Your Money Here's How It Works

"If you had gone to the same schools and listened to the same teachers as I had, they would have told you: "Money is not wealth. It is just a medium of exchange." That was a definition for people who already knew what money was, so it never told me anything. Money indeed is not wealth, as we can prove by the following example: Suppose you were shipwrecked on the well known deserted island. All you managed to save from the wreck was a trunkful of money - jingling money and folding money. Just scads of it! But absolutely nothing else. Now the first thing you want on that island is a drink of fresh water. But there isn't any water. You want some food. The island is bare. You want something to shield you from the hot sun of the day; some clothes or shelter to keep you from freezing at night. These are the basic economic necessities of life. They do not exist on the island. All you have is plenty of money. What good is it?" 

Good Reading Rack Service, 1960

It's Your Money

"There are three main reasons for the government's red ink binge that is wasting your money: 1. Constant and often successful pressure for relief from high tax rates. 2. Similar pressure for new government spending programs or expansion of existing programs. 3. Wasteful government spending practices." 

Good Reading Rack Service, 1955

Don't Get Gypped

"In this wonderful country of ours you can trust most everyone. Day in and day out, you do business with gas stations, grocery stores, department stores (and they do business with you) in a spirit of mutual trust and confidence. The unscrupulous gyp is in the tiny minority - but he exists. And it is important to know his tricks to protect yourself. Even though you don't run across his kind every day - just once is too often. This booklet tells you some of the ways you can protect yourself and your family from being taken in by the slick tricks of these frauds." 

The Kiplinger Washington Agency Inc., 1954

Slick Schemes To Sell You Things

"More than 250 billion dollars' worth of goods will be sold, by hook or by crook, to consumers this year. Probably 97% will be sold honestly at fair prices; the rest will be foisted off on anyone unwary enough to fall for a farfetched tale or high-pressure tactics." 

Good Reading Rack Service, 1956

A Guide To The Olympics

"On the afternoon of August 25, 1960, the President of Italy will rise from his seat in a large, open stadium in Rome and proclaim to all assembled, "I declare open the Olympic games of 1960 celebrating the 17th Olympiad of the modern era." With these words, the world's greatest amateur athletic event, seen by thousands, followed by millions, and rich in tradition and drama, will begin. Soon bronzed athletes from Ethiopia will compete for honors with fair-haired rivals from Sweden; tall, strong sportsmen from Brazil will match skill for skill with wiry, agile youths from Japan; and significantly, young American men and women will struggle for supremacy with their counterparts from the Soviet Union. Athletes will assemble from the far corners of the earth - Afghanistan, Argentina, Austrailia, Austria, Bahamas - and so on down the alphabet to Yugoslavia. All in all, quite a show!" 

Good Reading Rack Service, 1960

How Much Should You Spend On What?

"Ask any experienced budget specialist how your family ought to spend its money and he will probably explain that in the bright lexicon of budgeting there is no such phrase as "ought to." The right way, he will say, is to spend as much as you can for things you want most, as little as you can for things you care least about. That's good advice. Your family is different from every other family, so why try to force your spending into someone else's pattern or to mold it to some mythical average? If you prefer to be extravagant in your eating and miserly in your dress, who's to say you mustn't?" 

Good Reading Rack Service, 1958

Are You A Smart Shopper?

"The dictionary defines a bargain as "a thing purchased or purchasable cheaply." That's fine as far as it goes. What the dictionary fails to say is that a bargain is a bargain only if you actually want it. Every home has its share of articles bought for a song but never used. Here are two kinds of bargains to shun: The Impulse Bargain and The Never-Again Bargain." 

Good Reading Rack Service, 1957

Save When You Shop

"It has been estimated that American families could increase the purchasing power of their incomes by 25 percent, if their buying methods were as well developed as America's methods of production. That means that an income of $80.00 a week, spent wisely and well, can buy you as many goods and services as an income of $100.00, spent heedlessly. Perhaps the figure, 25%, is a bit high, but there is absolutely no question that you can save 15% to 20% by wise and thoughtful shopping. And in times of high prices, a saving of that proportion can mean a solid difference in your standard of living." 

Good Reading Rack Service, 1953

Stop Stewing About Saving

"Oh, what a public and private moaning goes on these days about the vanished virtue of thrift! Politicians and financial leaders publicly deplore, "Everybody wants to spend; no one wants to save. The grit and self-reliance that built the nation have given way to self-indulgence, irresponsibility and the welfare state." Husbands and wives privately despair. There is so much they need and so little to spend. No matter how hard they try, they can't seem to hang on to a cent, and they squirm with guilt. It is to those who despair and those who squirm that these pages are directed. The aim is to clean out the debris that clutters up the subject - to sweep out some of the slogans, moral tensions and untested assumptions, dust off some plain facts andhelp you make realistic decisions on the matter of saving money." 

Good Reading Rack Service, 1957

What You Should Know About Credit

"It is all very well to debate whether the public as a lump does or doesn't owe too much. But the debate at your house is whether you do or don't owe too much. It is essential to know how much debt the economy can stand, but it is also essential to know how much your own budget can stand. Merchants must decide what credit terms you can afford to buy on." 

Good Reading Rack Service, 1957

The Key To Prosperity

"All of us are interested in national prosperity. Every job holder knows that when business is good and expanding, jobs are plentiful and pay goes up. On the other hand, if business slumps, even the hardest-working folks may get laid off. Wives are interested, too. They are purchasing agents. (The experts say that women control the purchase of 85 percent of all the consumer goods sold in the United States.) They are naturally concerned with family incomes, employment, and prices. In today's troubled world, the strong American economy - its - industrial system, its agriculture, all that goes to make it up - is the shield of the free world against Communist agression. If that shield were to be weakened it would be a matter of concern to all of us. If instead it is going to be strengthened, this is a heartening fact." 

Good Reading Rack Service, 1956

Then...And Now

"The "conveniences" of the good old days seem pretty crude, don't they, when judged by today's high standards of speed, efficiency and comfort? Yet how little thought is given to the fact that most of the modern products of America's daily living would not be possible without Big Business. Because certain businesses pleased the public they grew continue to grow only so long as they continue to please the public by providing what people want and will buy." 

Good Reading Rack Service, 1955

We've Come A Long Way Since Yesterday

"Just suppose one of those blue Mondays when you're sighing for the "good old days," as we all do now and then…Just suppose that a genie comes steaming up out of your television set, or popping out of your automatic toaster…and he fixes you with his fiery eyes and says: "O.K., you asked for it. Let's see how you like it!" Forthwith, you are transported into the past. But instead of gliding effortlessly along through the air in a plane, you're riding in a cumbersome Conestoga wagon drawn by horses." 

Good Reading Rack Service, 1958

Look Ahead 25 Years

"Put yourself into the 1980's. You are 25 years older. Behind you has swept an era of scientific achievement unequalled in history. Population has soared. New countries and new civilizations have sprung up. Time and distance have shrunk to the point where they mean almost nothing. Frontiers of outer space have been breached, the infinite universe has been challenged. The ferment of the world has been matched only by the upheaval that has taken place in your own life. In a single generation your living standards have risen to levels that make people refer to the 1950's as "old-fashioned." 

Good Reading Rack Service, 1957

Our Man In Space

"The first American to venture across the edge of space will take a brief but momentous trip sometime late this summer. A year or two later, he or one of his six colleagues will take another and even more exciting journey - the first orbital flight in Project Mercury. To put this first man up and bring him safely down again is a matter of top priority effort today in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the nation's civilian agency for space. The national importance of Mercury is shown by the fact that it has been assigned a "DX priority" for scarce materials. Only a half dozen other projects share this super-urgent classification." 

Good Reading Rack Service, 1960

The Space Age

"The basic laws governing satellites and space flight are fascinating in their own right. And while they have been well known to scientists ever since Newton, they may still seem a little puzzling and unreal to many of us. Our children, however, will understand them quite well." 

Good Reading Rack Service, 1958

Way Stations In Space: The Planets

"The race into space has started. But why? What are we likely to find when we reach the moon? The planets? When we break the bonds of our solar system and reach into the limitless universe? Why do we even want to leave the earth and explore the realms of our sun and of the many other suns?" 

Good Reading Rack Service, 1959

The Fabulous Future

"What is likely to be the character of the quarter-century ahead of us? Personally, I am convinced that it will be filled with events that may determine the direction and even the duration of man's destiny on this planning. That an avalanche of advances will be forthcoming in science and technology is not guesswork. The new types of energy released by the atom and controlled by the electron have already proved highly effective. Numberless vital technical developments will come from our amazing network of research laboratories. But these features will be matched by even more significant political, social, and moral developments." 

Good Reading Rack Service, 1955

What The Atom Will Do For You

"The place is the desert of eastern Idaho. The building is oblong, low, distinguised only by the danger signs spotted around it warning "Radiation Area." Inside are numerous electronic instruments and what looks like an elongated swimming pool, about 6 feet wide, 30 feet long and 20 feet deep. A white-coated technician slowly lowers a cellophane bag of potatoes to the bottom of the tank, where it comes to rest opposite several bricklike blocks. He leaves it there for a brief interval. Then he raises it up again. The whole process is noiseless, except for the drip-drip of the water. When the bag is raised, the potatoes look no different than they did before they were dunked. But they are different. These potatoes now may be stored for a year or longer, and they will never sprout. Such treatment of potatoes can stop a major cause of financial loss to potato growers." 

Good Reading Rack Service, 1957

What Will Atomic Energy Do For Me?

"This is the beginning, the bare faltering start of the Atomic Age. If it be an age of war, man will probably destroy himself. But if it be an age of peace, it can be golden. Discovery of nuclear energy and how to control it gives man the means to build or ravage. But since our conviction is that his first instinct - survival - will prevail, this booklet is concerned with peacetime prospects in the atomic future." 

Good Reading Rack Service, 1954

What's So Automatic About Automation?

"Man's entire life on earth has been a constant struggle to develop better tools so he could get more of everything. Early tools were so primitive that he could not produce much no matter how hard and how long he worked. When man had to use these stone tools, he was hungry most of the time. When he developed metal tools, man began to produce much more and to have more. When he developed power to run his tools, he did still better. In recent years man has begun to improve his power tools with the adoption of automatic controls." 

Good Reading Rack Service, 1958

Automation: Friend, Not Foe

"Everybody's heard of Frankenstein and his monster. Just as many have heard of Eli Whitney and his cotton gin. Ordinarily one would not think of linking them together. But about the time Mary Shelley wrote the story of the monster rebelling against his master, the inventor of the cotton gin was perfecting his principle of interchangeable parts in the production of a shipment of Army muskets. With his revolutionary new principle of interchangeable parts Eli Whitney made possible the modern methods of mass production. But man's mind is less intrigued by fact than by fancy. He sees a new machine doing the work of 100 men and, seeing it, assumes the machine will forever take away the jobs of 100 men. His imgaination links Frankenstein's monster and the modern version of mass production known as automation." 

Good Reading Rack Service, 1955

Indispensable Lifeline

"Around the clock, every hour, every day of the year, millions of gallons of crude oil from over a half million wells move from the far-flung oil fields of America to the hundreds of refineries. There the crude oil is converted into useful and essential products. Finally, these products move out to service stations, homes, stores, factories and other places of sale and use....Crude oil and natural gas, its associate, have a way of being found in remote places of this country, and of the world, far from consuming centers, a fact which emphasizes the need for adequate and economical transportation." 

Ticonderoga Publishers, 1958

Our Guided Missiles

"While much of America's guided missile program is enveloped in secrecy, at least ten missiles are known to be in actual service today and over two dozen more are under contract from the armed forces. Some of these missiles undoubtedly may be abandoned before reaching actual production, and some of those already in use will be replaced by improved successors." 

Good Reading Rack Service, 1957

What The Jet Age Means To You

"Sleek as a swallow and swift as sound, a new type of bird is flying high in the sky. The bird was made by man, and man calls it the jet airplane. But the jet is like no other plane. It flies twice as high and twice as fast - and carries twice as many passengers - as the planes that man made just ten years ago. If you were traveling in a jet now, you would have covered four miles in the time that it took you to read this paragraph. The chances that you will travel in a jet some day soon are very good." 

Good Reading Rack Service, 1960

Government Is For The People

"A good many years ago I heard the late President Lowell of Harvard say that a civilization is seldom murdered; it commits suicide. And I wish that he had added that it commits suicide unwittingly. The road downhill is extremely easy. It is marked by little indulgences - by minor compromises with principle to escape temporary discomfort or hardship. Each step downward makes the next one seem a little more logical and a little harder to resist. That has been the recent history of our own country."

Good Reading Rack Service, 1958 

The Constitution is Your Business

"Guatemala is not behind the Iron Curtain yet, but about a year ago the government in Guatemala seized 240,000 acres of land in Guatemala, which belonged to the United Fruit Co. What did the United Fruit Co. do about it? Nothing. There was nothing they could do about it. There is no effective constitutional restraint upon government in Guatemala; there is no enforceable restraint upon the power of the Guatemalan government...Let's not talk about the Iron Curtain. Let's talk about the situation that prevails outside the free world. There isn't any free world outside of the United States of America, because nowhere else on earth can the individual citizen enforce his rights against the power and majesty of his government. Here you can still do that, thank God, but ofttimes I wonder how long that priceless privilege will remain." 

Good Reading Rack Service, 1954

The 1776 Firecracker

"Government should restrain men from injuring one another, but leave them otherwise free to follow their own pursuits of industry and employment" - Thomas Jefferson, March 4, 1801. When the founders of this Nation threw off the yoke of government control of individual enterprise, the American way of life was born. It grew to maturity in a climate free of bureaucratic domination. Jefferson's words are timeless. They are as true today as they were more than an century and a half ago. They are his answer to those who advocate the "security" of the "welfare" state at the cost of individual opportunity and free enterprise." 

Good Reading Rack Service, 1955

Teach Your Child to be Safe

"Teaching safety to a child is no different than teaching the child how to live. It is basically concerned with the formation of good habits and the shaping of a well-balanced personality, a task which must be started early and followed continuously as the child develops. Such a project cannot be left to the school-teacher. It must start long before the child is of school age. Personalities, attitudes and habits of parents play an important part in the process." 

Good Reading Rack Service, 1957

Keep Your Home Safe

"Even the most efficiently run household is sometimes the scene of an accident which could have been prevented by the simplest of precautions. So many people who wouldn't even think of driving their cars without periodic check-ups or who are as careful as possible on the job let safety fly out the window when they enter their homes." 

Good Reading Rack Service, 1958

How To Fire-Proof Your Family

"The disaster news brought home to adults everywhere the stark realization that no one is immune from fire and that except for sheer happenstance the half-staff flags which fluttered limply over the shocked and heart-broken city of Chicago might have been those of any community." 

A Help-Your-Self Booklet, 1959