by Robert W. Mayer 'N DISCUSSIONS of the probable future trend of price earnings ratios these days, little or no attention seems to be given to an aspect which might prove to be of considerable moment. Anyone who talks with both young men and middle-aged or older men about their conceptions of the financial futtire of the country must surely notice a considerable difference their attitudes. This is not itself remarkable. Youth tends to be more optimistic than age about almost everything. Furthermore, as the more pessimistic older men pass from the scene their places are taken by young men grown older and less optimistic, so that the net effect of the passage of time on the prospects of the populace as a whole is practically nil. The financial prospect, however, is different. Young men with few exceptions do indeed have an optimistic conception of the financial future, being confident that our institutions and policies have made financial disaster a thing of the past. Barring nuclear holocaust, they look upon the future as a veritable Stairway to Heaven. Many men past fifty are not so sure, being old enough to remember the equally confident assurances of the middle nineteen twenties. This is what makes the present financial prospect different. As these older men-who probably own a disproportionately large share of the outstanding securities and whose attitudes may therefore exert a disproportionate influence on the market-pass from the scene, ownership of their securities will shift to a younger generation who do not have their reason for becoming skeptical as they grow older. The net effect, it would seem, should produce a significant increase price earnings ratios. In order to check on the validity of his impression that a significant proportion of older men do have a view markedly different (from younger men's view) of the financial future, the writer recently conducted a small survey of opinion on the matter. His sample was not chosen scientifically, but it did include several groups aggregating a sizeable number of men of widely ranging ages who could be presumed to have given the matter some thought and who probably could be enticed into responding by appealing to their curiosity about what the others might respond. A questionnaire was formulated and copies sent to 130 fellow members of the faculty of the College of Commerce and Business Administration the University of Illinois at Urbana, to 32 senior and graduate student members of a Securities Analysis class the College, to 219 fellow members of the Champaign-Urbana Kiwanis Club (business and professional men), and to 48 fellow members of the Chicago Financial Writers Association-429 total. The recipients were promised a report on the responses. An overwhelming majority 4 out of 5-of the respondents aged fifty and under estimated the chances of financial catastrophe within the next twenty years at less than 40%, while a m.ajority-almost 3 out of 5-of those over fifty estimated the chances at 40% or more. These figures seem to confirm the writer's initial impression. Furthermore, the very high proportion of young faculty members who estimated the chances at less than 40% suggests that their confidence may be an important source of their students' confidence the efficacy of our institutions and policies averting financial disaster. It is a rare textbook or teacher of economic principles, money and banking, or business finance that so much as hints at any financial expectation more adverse than a diminution the rate of growth, although occasionally a teacher is startled by a student's suggestion that one day there might be elected a national administration and a Congressional majority determined to try achieving full employment without creeping inflation. Even the most conservative of security analysis textbooks, whose first two editions devoted a long section to bitterly ironic treatment of the New Era Theory of the nineteen twenties, toned down the subject considerably its third and fourth editions.* Among academic people it is simply not considered in to have serious apprehensions about the financial future, and the scholar who does have them is looked upon by his colleagues as a sort of troglodyte. Father Time is now removing with increasing rapidity men whom the traumatic disillusionment of 1929 left a residue of cynicism about expectations of perpetual growth. As the market is freed from the drag of their doubts during the next decade or so, price earnings ratios may soar to heights that would make the present ones seem timid and unimaginative. +