I would have the Government assign a lease of life to shoes and homes and machines, to all products of manufacture, mining and agriculture, when they are first created, and they would be sold and used with the term of their existence definitely known by the consumer. After the allotted time had expired, these things would be legally “dead” and would be controlled by the duly appointed governmental agency and destroyed if there is widespread unemployment. New products would constantly be pouring forth from the factories and marketplaces, to take the place of the obsolete, and the wheels of industry would be kept going and employment regularized and assured for the masses. I am not advocating the _total destruction_ of anything, with the exception of such things as are outworn and useless. To start business going and employ people in the manufacture of things, it would be necessary to destroy such things in the beginning—but for the first time only. After the first sweeping up process necessary to clean away obsolete products in use today, the system would work smoothly in the future, without loss or harm to anybody. Wouldn’t it be profitable to spend a sum of—say—two billion dollars to buy up, immediately, obsolete and useless buildings, machinery, automobiles and other outworn junk, and in their place create from twenty to thirty billion dollars worth of work in the construction field and in the factory? Such a process would put the entire country on the road to recovery and eventually would restore normal employment and business prosperity. An equally important advantage of a system of planned obsolescence would be its function in providing a new reservoir from which to draw income for the operation of the Government. The actual mechanism involved would be briefly something like this: The people would turn in their used and obsolete goods to certain governmental agencies, situated at strategic locations for the convenience of the public. The individual surrendering, for example, a set of old dining room furniture, would receive from the Comptroller or Inspector of such a Station or Bureau, a receipt indicating the nature of the goods turned in, the date, and the possible value of the furniture (which is to be paid to him in the future by the Government). This receipt would be stamped in a receipt book with a number, which the individual would have received when he first brought in an obsolete article to be destroyed. Receipts so issued would be partially equivalent to money in the purchase of new goods by the individual, in that they would be acceptable to the Government in payment of the sales tax which would be levied as part of my plan.