DIVIDENDS: Healthy Sign

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Though U.S. corporations reported earning somewhat more money in the first six months than they did a year earlier (TIME, Aug. 9), their stockholders see less and less of it. The U.S. Department of Commerce reported last week that dividend payments for the first seven months of this year ($1,908,000,000) were off 1% from the same period last year, and that July payments were down 3%. Although railroads and utilities paid more dividends than last year, manufacturing corporations cut their cash payments 8% under last July.

For all concerned this is a healthy trend. Every dollar of earnings that corporations now hold for future emergencies is subtracted from the inflation gap. And the spending power now held back by corporations will become available to stimulate production and create jobs when war ends.