Permissions and sub-folders.

When you change the "Sharing and Permissions" setting on a folder - is it possible to have the sub-folders and files inherit the permission changes?

From what I can gather, it seems you're supposed to go in and change every sub-folders permissions individually. This can't be right can it? Am I missing something?

Any help would be very much appreciated.
Thanks for reading.

highlight all the files and hold control while you right click and select get info. It now compresses all files into one get info window.