds and stocks of corporations, free from taxation other than that paid on the wealth itself. Members of such organizations could get a higher income on their investments than a savings bank could pay, and with greater security than if each attempted to save and invest by himself.[15]

Savings inst.i.tutions are necessarily also lending inst.i.tutions. In this chapter they have been looked at mainly from the saver's (the lender's) standpoint, though their service to the borrower is of coordinate importance. In the case of building and loan a.s.sociations this feature is most apparent. Later, the problem of the agricultural borrower will receive further consideration.

[Footnote 1: See Vol. I, chs. 9 and 10.]

[Footnote 2: See Vol. I, pp. 285-290 for the a.n.a.lysis of saving from the individual standpoint; and pp. 482-499 for its relation to general economic conditions.]

[Footnote 3: See Vol. I, p. 484.]

[Footnote 4: See above, ch. 9, sec. 7.]

[Footnote 5: E.g., Babson Statistical Organization, Brookmire Economic Service, Moody Manual Co., Moody Corporation Service.]

[Footnote 6: See Vol. I, p. 318.]

[Footnote 7: Report of the Comptroller of the Currency. Not all of these are mutual. Statistics, moreover, include in some cases (e.g., California) the savings deposits of commercial banks but not the number of such banks, and in other cases (Michigan) some banks that do chiefly a commercial business. The line of demarcation between savings banks and savings departments of commercial banks cannot be sharply drawn. The Comptroller of the Currency reported in 1914 in a different form the amount of savings deposits and of time certificates of deposits in _all_ kinds of banks as the enormous sum of $8,675,000,000.]

[Footnote 8: In the last twenty-three years, on the average, seven savings banks a year have failed, the annual excess of liabilities over a.s.sets being about $200,000, or about $30,000 for each failing bank. The total loss has been about 1/5 of 1 per cent of total deposits.]

[Footnote 9: The Federal Reserve Act, by making it possible for loans to be had at any time (through member banks) on good security, should reduce the danger of runs on savings banks.]

[Footnote 10: The author saw in operation a new machine of this kind which had been installed in a German public school as early as 1910.]

[Footnote 11: See Vol. I, pp. 290, 297-298, 484, and 486.]

[Footnote 12: The figures here given and the description of methods apply to the "local" building and loan a.s.sociations. The success of this kind led to the organization of other a.s.sociations which took the name "National" building and loan a.s.sociations, to carry on a business in a larger field. The number of these has always been comparatively small, and their operation is less simple, democratic, and economical than the local a.s.sociations. They have borne more of the nature of ordinary profit-making enterprises. They should not be confused with the local a.s.sociations.]

[Footnote 13: On these economies, see Vol. I, p. 298.]

[Footnote 14: See ch. 17, sec. 4.]

[Footnote 15: Since this was written the Federal Rural Credits Act has been pa.s.sed, embodying the main idea here described.]

CHAPTER 12

PRINCIPLES OF INSURANCE

-- 1. Chance, unavoidable and average. -- 2. Uneconomic character of gambling. -- 3. Borderland of gambling. -- 4. Insurance: definition and kinds. -- 5. Insurance viewed as a wager. -- 6. Insurance as mutual protection. -- 7. Conditions of sound insurance. -- 8. Purpose of life insurance. -- 9. a.s.sessment plan. -- 10. The reserve plan. -- 11. The mortality table. -- 12. The single premium for any term. -- 13. Level annual premiums and reserves. -- 14. Different features of policies.

-- 15. Insurance a.s.sets and investments as savings. -- 16. Excessive costs of insurance operation.