#the wealth of nations

[clove-pinks]

A tender mother, among the inferior ranks of people, is often afraid to send her son to school at a seaport town, lest the sight of the ships and the conversation and adventures of the sailors should entice him to go to sea.

— Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations

William Redmore Bigg (British, 1755–1828), The sailor's farewell

[panicinthestudio]

A deep dive into capitalism with Scene on Radio podcast co-host John Biewen, July 5,2024

Scene on Radio, the Peabody-nominated podcast series produced by The Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University, has dedicated its latest season to exploring the history, failures and future of capitalism over the course of 13 episodes. John Biewen, co-host of the podcast, joins us from North Carolina for a big picture conversation about the system that governs the lives of a large chunk of humanity. France 24

[lilliankillthisman]

I've been reading The Wealth of Nations for a really interesting look at cutting edge 18th century economics (plus. so that I know when people I'm reading are misrepresenting Adam Smith) and it's all really impressive, sensible stuff.

And then you get to this passage on how poor Irish sex workers are the most beautiful women in all British dominions and this proves the superior wholesomeness of the potato over wheat, oats and rice???

[gameofthrones2020]

The Wealth of Nations

The Wealth of Nations and how the course of woman liberation was mad possible due to new technologies from the Industrial revolution

The Industrial Revolution brought fantastic opportunities for developing specialisation, best described in the philosopher and economist Adam Smith’s book The Wealth of Nations, first published in 1776. In Mr Smith’s book, he argued for specialisation that will lead to cheaper goods and services that will enable people to have more items and better living standards, which will also lead to…

[poetryintheraw]

Das Capital this, Wealth of Nations that, what if we pretended the economy was fake? What if we let the poor little English majors continue on in their collegiete journey without troubling them?

[ruigiraccoon]

If anyone needs clarity, this is Trump selling off public parks that are free or cheap to access, and putting that money into a slush fund that he can use without oversight- very much a personal bank account for himself.

[palatinewolfsblog]

"We should measure the prosperity of a nation not by the number of millionaires but by the absence of poverty, the prevalence of health, the efficiency of public schools, and the number of people who can and do read worthwhile books." W.E.B. Du Bois.

[thepersonalwords]

The true wealth of a nation is not their natural resources but their achievements in education.

Debasish Mridha

[isawthismeme]

Everybody shut up for a second and listen to Bernie.

[clove-pinks]

James Gillray, The bow of a three-decker; part of a ship with figure-head at left. Pen and grey ink, with grey and pale buff wash, made 1772-1794 (British Museum).

Adam Smith had a lot of interesting things to say about sailors in The Wealth of Nations (1776):

The lottery of the sea is not altogether so disadvantageous as that of the army. The son of a creditable laborer or artificer may frequently go to sea with his father's consent; but if he enlists as a soldier, it is always without it.

But he dates himself with statements like: "The great admiral is less the object of public admiration than the great general; and the highest success in the sea service promises a less brilliant fortune and reputation than equal success in the land." (Obviously this is before the Royal Navy was respectable enough to have a king's son as a midshipman, and other aristocracy who crowded its ranks post-Battle of Trafalgar).

After a mention of sea captains being less in "common estimation" than army colonels, this passage about sailors rings true for the early 19th century:

Common sailors, therefore, more frequently get some fortune and preferment than common soldiers; and the hope of those prizes is what principally recommends the trade. Though their skill and dexterity are much superior to that of almost any artificers, and though their whole life is one continual scene of hardship and danger, yet for all this dexterity and skill, for all those hardships and dangers, while they remain in the condition of common sailors, they receive scarce any other recompense but the pleasure of exercising the one and of surmounting the other. Their wages are not greater than those of common laborers at the port which regulates the rate of seamen's wages.

Thomas Rowlandson, Ships and Sailors (late 18th century-early 19th century), The Met.

[tanadrin]

Can you expand on your Euro has problems with how the EU currently operates opinion?

ECB is too beholden to Germany, and the currency doesn’t have a strong central tax-and-disburse-funds authority to subsidize weaker regions, so having a shared currency doesn’t make sense. Without a shared currency individual regions can devalue their currency to make exports cheaper as necessary—individual regions of big countries can’t do that, so they generally replace that mechanism with a way of subsidizing economically underperforming regions. It just doesn’t make sense to have a single EU wide currency when the EU budget is so small and transfer payments can’t make up those gaps. This was in fact a huge problem during the sovereign debt crisis!

[3416]

do we think austons a trump supporter

yeah probably lololol... most likely he doesn't care or bother to vote but ema has commented on a trumpie christina marleau post with "proud of you 🇺🇸" before so. it's a yikes

[eaglesnick]

“Rethinking capitalism means rethinking the role of the public sector, the role of the private sector, the role of finance, and the relationship between them all” -  Mariana Mazzucato

Yesterday I was arguing for the creation a REAL sovereign wealth fund (SWF) to replace the “Micky Mouse” national wealth fund (NWF) created by Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer.

90 countries from across the world have a SWF whereby governments set up a state-owned investment fund that invests in real and financial assets or in such enterprises as private equity funds or hedge funds. Any profits or income generated from these investments go toward the country’s economy and its citizens.

Britain does not have a SWF. Instead we give money to private enterprise, often in the form of tax breaks, in the hope they will provide jobs or tax revenue for the British economy.  This tax revenue may or may not be greater than payments made to business and industry by the British taxpayer. This is absolute madness!

Lets take the Rosebank gas and oil field as an example of this crazy situation.

In 2024 the Norwegian state-owned Equinor company made global pre-tax profits of £24billion. The year prior to this, Equinor was given a £400million tax break by the British government.

“The Norwegian state-owned oil giant behind controversial Rosebank plans has secured £400 million from a little-known tax break from the Treasury, new analysis has revealed.” (The Scotsman: 24/1024)

According to Equinor’s own  2024 Tax Contribution Report they only paid the British government $4million in taxes on their “extractive activities”.

$4million equals just over £3million, so we, the British taxpayer, gave Equinor, the Norwegian state-owned company, £400 million in tax exemptions while they paid us a mere £3 million. I think even a 6 year old could tell that was not a good deal!

Despite this Kemi Badenoch has no intension of creating a UK SWF, preferring instead to let foreign state-owned companies invest in Britain while at the same time advocating such funds are not taxed.

“UK drops plan to tax sovereign wealth funds The FT said business and trade minister Kemi Badenoch had urged the Treasury to drop the proposals out of concern that sovereign funds might pull out of projects in Britain.”  (zawya.com: 17/03/23)

The Labour government in the meantime has created a national wealth fund that is neither fowl nor beast. It is there to encourage private investment. When you visit the National Wealth Fund web site the first heading you see is “Private sector finance” and when you click on that link you find a set of operating principles, the forth of which is:

“Investment Principle 4: The investment is expected to crowd in significant private capital over time.” 

No hint of the British taxpayer owning shares, property assets, mineral rights or anything else that generates a profit for the taxpayer. Reeve’s NWF is just a disguise for maintaining the Tory policy of subsidising business and industry at the expense of the British taxpayer.

While other countries from around the world invest their taxpayer’s money in profitable business enterprises, we continue to give our tax revenues away, regarding them as a necessary cost for "growth". This strategy clearly hasn’t worked. Our governments need to rethink.

The payment of taxpayers money to private businesses and industries should be viewed not as a cost but as an investment, an investment that expects a return for its money. 

Margaret Thatcher is often quoted as saying: "We are all capitalist's now" . Let's make that true.

[celestial-tapir]

met a guy in a hostel while I was over in Japan who introduced himself as "Italian American" so I was like "Italian American like Tony Soprano or like you were born in Italy?" and it turned out that what he actually meant was that he had one Italian parent and one American parent and that they were both multi-millionaires

[cogcontrol]

*guy delivering the coldest most delusional take in the universe voice* hey guys have you guys heard national anthem by lana del ray??? very kenstewy core me thinks

[shochet]

This post is funny to me because of the entirely needless and useless coquette comment & this isnt me trying to be like mean about op or u my beloved mutuals who have reblogged this one, it's just that kroje like this & esp bridal ribbon crowns of this style are from Veľký Lom Slovakia if im remembering correctly.... this post is very funny to me though. keep it coming it is making me giggle. I cannot speak to the validity of the secone line of information given, but due to op calling these czech when im like 95% sure theye are Veľký Lom wedding kroje makes me dubious- however if it's true that's baller. I sincerely wish the information of where these are from was better. If they are a czech variant of this kroj style i'd really just have loved a town name.