280 VALUATION, DEPRECIATION AND THE RATE-BASE 
in coms, other items in dollars. That increment of cost which is 
expressed in coms would be converted into dollars according to 
the prevailing money equivalent of the com which would be 
ascertained at intervals of a month or more, and the sale price 
would be modified from time to time to the extent that the vari- 
able money equivalent of the com affects the cost of production. 
The retail merchant would have no greater difficulty than at 
present in marking his goods. He would pay his clerks in coms, 
perhaps his rent also, and based on the proportion of the cost 
which is incurred in coms and the fluctuating number of dollars 
in a com he would, from time to time, add to or take from his 
listed prices. Ordinarily the change in the value of the dollar 
would be so slight that within the time that goods are on his 
shelves no re-marking would be necessary. 
The capitalist, too, would soon learn how to take advantage 
of the protection which a commodity unit would afford him. 
Why should he not, in making a loan, express the amount thereof 
in terms of coms instead of in terms of gold coin. He would 
have loaned rooo coms instead of $1130 in 1910 and when his 
capital was returned he would have gotten back 1000 coms 
which in terms of money might then have been equivalent to 
more or less than $1130 according to whether the value of the 
dollar had gone down or up. Under our present system as al- 
ready stated every promise to pay a definite number of dollars 
at a future date involves a speculation in the rise and fall of the 
value of the dollar. Thus, for example, the bond holder, no 
matter how dependable his securities, finds that during the five 
years 1914 to 1919, the bonds which he held shrank to less than 
one-half of their original real value (from 87 coms per $100 to 
43). He may be as well off in dollars as he ever was, but the 
part of his wealth in credits, measured by the desirable things 
which his dollars will command, was nevertheless taken from him 
to the extent of more than one-half. Money in this period was 
made more abundant, and was made to flow more rapidly. 
More units thereof are even now required to accomplish any 
particular purpose than before the war. If such credits, bonds,