48 The Stock Market Crash—And After 
selling stocks.” But it was the dilatoriness of the 
Senate, not the need of a higher tariff, that hurt 
business. 
Undigested Securities 
Mr. Kent presents a most interesting view of the 
situation in his comment upon the proportion of 
national income that went into brokers’ loans during 
1929. He figures that 914 per cent of the national 
income is the normal amount available for new 
securities and increased savings deposits, and that 
something over five and one-half billion dollars was 
“all that could be utilized for investment purposes.” 
He goes on to state that the new security issues of 
the first three quarters of 1929 amounted to nearly 
eight and one-half billion, or $2,800,000,000 more 
than the five and one-half billion which he calculates 
as available from national income during this period. 
This amounted to 20 per cent of the national income, 
as contrasted with the “normal” of 914 per cent. 
Hence, he concludes, new securities had been created 
and issued more rapidly than the public could absorb 
them. The only way they could do so was by over- 
extending themselves. 
But in this calculation Mr. Kent may not have 
taken account of the securities issued by investment 
trusts. These securities were not really new, but 
merely old securities in the form of new certificates. 
The same may be said of the multiplying mergers 
of 1929; every investor in a merger reduces his 
investment in the constituent companies exactly as 
much as he increases it in the merger. The same