It's interesting how flat human nature stays over time, how advice given 136 years ago is still perfectly applicable today. Over the course of centuries life has changed dramatically, but we still think, worry, feel and act like our ancestors did from a millennium ago. I'd bet you could easily find advice given in the roman empire times that would still be relevant today.
Golden Rules for Making Money (1880)
71–80 of 186 posts
Re: Golden Rules for Making Money (1880)
#72Re: Golden Rules for Making Money (1880)
#73You can tell its from 1880 because of the basic html.
Wait until HTML3 is the new trend.
Re: Golden Rules for Making Money (1880)
#74Brilliant, witty and on-the-nail correct. Wish i had read this 30+ years ago.
Required reading for those considering a startup or a career.
Re: Golden Rules for Making Money (1880)
#75Earlier 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.
...and if you incentivized the producers (which is also redistribution) while disincentivized the spendthrift you will not be left with much of a population to keep redistributing from. Ultimately this is bad for the producers, I am not sure why they don't realize it. Short-term thinking and greed, maybe? Increasing inequality does in fact encourage deflation. Redistribution in forms of common services and education…
I wouldn't disagree with you, but I think you're reading something into the quote which isn't there. The moral is that redistribution won't bring prosperity - not that it's good in some cases and bad in others. At the risk of adding more complexity to the parable than its pithiness merits for the sake of explanation (as I understand it): the spendthrift wholly consumes whatever he produces, and wants more. The producer generates a surplus. He may well consume an overall greater amount than the spendthrift, but he's still net positive. The "division" however, will only benefit the spendthrift, because producing is chosen for the sake of consumption, but consumption for its own sake.
I know it's still a gross oversimplification, but I think the general truth encoded in the parable should be appreciated for its own sake in general terms.
Re: Golden Rules for Making Money (1880)
#76Very interesting.
Re: Golden Rules for Making Money (1880)
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Presumably by studying geology, then thinking a lot about the oil formation process, and working out where to find some before anyone else. Then, you can negotiate to obtain value for your knowledge of the location...
Re: Golden Rules for Making Money (1880)
#78Wow plentY of time that writers and readers had. I wish those days to come again.
Re: Golden Rules for Making Money (1880)
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
...and if you incentivized the producers (which is also redistribution) while disincentivized the spendthrift you will not be left with much of a population to keep redistributing from. Ultimately this is bad for the producers, I am not sure why they don't realize it. Short-term thinking and greed, maybe? Increasing inequality does in fact encourage deflation. Redistribution in forms of common services and education…
I wouldn't disagree with you, but I think you're reading something into the quote which isn't there. The moral is that redistribution won't bring prosperity - not that it's good in some cases and bad in others. At the risk of adding more complexity to the parable than its pithiness merits for the sake of explanation (as I understand it): the spendthrift wholly consumes whatever he produces, and wants more. The produc…
> The moral is that redistribution won't bring prosperity
Except that it does - up to a certain point.
That's one of the few repeatable, tested, and validated economical principle from the XX century. Counter intuitive as it is, there's just no point denying it.
Re: Golden Rules for Making Money (1880)
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
Please let me know how you started producing oil using only your mind.
Presumably by studying geology, then thinking a lot about the oil formation process, and working out where to find some before anyone else. Then, you can negotiate to obtain value for your knowledge of the location...
LOL, oil prospection is, among all industries, not a business that you can do using only your mind power...