Month: June 2009

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  I suspect this is another area that is no longer applicable; at least directly.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 merchant or undertaker of any kind, is not either the whole capital with which he trades, or even any considerable part of that capital; but that part of it only, which he would otherwise be obliged to keep by him unemployed, and in ready money for answering occasional demands.”  Not so much any more–banks have become completely intertwined in every branch of every industry.  Indeed, Lenin defined Imperialism as that stage of capitalism which is dominated by finance capital, with industrial capital taking a back seat.

He goes on in this vein for some time, cautioning banks against making loans which cannot be returned for many years.  Page 258: “It is not by augmenting the capital of the country, but by rendering a greater part of that capital active and productive than would otherwise be so, that the most judicious operations of banking can increase the industry of the country.”  I may be brushing over this too lightly, but it just seems to me to no longer apply.  Perhaps there would be value in tracing exactly when and how it stopped applying, and what the consequences are, but there’s no way I could pull that off.  A man’s got to know his limitations.

Page 259, quoted mostly because I like it: “The commerce and industry of the country, however, it must be acknowledged, though they may be somewhat augmented, cannot be altogether so secure, when they are thus, as it were, suspended upon the Daedalian wings of paper money, as when they travel upon the solid ground of gold and silver.”

He then goes on to discuss the reglulation of banks by government, arguing that small denominations of paper should be avoided, and admitting that some people may see such regulations as infringement upon personal liberty.  Page 263: “But those exertions of the natural liberty of a few individuals, which might endanger the security of the whole society, are, and ought to be, restrained by the laws of all governments; of the most free, as well as of the most despotic.  The obligation of bulding party walls, in order to prevent the communication of fire, is a violation of natural liberty, excactly of the same kind, with the regulations of the banking trade which are here proposed.”

He then asserts that paper money is exactly the same as gold and silver, under certain conditions: “issued by people of undoubted credit, payable upon demand without any condition, and in fact always readily paid as soon as presented.”

He discusses errors in the banking trade which no longer, I think, apply.  He talks about the North American colonies (most of which would no longer be colonies within a decade), and how these colonies attempted, by law, to declare certain paper currencies to be above their actual value, with Smith condems as, in essence, debtors attempting to steal from their creditors.  Page 266: “No law, therefore, could be more equitable than the act of parliament, so unjustly complained of in the colonies, which declared that no paper currency to be emitted there in time coming should be a legal tender of payment.”

Page 268: The proportion between the value of gold and silver and that of goods of any other kind, depends in all cases , not upon the nature or quantity of any particular paper money, which may be current in any particular country, but upon the richness of poverty of the mines, which happen at any particular time to supply the great market of the commercial world with those metals.”

Which brings us, at least, to the end of the this chapter.  I only hope that my confusion over much of what was covered here won’t interfere with my understanding further chapters, because if it does, I’ll have to go back to this one and try again, and I may jump off the Mendota Bridge instead.

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 of money (gold, silver, and paper) that is in circulation at any given time to the total value of the produce of a nation.  He speaks in particular of the money destined for maintainance of industry.  What is interesting here is that he seems to be implying that money is often the limiting factor in production, on a national level, whereas earlier I thought he was saying that labor was the limiting factor.  I think I’m just confused here.

NB: Page 247: The phrase “discounting bills of exchange,” which is used a lot, means “advancing money upon them before they are due.”  Now, if I just knew what “bills of exchange” were, I think I’d have it.

On page 249 he gives an example, referring to “cash accounts” as practiced at the time in Edinburgh–basically automatic short-term loans, presumably for relatively small amounts.  He talks of how merchants without access to this cash account must keep funds on hand to pay bills as they become due.  Suppose the amount this merchant must keep in hand for lack of this account is five hundred pounds.  Then, “His annual profits must be less by all that he could have made by the sale of five hundred pounds worth more goods; and the number of people employed in preparing his goods for the market, must be less by all those that five hundred pounds more stock could have employed.”  Well yes, except that he is ignoring the interest the merchant must pay on that cash account as he uses it.  He is assuming that the interest he pays must be less than what 500 pounds invested in his business would bring in; I’m not sure that is always the case.

Further down.  “The whole paper money of every kind which can easily circulate in any country never can exceed the value of the gold and silver, of which it supplies the place, or which (the commerce being supposed the same) would circulate there, if there was no paper money.”  Here he is warning against putting into circulation more paper within a country than the amount of gold and silver that would circulate there.  This says nothing about circulation (of gold and silver) outside of the country, which, added to the paper circulating within, will be a significantly greater total than the amount of gold and silver.  His objection, then, is to excess currency within a country; not to producing currency in excess of that which is backed by precious metal.

On page 250 he mentions two expenses unique to bankers.  “First, in the expence of keeping at all times in its coffers, for answering the occasional demands of the holders of its notes, a large sum of money, of which it loses the interest; And, secondly, in the expence of replenishing those coffers as fast as they are emptied by answering such occasional demands.”  I’m having trouble seeing how those two things aren’t just two ways of saying the same thing.  Moreover, it seems that, in some sense, every business must have money on hand to meet occasional expenses, barring access to a “cash account” as discussed above (in which case, there is the replacement cost of the interest on the cash account).