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James Wilcox

Smith: Wealth of Nations, Book IV, Chapter 1 | Library of Economics and Liberty - 2 views

  • Among the Tartars, as among all other nations of shepherds, who are generally ignorant of the use of money, cattle are the instruments of commerce and the measures of value
    • James Wilcox
       
      That so interesting that cattle became the measure of money and wealth.  It seems that for something to be money it has to be able to come in large quantities, not have much difference between one to another, and carry a consistent value.
    • James Wilcox
       
      This notion of a Gold or currency base stands so consistent that it is hard for us today to break away and have a purely digital or credit economy.  But ever so slowly we are getting there.
  • When those countries became commercial, the merchants found this prohibition, upon many occasions, extremely inconvenient. They could frequently buy more advantageously with gold and silver than with any other commodity the foreign goods which they wanted, either to import into their own, or to carry to some other foreign country. They remonstrated, therefore, against this prohibition as hurtful to trade.
    • James Wilcox
       
      This principle of protectionism holds true today and is still argued about by growing economies.  Not so commonly with gold but with all different types of key commodities.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • They represented, secondly, that this prohibition could not hinder the exportation of gold and silver, which, on account of the smallness of their bulk in proportion to their value, could easily be smuggled abroad.*9 That this exportation could only be prevented by a proper attention to, what they called, the balance of trade
    • James Wilcox
       
      I have heard this same argument for illegal drugs.  I have heard people say we should legalize it so that it can be tracked and limited in a legal manner.
  • hat wealth consists in money, or and silver, is a popular notion which naturally arises from the double function of money, as the instrument of commerce and as the measure of value. In consequence of its being the instrument of commerce, when we have money we can more readily obtain whatever else we have occasion for than by means of any other commodity. The great affair, we always find, is to get money. When that is obtained, there is no difficulty in making any subsequent purchase. In consequence of its being the measure of value, we estimate that of all other commodities by the quantity of money which they will exchange for. We say of a rich man that he is worth a great deal, and of a poor man that he is worth very little money. A frugal man, or a man eager to be rich, is said to love money; and a careless, a generous, or a profuse man, is said to be indifferent about it. To grow rich is to get money; and wealth and money, in short, are, in common language, considered as in every respect synonymous.
Erin Hamson

Modern History Sourcebook: Adam Smith: The Wealth of Nations, 1776 (Epitome) - 0 views

    • Erin Hamson
       
      The process of specialization was later perfected by Henry Ford, in making cheap, durable cars.
  • This great increase of the quantity of work which, in consequence of the division of labor, the same number of people are capable of performing, is owing to three different circumstances; first, to the increase of dexterity in every particular workman; secondly, to the saving of the time which is commonly lost in passing from one species of work to another; and lastly, to the invention of a great number of machines which facilitate and abridge labor, and enable one man to do the work of many....
  • Man has almost constant occasion for the help of his brethren, and it is in vain for him to expect it from their benevolence only. He will be more likely to prevail if he can interest their self-love in his favor, and show them that it is for their own advantage to do for him what he requires of them. Whoever offers to another a bargain of any kind, proposes to do this. Give me that which I want, and you shall have this which you want, is the meaning of every such offer; and it is in this manner that we obtain from one another the far greater art of those good offices which we stand in need of. It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.
    • Erin Hamson
       
      This is the basis of the Market Economy or Capitalism, exchange based in self-interest that benefits all.
  • ...38 more annotations...
  • In order to avoid the inconvenience of such situations, every prudent man in every period of society, after the first establishment of the division of labor, must naturally have endeavored to manage his affairs in such a manner as to have at all times by him, besides the peculiar produce of his own industry, a certain quantity of some one commodity or other, such as he imagined few people would be likely to refuse in exchange for their produce....It is in this manner that money has become in all civilized nations the universal instrument of commerce, by the intervention of which goods of all kinds are bought and sold, or exchanged for one another....
    • Erin Hamson
       
      The role/development of money. The problem with money is that it has to be regulated and who regulates it? If we let the governement regulate it, it might become manipulated...
  • The value of any commodity,
  • is equal to the quantity of labor which it enables him to purchase or command
  • Labor, therefore, is the real measure of the exchangeable value of all commodities....
  • The real price of everything
  • is the toil and trouble of acquiring it.
    • Erin Hamson
       
      Note the difference between the value and the price. The price changes most significantly in relation to how much the consumer wants the product, as opposed to how much time it took the maker to make it.
  • which resolves itself into labor
  • resolves itself into rent
  • resolves itself into profit
  • ordinary or average rate both of wages and profit
  • partly by the general circumstances of the society,
    • Erin Hamson
       
      A man cannot charge above that which can be paid him or he will lose business.
  • partly by the particular nature of each employment
    • Erin Hamson
       
      Some labor is simply worth more
  • ordinary or average rate of rent
  • partly by the general circumstances of the society or neighborhood in which the land is situated,
  • partly by the natural or improved fertility of the land
  • When the price of any commodity is neither more nor less than what is sufficient to pay the rent of the land, the wages of the labor, and the profits of the stock employed in raising, preparing, and bringing it to market, according to their natural rates, the commodity is then sold for what may be called its natural price.
  • The actual price at which any commodity is commonly sold is called its market price
  • he market price of every particular commodity is regulated by the proportion between the quantity which is actually brought to market, and the demand of those who are willing to pay the natural price of the commodity, or the whole value of the rent, labor, and profit, which must be paid in order to bring it thither.
  • A competition will immediately begin among them, and the market price will rise more or less above the natural price, according as either the greatness of the deficiency, or the wealth and wanton luxury of the competitors, happen to animate more or less the eagerness of the competition.
    • Erin Hamson
       
      The results of scarcity *footballs*
  • quantity brought to market exceeds the effectual demand
    • Erin Hamson
       
      Surplus
    • Erin Hamson
       
      ,effect of
  • A monopoly granted either to an individual or to a trading company has the same effect as a secret in trade or manufactures.
    • Erin Hamson
       
      See above
  • When by an increase in the effectual demand, the market price of some particular commodity happens to rise a good deal above the natural price, those who employ their stocks in supplying that market are generally careful to conceal this change
    • Erin Hamson
       
      A monopoly
  • The exclusive privileges of corporations, statutes of apprenticeship, and all those laws which restrain, in particular employments, the competition to a smaller number than might otherwise go into them, have the same tendency, though in a less degree. They are a sort of enlarged monopolies,
    • Erin Hamson
       
      See above
  • THE produce of labor constitutes the natural recompense or wages of labor.
    • Erin Hamson
       
      You get what you make
  • Such combinations, however, are frequently resisted by a contrary defensive combination of the workmen; who sometimes too, without any provocation of this kind, combine of their own accord to raise the price of their labor.....
  • Masters, too, sometimes enter into particular combinations to sink the wages of labor even below this rate
    • Erin Hamson
       
      Two combinations to react to one another. Like the checks and balances found in gov.
  • The demand for those who live by wages, therefore, necessarily increases with the increase of the revenue and stock of every country, and cannot possibly increase without it. The increase of revenue and stock is the increase of national wealth....
  • It is but equity, besides, that they who feed, clothe, and lodge the whole body of the people, should have such a share of the produce of their own labor as to be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed, and lodged
    • Erin Hamson
       
      equality in the pursuit of happiness
  • First, by restraining the competition in some employments to a smaller number than would otherwise be disposed to enter into them; Second, by increasing it in others beyond what it naturally would be; and, Third, by obstructing the free circulation of labor and stock, both from employment to employment and from place to place.
    • Erin Hamson
       
      Problems of Mercantilism
  • First,
  • by restraining the competition in some employments to a smaller number than might otherwise be disposed to enter into them
  • and to hinder him from employing this strength and dexterity in what manner he thinks proper without injury to his neighbor is a plain violation of this most sacred property.
  • An exclusive corporation necessarily weakens the force of this discipline.
    • Erin Hamson
       
      the gov is not needed for regulation
  • Second,
  • by increasing the competition in some employments beyond what it naturally would be
    • Erin Hamson
       
      pursuit of happiness
  • by obstructing the free circulation of labor and stock both from employment to employment, and from place to place,
  • Third,
  •  
    Thanks for the annotations and the comments.
Erin Hamson

Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business - 4 views

shared by Erin Hamson on 25 Sep 10 - Cached
Andrew DeWitt liked it
  • zero-cost distribution has turned sharing into an industry
    • Bri Zabriskie
       
      This article is long but well worth skimming. I used a quote from it in one of my latest blogposts, "Free Entertainment?" at bricolorful.wordpress.com
  • Invent something people use and throw away.
    • Erin Hamson
       
      Eliminates scarcity
  • By giving away the razors, which were useless by themselves, he was creating demand for disposable blades.
    • Erin Hamson
       
      Supply and demand
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • The fastest-growing parts of the gaming industry are ad-supported casual games online and free-to-try massively multiplayer online games
    • Erin Hamson
       
      Still need a way to make money
  • The first is the extension of King Gillette's cross-subsidy to more and more industries.
    • Erin Hamson
       
      That is, giving somethings to make you buy others
  • The second trend is simply that anything that touches digital networks quickly feels the effect of falling costs.
  • And that meant software of broader appeal, which brought in more users, who in turn found even more uses for computers.
    • Erin Hamson
       
      Cheaper goods brings in more people allowing the standard of living to rise for all.
  • FREE CHANGES EVERYTHING
    • Andrew DeWitt
       
      Wow, this is awesome.  Imagine the world of free electricity.  It makes me wonder what our age of free digital will bring.
    • Kristi Koerner
       
      I actually agree that some things, maybe even more things, should be free. But not as a marketing ploy. And this system seems to go against our capitalist ideals of competition.
  • The most common of the economies built around free is the three-party system. Here a third party pays to participate in a market created by a free exchange between the first two parties.
    • Erin Hamson
       
      Where the money comes in.
  • There are dozens of ways that media companies make money around free content, from selling information about consumers to brand licensing, "value-added" subscriptions, and direct ecommerce
  • subscription model of media and is one of the most common Web business models.
  • Isn't it just the free sample model found everywhere from perfume counters to street corners?
  • the manufacturer gives away only a tiny quantity
  • A typical online site follows the 1 Percent Rule — 1 percent of users support all the rest.
  • Yahoo's pay-per-pageview banners, Google's pay-per-click text ads, Amazon's pay-per-transaction "affiliate ads," and site sponsorships were just the start.
  •  
    A seminal post that became the basis of Anderson's 2009 book, FREE (Hyperion) 
Jeffrey Chen

Money is considered digital? - 1 views

  •  
    Interesting article on the future of money and how digital it truly is
Gideon Burton

How a 19-year-old student became one of the hottest political photographers i... - 1 views

  •  
    An example of someone succeeding at photography by seeking only reputation, not money, by publishing his work as Creative Commons-licensed.
Margaret Weddle

SHARING THE PROFITS: Businessmen Get a New Religion - TIME - 0 views

  •  
    Capitalism & giving back actually makes more money!
Kevin Watson

Uh-merican: Pet Rocks - 0 views

  • Only in America could a guy like Dahl take advantage of so many people. I know I have probably paid for dumb things in my lifetime, like Keds shoes or canned beets, but seriously, a rock?
  •  
    Have you ever heard of pet rocks? Thinking about FarmVille and all the services you pay actual money for online for virtual things made me think of them. Check out this blog post about them, and tell me it's not ridiculous. 
Kevin Watson

$2 billion buys a lot of nothing | Dayton Daily News Newspaper | Find Articles at BNET - 0 views

    • Kevin Watson
       
      This is the scary view of the "virtual" world. It is the point when you know you are spending too much time online. Go outside! Go Hiking! Take someone to a restaurant! Spend your money on something TANGIBLE!
  •  
    Addresses the current market within virtual economies and how people are spending REAL money for non-existing goods/services.
Kevin Watson

UK science risks relegation, warns Royal Society - physicsworld.com - 0 views

  •  
    How much money should be given to Science and Research?
Megan Stern

American Thinker: The Disappearing Middle Class - 0 views

  • The government is helping out, "redistributing" money to the bottom. "The Rich" can use their money and influence to get in. The middle class gets no special consideration or privilege. Because they do work hard, they get to work harder -- and the Ruling Class calls this "justice."
    • Megan Stern
       
      So. True.
  • And this is what the Tea Party is really mad about.
  • And the balance between the lower class and their upper-class leaders is upset by the injection of the middle class and its struggles to carve out its niche.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • His Communist Manifesto is nothing more than a rant about the evils of this group and how they have inflicted harm and damage to everyone around them through colonialism and ingenuity.
  • Marx and Engels envisioned a return to the simpler time, where a vast lower class was ruled by its betters. Not surprisingly, they saw themselves as leading the underlings to the new paradise.
  • their opinions are tainted by "greed" (the single biggest sin of the bourgeoisie).
  • The byproduct of this Socialization is the shrinking of the middle class. When you punish people for working hard, those people will stop working so hard.
  • se bailouts are transfers of wealth -- not from the rich to the poor, but from the working middle class to both the upper and lower classes.
  • True: all the
  •  
    Concisely presents the consensual argument most conservatives adopt against Marx's principles in our day.
Kristen Nicole Cardon

Africa calling: mobile phone usage sees record rise after huge investment | Technology ... - 1 views

  • Uganda, the first African country to have more mobiles than fixed telephones, is cited as an example of cultural and economic transformation. Penetration has risen from 0.2% in 1995 to 23% in 2008, with operators making huge investments in infrastructure, particularly in rural areas. Given their low incomes, only about a quarter of Ugandans have a mobile subscription, but street vendors offer mobile access on a per-call basis. They also invite those without access to electricity to charge their phones using car batteries.Popular mobile services include money transfers, allowing people without bank accounts to send money by text message. Many farmers use mobiles to trade and check market prices.
  •  
    Thank you for the links, this is exactly what I was actually going to post about.
Erin Hamson

About Open Government | The White House - 0 views

    • Erin Hamson
       
      This is a good beginning to openness. But it still seems a little vague.
  • The Administration is reducing the influence of special interests by writing new ethics rules that prevent lobbyists from coming to work in government or sitting on its advisory boards. The Administration is tracking how government uses the money with which the people have entrusted it with easy-to-understand websites like recovery.gov, USASpending.gov, and IT.usaspending.gov. The Administration is empowering the public – through greater openness and new technologies – to influence the decisions that affect their lives.
anonymous

Newspaper Death Watch - 0 views

shared by anonymous on 20 Sep 10 - No Cached
    • anonymous
       
      It is interesting how newspapers are first and foremost just businesses. Sure they have a noble cause, but they still need to make money. Also the author of this blog has an interesting history with newspapers, but he seems to be making the transition to digital media well.
Mike Lemon

Calls for longer school years face budget reality - Yahoo! News - 0 views

    • Mike Lemon
       
      Is lengthening the school day or year the answer?
  • Education reformers have long called for U.S. kids to log more time in the classroom so they can catch up with their peers elsewhere in the world, but resistance from leisure-loving teenagers isn't the only reason there is no mass movement to keep schoolchildren in their seats. Such a change could cost cash-strapped state governments and local school districts billions of dollars, strip teachers of a time-honored perk of their profession, and irk officials in states that already bridle at federal intrusion into their traditional control over education.
  • Texas already forbids school from starting before the fourth Monday of August, a provision designed to save money on utility bills and increase business for tourist destinations and other summer attractions. "Ultimately the states, not the federal government, should have the final word on this and other public school decisions," said Lucy Nashed, a spokeswoman for Gov. Rick Perry. In Kansas, sporadic efforts by local districts to extend the school year at even a few schools have been met by parental resistance, said state education commissioner Diane DeBacker.
Madeline Rupard

Facebook Top 50 - 0 views

  •  
    This is an interesting list I found of companies that make the most of the "fan" account they have on facebook. Another interesting crossroad between our economy and technology.
Rhett Ferrin

Wired 12.10: The Long Tail - 0 views

    • Rhett Ferrin
       
      Rhapsody is awesome, but you should look into grooveshark.com. It follows the 'freemium' model discussed in class and has advertisements but I would like to hear what other people's experience is with it or any insights to how they make money.
  • Imagine if prices declined the further you went down the Tail, with popularity (the market) effectively dictating pricing. All it would take is for the labels to lower the wholesale price for the vast majority of their content not in heavy rotation; even a two- or three-tiered pricing structure could work wonders. And because so much of that content is not available in record stores, the risk of channel conflict is greatly diminished. The lesson: Pull consumers down the tail with lower prices.
Katherine Chipman

Charles Dickens, Hard Times (1854), excerpts - 0 views

    • Rhett Ferrin
       
      I think the supreme irony Dickens illustrates is that people in the idustrial revolution had to work under attrocious conditions in mines and factories in order to get money to live, yet it was that same work that eventually killed them. Either through years of compounded coal dust in their lungs or accidents in the mines or facotries.
  • It was a town of red brick, or of brick that would have been red if the smoke and ashes had allowed it; but as matters stood, it was a town of unnatural red and black like the painted face of a savage. It was a town of machinery and tall chimneys, out of which interminable serpents of smoke trailed themselves for ever and ever, and never got uncoiled. It had a black canal in it, and a river that ran purple with ill-smelling dye, and vast piles of building full of windows where there was a rattling and a trembling all day long, and where the piston of the steam-engine worked monotonously up and down, like the head of an elephant in a state of melancholy madness. It contained several large streets all very like one another, and many small streets still more like one another, inhabited by people equally like one another, who all went in and out at the same hours, with the same sound upon the same pavements, to do the same work, and to whom every day was the same as yesterday and to-morrow, and every year the counterpart of the last and the next.
  •  
    Powerful imagery. I can picture the town!
  •  
    Wonderful imagery. My favorite is The Old Curiosity Shop. I love Dickens. =]
Jeffrey Chen

Grant for evolution museum - 0 views

  •  
    Cool technology helps us better understand the science of evolution
Shaun Frenza

Communist Manifesto (Chapter 1) - 1 views

  • holy alliance to exorcise
    • Erin Hamson
       
      Religious diction
  • All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.
    • Erin Hamson
       
      Man is responsible for technology which is responsible for a fast paced world, which they don't like
  • It compels all nations, on pain of extinction,
    • Erin Hamson
       
      Japan
    • Shaun Frenza
       
      Seems a little singular - is there a specific reason why you only say "Japan"
  • ...17 more annotations...
  • The bourgeoisie has subjected the country to the rule of the towns.
    • Erin Hamson
       
      Capitalism has taken over the world, and those that were slow to buy into the idealology are being left in the dust, and dependant on others, which they don't like.
  • Because there is too much civilisation, too much means of subsistence, too much industry, too much commerce.
    • Erin Hamson
       
      Communists retaliate by not producing enough goods.
  • He becomes an appendage of the machine, and it is only the most simple, most monotonous, and most easily acquired knack, that is required of him.
    • Erin Hamson
       
      Paints these people as the suffers, clearly appealing to them to call for "equality"
  • Not only are they slaves of the bourgeois class, and of the bourgeois State; they are daily and hourly enslaved by the machine, by the overlooker, and, above all, by the individual bourgeois manufacturer himself.
    • Erin Hamson
       
      In Communism all become slaves of the state and the state leaders, how is that better?
    • Shaun Frenza
       
      Or they become the machine - They are not the slave, they are the mechanizm together... at least that is what they tell themselves.
  • All are instruments of labour, more or less expensive to use, according to their age and sex.
    • Erin Hamson
       
      Conflicts with the MIT lesson, except for those that have to work. (in regard to females working) again an appeal to the working class people, who are the masses to revolt. This works less well in America because of the American dream and the possibility for change fostered by it.
  • At this stage, the labourers still form an incoherent mass scattered over the whole country, and broken up by their mutual competition.
    • Erin Hamson
       
      Reminiscent of George Orwell's 1984, they hope lies in the masses of uncontrolled people
  • Thereupon, the workers begin to form combinations (Trades’ Unions) against the bourgeois; they club together in order to keep up the rate of wages; they found permanent associations in order to make provision beforehand for these occasional revolts. Here and there, the contest breaks out into riots.
    • Erin Hamson
       
      The working class fights back
  • so now a portion of the bourgeoisie goes over to the proletariat,
    • Erin Hamson
       
      they aren't alone in their cause
  • The proletarian is without property; his relation to his wife and children has no longer anything in common with the bourgeois family relations;
    • Erin Hamson
       
      The shear fact of having money and therefore time to spend with children brings these differences.
  • The proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority.
  • Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable
    • Erin Hamson
       
      Doesn't believe capitalism can survive.
    • Rhett Ferrin
       
      Wait, all these sound like good things. Is he saying its bad to have Toyotas? Is it bad to have bannanas in December?
  • rescued a considerable part of the population from the idiocy of rural life.
    • Rhett Ferrin
       
      Can someone help me out here? Is he being sarcastic? He says capitalizm is bad then says that the bourgeoisie 'rescued' people from the 'idiocy of rural life' Thomas Jefferson thought the rural life was the ideal and to be sought after. I can't tell if Marx is for or against it.
  • By bourgeoisie is meant the class of modern capitalists, owners of the means of social production and employers of wage labour
  • By proletariat, the class of modern wage labourers who, having no means of production of their own, are reduced to selling their labour power in order to live.
  • immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilisation
    • Shaun Frenza
       
      Notice how we are in the same situation now as were were then - the facilitation of communication with the internet and how it shapes the world to become more homogenous.
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