Words    Words    Words

So, I just joined my fan club on Facebook.  Is that, um, weird?

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On page 251 he discusses what happens when a bank tries to circulate more currency than what the country can employ, and how the excess is almost immediately returned.  I suspect this is another area that is no longer applicable; at least directly.
Similarly, on page 254: “What a bank can with propriety advance to a [...]

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On page 244, Smith reiterates what he said before about not counting money when reckoning wealth.  This–both his reasoning and my problems with it–are covered in my earlier posts, so there’s no point my restating them.
On page 245 he talks about the substitution of paper for gold and silver, and from there discusses the proportion [...]

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Topic started by request.  I’m about a third of the way through the first draft of Tiassa.  Or, as I affectionately call it, Hadassah.
– Hadizsákmányapa

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I hope you’ve read Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino.  If not, go read it.  If you have, imagine stopping at one of those cities and finding the weirdest, darkest little area in it.  Then imagine a description of that area by Gaiman and Wolfe.  That the city in this case happens to be Chicago is [...]

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One of the reasons the study of capitalism is so difficult (and, in some ways, so much fun) is that so many of the processes are hidden.  In, for example, a feudal economy, things are pretty straightforward: peasant grows crops, gives some to landlord, eats the rest and makes most of his goods at home [...]

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On page 239 we find: “As the same guinea which pays the weekly pension of one man to-day, may pay that of another to-morrow, and that of a third the day thereafter, the amount of the metal pieces which annually circulate in any country, must alwys be of much less value than the whole money [...]

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The bride was beautiful.  Tons and tons of cool people were there.  It was pretty nifty.
Fourth Street was good, too.  I suck at reports, so I won’t give one, but I’m pleased with how hard everyone worked to make it come off.
I don’t have working email yet, but I hope to by tomorrow.

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I’m off to Minnesota.  I expect to be there for a few weeks.  During this time, my normal email won’t work, so if you have to reach me use the one this my first three initials and my last name at gmail dot com.

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I have found places in this book where I respectfully differ with Mr. Smith.  They fall into two categories: 1. Those things which he couldn’t have understood simply because the information wasn’t available at the time he wrote (one cannot expect advanced metallurgy from a culture which just that morning discovered iron, or or full [...]

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This chapter deals with money, and it makes my head hurt.
He begins by restating that the price of the “greater part” of commodities resolves itself into: wages of labor, profit, and rent.  His use of “greater part” here makes me wonder about the rest; unless I missed something, those are the only parts of price [...]

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I thought the chapter on rent was hard.  Heh.  The one on money is totally kicking my ass.  I’ll read it again, and maybe just get as far as the first time I go, “Huh?” and stop there and see if Smart Internet People can help me figure it out.

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It seems to me that many LWPs when discussing AR with POCs and other LWPS (not to mention RSs) sound as they’ve gotten so LiA that they are CI.  Is it necessary to be OttPoA in order to discuss AR?  Does it really help to become LiA to the point where you sound like a [...]

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It started with reading the sidebar of Making Light–a habit I encourage.  On “PNH’s Sidelights”, I came across this.  It’s brief, take a moment to read it.
Now, here is my problem.  A certain Walter Williams says “Thirty, 40 or 50 years ago, no one in their right mind would have believed the Merv Grazinski urban [...]

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I have set out to write in defense of tobacco.  I do it for the challenge.  There are other things that would be almost equally challenging, but I don’t know enough about them: I’ve never committed  pedophilia or sent out spam emails or run for congress, so  tobacco seems the only remaining choice.
I know very [...]

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From the introduction to Book 2:
Page 221: “In that rude state of society in which there is no division of labor, in which exchanges are seldom made, and in which every man provides every thing for himself, it is not necessary that any stock should be accumulated or stores up beforehand, in order to carry [...]

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Page 216: “Every improvement in the circumstances of society tends either directly or indirectly to raise the real rent of the land, to increase the real wealth of the landlord, his power of purchasing labor, or the produce of the labor of other people.”
“All those improvements in the productive powers of labor, which tend directly [...]

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Page 194: “In call new colones the great quantity of waste land, which can for many years be applied to no other purpose but the feeding of cattle, soon renders them extremely abundant, and in every thing great cheapness is the necessary consequence of great abundance.”
Page 197: “In the progress of improvement, the period at [...]

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Page 171: “Human food seems to be the only produce of land which always and necessarily affords some rent to the landlord.”
Page 172: “Land in its original rude state can afford the materials of cloathing and lodging to a much greater number of people than it can feed.”  I wonder if this is true of, [...]

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This chapter has been brutal.  When Smith separated profit as a special part of value I could understand him, even if I didn’t agree; but separating rent out confused me; I had to read this chapter several times.  I think I may have finally gotten somewhere; we’ll see if the conclusions I’ve drawn make any [...]

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The chapter I’m working on now is the one about rent.  Smith’s analysis of rent is, in fact, what first led me to read this book and try to understand it, and this stuff is murder.  I’m working on it.  I’ll do a post when I’ve finished this read-through, but as of right now, I [...]

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If you know anyone who needs a Linux sysadmin, I have a friend who could use more work.  His web site is here. He does good work.  Thanks for passing it on.

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