Mr. Darcy’s Ten Thousand a Year • Hacker News Board

Re: Mr. Darcy’s Ten Thousand a Year

#51

Post by davnicwil » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 7:46 AM UTC

absherwin wrote: post #18

devchix wrote: post #3

Consols schmonsols! The modern prospector such as Mrs. Bennet would want to know how much is that in today's money. Using the Bank of England's trusty inflation calculator and plugging in 1813 (the year Pride and Prejudice was published), Darcy's worth £681K a year and his friend half that. In the Valley or London, what's that, a director level at a FAANG, and a tech lead? Using the annual yield to derive asset, the…

Economic growth is the key to resolving the paradox you highlight of his seeming wealth then being inflation adjusted to only modestly high net worth today. Using Maddison's estimate for UK per capita GDP in 1820, suggests that the average UK resident generates more than 10.7x as much wealth now than back then. Of course, all these comparisons are fanciful and dependent on the utility one assigns to various things. I…

Yeah, the wealth generation statistic is interesting. I think a related way to think of why amounts of wealth that seem nominally not that extreme by today's standards were extreme hundreds of years ago is that there was much less you could spend that wealth on. People just didn't have the capacity to accumulate nor spend money to buy things and services at the same rates.

So viewing money as tokens of value, there was just less 'value' around full stop. So having much less of it still made you relatively extremely wealthy.

Re: Mr. Darcy’s Ten Thousand a Year

#52

Post by TheOtherHobbes » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 7:57 AM UTC

klenwell wrote: post #10

devchix wrote: post #3

Consols schmonsols! The modern prospector such as Mrs. Bennet would want to know how much is that in today's money. Using the Bank of England's trusty inflation calculator and plugging in 1813 (the year Pride and Prejudice was published), Darcy's worth £681K a year and his friend half that. In the Valley or London, what's that, a director level at a FAANG, and a tech lead? Using the annual yield to derive asset, the…

I have a stupid fascination with historical finance in literature myself. I focused on Early Modern Elizabethan literature. Wrote a thesis arguing that Spenser's Mammon in Book II of the Faerie Queene was not so much about the familiar allegory of illicit wealth but rather a vitriolic topical attack on the emerging proto-capitalist financial industry in Elizabethan England and the challenge it presented to the tradit…

The prototypical modern bankers were the Fuggers - who were effectively early Europe's Fed, but somehow escaped the attention of contemporary poets.

Re: Mr. Darcy’s Ten Thousand a Year

#53

Post by kgwgk » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 8:04 AM UTC

devchix wrote: post #3

Consols schmonsols! The modern prospector such as Mrs. Bennet would want to know how much is that in today's money. Using the Bank of England's trusty inflation calculator and plugging in 1813 (the year Pride and Prejudice was published), Darcy's worth £681K a year and his friend half that. In the Valley or London, what's that, a director level at a FAANG, and a tech lead? Using the annual yield to derive asset, the…

> the author in another paper put Darcy's net worth at £16.8m - £28m. Pathetic! Not even a one-percenter.

You don’t even need £3mn of household wealth to be in the top 1%; less for a individual.

Re: Mr. Darcy’s Ten Thousand a Year

#54

Post by TheOtherHobbes » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 8:13 AM UTC

kirrent wrote: post #45

hirundo wrote: post #5

“My dearest sister, now be serious. I want to talk very seriously. Let me know every thing that I am to know, without delay. Will you tell me how long you have loved him?" "It has been coming on so gradually, that I hardly know when it began. But I believe I must date it from my first seeing his beautiful grounds at Pemberley.” Elizabeth already knew Mr. Darcy's income and despised him. It was upon learning of his we…

I'm not sure if you're being serious or not, but Elizabeth is still being sarcastic here, as is very much in her character, despite Jane's request to the contrary.

It's not simple sarcasm. There's plenty of truth in it, so there's an element of knowing self-deprecation - not just on Elizabeth's part, but also Austen's, because the sentiment that would have been recognised by many of her readers.

Austen herself was in the same position as Elizabeth, with a tiny inheritance that provided no financial security. So P&P is as much a fantasy about finding financial safety as it is about finding a man.

For all the landscaped country houses and bonnets, it was a very brutal period for many women - and for men too, in other ways.

Re: Mr. Darcy’s Ten Thousand a Year

#55

Post by dmurray » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 8:18 AM UTC

benj111 wrote: post #47

devchix wrote: post #3

Consols schmonsols! The modern prospector such as Mrs. Bennet would want to know how much is that in today's money. Using the Bank of England's trusty inflation calculator and plugging in 1813 (the year Pride and Prejudice was published), Darcy's worth £681K a year and his friend half that. In the Valley or London, what's that, a director level at a FAANG, and a tech lead? Using the annual yield to derive asset, the…

"but my paper says one franc in 1830 was about £2.2" My rule of thumb pre Euro was 10 (French) Francs to the £, so one Franc being worth 10p. Pounds carried over with the same value during decimalisation, I havent found anything about the Franc changing so if true this is quite a devaluation over the years.

> Pounds carried over with the same value during decimalisation, I havent found anything about the Franc changing

The French Franc was revalued 100-1 in 1960. It's in the second line of the Wikipedia page on it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_franc

Re: Mr. Darcy’s Ten Thousand a Year

#56

Post by TheOtherHobbes » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 8:23 AM UTC

762236 wrote: post #30

adamson wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why was upkeep that expensive? Would you be maintaining the entire estate as a perfectly manicured garden?

That number sounds like it covers salaries for the help.

Live-in housekeeping is around £50k a year for a couple - not bad for living rent-free on a nice estate - although I used to know someone who provided house-keeping for much less in return for not having to pay for rent and food. So cheaper options are possible.

Gardening is maybe £25-30k/yr, unless the estate is absolutely huge.

Heating will cost a lot in the UK. So will maintenance, especially if there's significant land involved. Roads, fences, walls, drains, sewers, and so on are all more expensive than most people realise, and large estates are usually listed, so there are expensive restrictions and maintenance obligations.

But I'm not quite seeing how that would add to up £500k for a £1.5m estate - which would be fairly small, even with the way prices were back then. I'd have expected something closer to £100k to £200k.

Re: Mr. Darcy’s Ten Thousand a Year

#57

Post by C1sc0cat » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 8:29 AM UTC

Animats wrote: post #28

"Never sell consols." - The Forsyte Saga. The British government finally redeemed its last consols in 2015.

I had thought about buying some consols for my ISA (tax free investment account) the year or so before - my ISA was/is a bit stock heavy.

They where at around £80-85 and where redeemed at par £100 so would have been a nice little earner.

Re: Mr. Darcy’s Ten Thousand a Year

#58

Post by vl » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 8:30 AM UTC

In addition to money, there are a lot of things that are unclear in the Jane Austen’s novels for the modern reader. One such thing is time: when Mrs. Bennet asks Mr. Bingley “to dine with then”, at what specific time Mr. Bingley is supposed to show up (he seems to know implied time without asking)?

Re: Mr. Darcy’s Ten Thousand a Year

#59

Post by agent008t » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 8:33 AM UTC

davnicwil wrote: post #51

absherwin wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Economic growth is the key to resolving the paradox you highlight of his seeming wealth then being inflation adjusted to only modestly high net worth today. Using Maddison's estimate for UK per capita GDP in 1820, suggests that the average UK resident generates more than 10.7x as much wealth now than back then. Of course, all these comparisons are fanciful and dependent on the utility one assigns to various things. I…

Yeah, the wealth generation statistic is interesting. I think a related way to think of why amounts of wealth that seem nominally not that extreme by today's standards were extreme hundreds of years ago is that there was much less you could spend that wealth on . People just didn't have the capacity to accumulate nor spend money to buy things and services at the same rates. So viewing money as tokens of value, there…

You could always spend wealth on land, building a manor, hiring staff to maintain the land/manor, arts, crafts, travel, even science.

Also, how much would Darcy pay for an electricity generator, an old CRT television with a PSX and all the PSX games ever made? That makes comparisons in discretionary spending difficult.

But comparing basic spending could be doable. It is, of course, easier to compare such spending for a median person than for an outlier.

Re: Mr. Darcy’s Ten Thousand a Year

#60

Post by davnicwil » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 8:45 AM UTC

agent008t wrote: post #59

davnicwil wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the wealth generation statistic is interesting. I think a related way to think of why amounts of wealth that seem nominally not that extreme by today's standards were extreme hundreds of years ago is that there was much less you could spend that wealth on . People just didn't have the capacity to accumulate nor spend money to buy things and services at the same rates. So viewing money as tokens of value, there…

You could always spend wealth on land, building a manor, hiring staff to maintain the land/manor, arts, crafts, travel, even science. Also, how much would Darcy pay for an electricity generator, an old CRT television with a PSX and all the PSX games ever made? That makes comparisons in discretionary spending difficult. But comparing basic spending could be doable. It is, of course, easier to compare such spending for…

Yeah it's extremely interesting to think about - it's all a system and when you think you could just spend more money on whatever was available (building a bigger house, horses, arts, hiring staff) you also have to consider that there would have been much tighter upper limits on all of these. The labour market was extremely illiquid, and smaller, and economies of trade and skills were much more localised than today.

Doubtless you could simply waste your money pretty much without limits (pay more unqualified people to do a bad job at building your house, for example) but it would have been much more limited in terms of how you could usefully deploy your wealth, just because there was much less of everything available.