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Golden Rules for Making Money (1880)

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Re: Golden Rules for Making Money (1880)

#41

Post by merpnderp »

cname wrote: post #12
wildmusings wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of one of my favorite Maggie Thatcher quotes: "The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money."

I don't know why so many people think Socialism is about welfare. Socialism is about who owns and controls the means of production. Read about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism

Socialism is commonly used today to mean a large welfare state. See Bernie Sanders describing the kind of socialists he is, and you'll realize he isn't actually a socialist in the strict sense of the word.

Re: Golden Rules for Making Money (1880)

#42

Post by coliveira »

dave_sullivan wrote: post #16
cname wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why so many people think Socialism is about welfare. Socialism is about who owns and controls the means of production. Read about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism

Aren't the means of production pretty much people's minds at this point? I'd like to own and control mine.

Please let me know how you started producing oil using only your mind.

Re: Golden Rules for Making Money (1880)

#43

Post by jwdunne »

jfaucett wrote: post #15
cname wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why so many people think Socialism is about welfare. Socialism is about who owns and controls the means of production. Read about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism

"I don't know why so many people think Socialism is about welfare." Its one of the meanings that the word socialism has come to denote through quotidian usage in media and within Amercian society. Democratic Socialism would likely be a more precise term for these common usage scenarios. see Usage Discussion of socialism at: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/socialism

And yet incorrect. Democratic socialism is the idea that socialism can be achieved through reform rather than revolution. In some respects, it has been less successful than revolutionary socialism: the UK Labour Party, until recently, reformed itself away from democratic socialism.

In the UK, welfare as we know it here originated from the Liberal Party, in fairness. Nationalisation (attempted socialism by reform) was the hallmark of the Labour Party, not heavy welfare spending.

Since Thatcher, the Tories have a knack for presenting themselves as the thrifty party - in effect, living within our means. Except household budgets are not so analogous to government budgets. It just so happens that this line resonates with the everyday voter in times of economic woe and it's all too easy to paint the social democrat as a boundless spender.

An example: in 2007 the Tory Party's shadow chancellor, George Osborne, said he would match Labour's spending plans. Recession hits, tax revenues drop and they harped a very different tune.

It's honestly just politics.

Re: Golden Rules for Making Money (1880)

#44

Post by trophycase »

PaulRobinson wrote: post #28
lr4444lr wrote: post #8

I love this part: The poor spendthrift vagabond says to a rich man: "I have discovered there is enough money in the world for all of us, if it was equally divided; this must be done, and we shall all be happy together." "But," was the response, "if everybody was like you, it would be spent in two months, and what would you do then?" "Oh! divide again; keep dividing, of course!"

Which is the correct answer. When you spend money, it doesn't disappear. It's just moved.

Value and efficiency can disappear though. I could spend 100 dollars on something that falls apart in a month, or spend 1000 for a functionally equivalently something that will last 3 generations. One of these choices is wasteful and hurts economic efficiency, one isn't.

Re: Golden Rules for Making Money (1880)

#45

Post by coliveira »

wildmusings wrote: post #13
cname wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why so many people think Socialism is about welfare. Socialism is about who owns and controls the means of production. Read about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism

Socialism in the traditional sense of the word refers to what people today would more likely call communism. Socialism these days refers to social-democratic movements that want redistribution within an at least somewhat capitalist system. She was taking a swipe at the British Labour Party and their counterparts on the continent, all of whom used the label 'socialist' but were really social democrats. Words mean what…

The reason these ideas changed names is because of the political coercion inflicted on socialists. People advocating socialism had to look for other labels that were not tainted with diret connection to oppressive communist regimes.

Re: Golden Rules for Making Money (1880)

#46

Post by jjoonathan »

lr4444lr wrote: post #31
PaulRobinson wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is the correct answer. When you spend money, it doesn't disappear. It's just moved.

Yes, but the goods it can buy on the next round of division still don't come from the spendthrift vagabond, and if his way of life is incentivized while the producers' is disincentivized by this redistribution, then that circulation won't continue so innocuously.

> spendthrift vagabond

An obtuse mischaracterization of the poor; a more typical "sin" would be failure to hop over the ever-rising bar that denotes the ability to secure money by threatening to withhold labor.

Circulation goes both ways and it isn't the ability of producers to secure profits that seems to be most endangered at the moment.

Re: Golden Rules for Making Money (1880)

#48

Post by johnloeber »

lr4444lr wrote: post #8

I love this part: The poor spendthrift vagabond says to a rich man: "I have discovered there is enough money in the world for all of us, if it was equally divided; this must be done, and we shall all be happy together." "But," was the response, "if everybody was like you, it would be spent in two months, and what would you do then?" "Oh! divide again; keep dividing, of course!"

This is nonsense. Spending money isn't bad at the macro/societal level. Spending is a cornerstone of economic growth.

Re: Golden Rules for Making Money (1880)

#49

Post by cubano »

angersock wrote: post #35
WavingThe44 wrote: post #30

From Frenzied Finance (1905): First, there is a fundamental law, from which no one—neither the great nor the small—is exempt. In substance it is: "Every 'Standard Oil' man must wear the 'Standard Oil' collar." This collar is riveted on to each one as he is taken into "the band," and can only be removed with the head of the wearer. Here is the code. The penalty for infringing the following rules is instant "removal."…

Pretty good advice, honestly. I'd like to think that the old robber-barons could still teach the current generation a thing or two about how to run a ruthless business.

I personally think robber barons exist all around us.

They just have smarter PR and image protection from their big media brethren.

Re: Golden Rules for Making Money (1880)

#50

Post by icebraining »

jjoonathan wrote: post #46
lr4444lr wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but the goods it can buy on the next round of division still don't come from the spendthrift vagabond, and if his way of life is incentivized while the producers' is disincentivized by this redistribution, then that circulation won't continue so innocuously.

> spendthrift vagabond An obtuse mischaracterization of the poor; a more typical "sin" would be failure to hop over the ever-rising bar that denotes the ability to secure money by threatening to withhold labor. Circulation goes both ways and it isn't the ability of producers to secure profits that seems to be most endangered at the moment.

An obtuse mischaracterization of the poor

Why do you think it's a characterization of the poor at all?

Circulation goes both ways and it isn't the ability of producers to secure profits that seems to be most endangered at the moment.

The working poor are themselves producers.

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