Category: Economics

“The real price of every thing, what every thing really costs to the man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble of acquiring it.” – Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Vol. One

“Presidential elections in the United States are the dash for the cash. News outlets large and small suddenly open up their wallets and shovel out money for words, photos, video, anything that grabs eyes and ears. TOTAL COVERAGE! If you’re a freelancer, presidential elections are a gift from the news gods because it means a few months of steady paychecks, a fattened Rolodex, maybe a staff gig with juicy benefits or a sweetheart book deal.” – Dominic Gwinn, “2024 From The Back Of Dom’s Van,” December 31, 2024, Wonkette (emphasis in original)

“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 favour, 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 part 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. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages. Nobody but a beggar chuses to depend chiefly upon the benevolence of his fellow-citizens.” – Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Vol. One

“America’s a hustle.” – Noelle Valdivia, “Bliss,” The Penguin

“During the first two years after the German attack in 1941 the urgency of Soviet needs had been so great, the threat of Soviet collapse so imminent and foreboding for the Allied cause, that almost any effort or sacrifice seemed justified in order to deliver supplies. This sense of urgency died hard even under the changed conditions of the last half of the war when victory over Germany and Japan seemed assured. The postwar implications of thus helping to strengthen the Soviet position in Europe and Asia were either not foreseen or ignored.” – Robert W. Coakley and Richard M. Leighton, “Aid to the USSR in the Later War Years,” Global Logistics and Strategy: 1943-1945

“In the postwar period the United States was to be forced to resort to new devices to maintain a going British economy and to bolster British military strength, starting with a loan in 1946 and progressing through the Marshall Plan and the Mutual Security Program. A forthright approach to the problem in 1945 might have saved much lost time and have been more economical in the end. Certainly the restrictive attitude of the JCS [Joint Chiefs of Staff] played some part in preventing such a forthright approach to a situation in which Presidential direction was uncertain and a practical policy vacuum existed. It seems evident that both Roosevelt and Truman, the latter perhaps belatedly after Potsdam, saw the need for helping the British in their postwar economic adjustment, but Roosevelt’s hand was faltering in the last six months of his life and he did not take the necessary steps either to lay down a clear policy for the executive branch to follow or to secure the legislative authority that would have made the course of his successor easier. Without legislative authority, Truman felt his hands were tied, and lend-lease was allowed to lapse without any real consideration of how it might be used as an effective instrument of U.S. policy in promoting postwar adjustments—just as it had been used during hostilities as an extremely effective means for fighting a coalition war.” – Robert W. Coakley and Richard M. Leighton, “The End of the Common Pool,” Global Logistics and Strategy: 1943-1945

“The British did not have quite the same respect for the ‘scientific’ calculation of requirements that the Americans at least professed to have, and regarded the end result as merely an educated guess. It is at least possible that American insistence that the British determine their requirements far in advance was also conditioned less by their confidence in anybody’s ability to do so than by their desire to keep production plans stable and not allow them to be continually disrupted by British demands for bits and pieces.” – Robert W. Coakley and Richard M. Leighton, “Lend-Lease and the Common Pool,” Global Logistics and Strategy: 1943-1945

“Dog wants only a dry hole. Wants only tasty bone. Wants the cockles off him. All else is luxury.” – Leon Rooke, Shakespeare’s Dog

“There’s much to be said for looting the past.” – Leon Rooke, Shakespeare’s Dog

“On many Pacific islands supplies were to deteriorate in open storage until 1950 when the United States was to find a new and unexpected use for them in the Korean War. A naval historian, commenting on the roll-up of naval supplies in the South Pacific, has summed up the effort of the Army just as fittingly: ‘The logic of rolling forward rear bases was impeccable. In the case of personnel its urgency could not be denied. But to set up a cross current against the normal flow of supply and support proved to be extremely difficult, if not impracticable. Much of the usable material was in fact moved forward. The rest remained in the South Pacific to be locally disposed of or to stand as a monument to the unsparing waste of war and the greater importance of time over cost.’ The ‘greater importance of time over cost’ might indeed be designated as the most important factor in logistics in World War II.” – Robert W. Coakley and Richard M. Leighton, “Logistics of a One-Front War,” Global Logistics and Strategy: 1943-1945

“Whenever commerce is introduced into any country probity and punctuality always accompany it.” – Adam Smith, Lectures on Justice, Police, Revenue and Arms

“Sadopopulism: a politics that works not because all benefit but because some learn to take pleasure in the greater suffering of others. Deportations have to be understood in this light: they are a spectacle of the suffering of others. So does mass incarceration. A test for this, as we have been recently reminded, is health. Persuading people that it is normal to pay for shorter lives is the litmus test of sadopopulism. In America, we do in fact pay exorbitant amounts of money to harmful middlemen who kill us by denying us care that we could afford if their scam did not exist. (It is a sign of our cultural problem that we say ‘insurance’ or ‘health care’ when we mean ‘death grift.’) – Timothy Snyder, “Class War or Culture War?”, Thinking about…, December 19, 2024

“A light wife doth make a heavy husband.” – William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice 5.1

“He is well paid that is well satisfied.” – William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice 4.1

“Multiple handling and transshipment at several points took their toll in breakage, deterioration, and pilferage. Storage north of Australia or New Caledonia was usually inadequate, and deterioration in open storage in a tropical climate appallingly swift. Rations spoiled, canvas rotted, ammunition became unusable, and machinery rusted. ‘There has been considerable wastage in all types of supplies . . . ,’ wrote Somervell from the South Pacific in September 1943. ‘This loss has been particularly high in ammunition and rations. No one really knows how much food has been spoiled. It is certain, however, that as much as 50 percent of some types of ammunition has gone to waste and hundreds of thousands if not millions of rations have been lost.’ In June 1943 an observer thought at least 40 percent of the rations in SWPA [Southwest Pacific Area] spoiled or unconsumable.” – Robert W. Coakley and Richard M. Leighton, “The War Against Japan, 1943-44,” Global Logistics and Strategy: 1943-1945

“Fast bind, fast find—a proverb never stale in thrifty mind.” – William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice 2.5

“Higher education [in the Byzantine Empire] was dispensed by the rhetor or sophist and was available in the larger cities only. The rhetor/sophist, if he held an established chair, was appointed by the local council and received a salary as well as benefitting from certain exemptions. In practice he also received payments or gifts from his pupils. If, on the other hand, he was a free-lance (and many of them were), he depended entirely on fees. There was thus an in-built competition between teachers which occasionally erupted into fights and the kidnapping of students. Boys normally took up higher education at the age of fifteen and pursued it as long as long as their circumstances or their desires dictated: a complete course took about five years, but many left after two or three. Naturally, most of the students came from well-to-do families.” – Cyril Mango, Byzantium: The Empire of New Rome

“If there was one institution that left an indelible mark on the Late Roman and Byzantine way of life, that was surely taxation. The imposition of regular and extraordinary levies—in kind upon the farmer and in money upon the merchant and artisan—was meant to be equitable; in fact, it hit the agricultural population harder than the urban, the poor much more than the rich.” – Cyril Mango, Byzantium: The Empire of New Rome

“If the slave was generally absent from the rural landscape, the tenant farmer (colonus) was an important feature of it. A man of degraded and anomalous status, the colonus was theoretically free, but in practice tied to his plot. He was, as a law of [AD] 393 puts it, ‘a slave of the land’. His condition was hereditary, his freedom to marry restricted, and he could not even join the army. The master of his land collected his taxes and was empowered to put him in chains if he tried to run away. It was openly admitted by the government that there was little difference between the status of a slave and that of a colonus. The authorities, of course, were not animated by pure sadism in curbing the liberties of the tenant farmer; their primary concern was the collection of tax.” – Cyril Mango, Byzantium: The Empire of New Rome

“The archaeological exploration of the Limestone Massif in northern Syria, a region that attained great prosperity thanks to the cultivation of the olive tree, has shown not only the co-existence of large and small holdings, but also a general trend, in the period extending from the fourth to the sixth century [AD], towards the break-up of the bigger estates and the growth of villages composed of relatively well-to-do, independent farmers. While the conditions in the Limestone Massif were probably untypical of the rest of Syria, not to speak of other parts of the Empire, they serve to emphasize the danger of drawing general conclusions from literary and legislative texts.” – Cyril Mango, Byzantium: The Empire of New Rome

“They well deserve to have that know the strong’st and surest way to get.” – William Shakespeare, The Life and Death of King Richard II 3.3

“Well, whiles I am a beggar, I will rail, and say, there is no sin but to be rich; and being rich, my virtue then shall be, to say, there is no vice but beggary.” – William Shakespeare, The Life and Death of King John 2.1

“Our purses shall be proud, our garments poor; for ‘tis the mind that makes the body rich; and as the sun breaks through the darkest clouds, so honour peereth in the meanest habit.” – William Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew, 4.3

“Nothing comes amiss, so money comes withal.” – William Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew, 1.2

“No profit grows where is no pleasure ta’en.” – William Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew, 1.1

“It cannot be stressed enough that without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be an empire, but with Ukraine suborned and then subordinated, Russia automatically becomes an empire.” – Zbigniew Brzezenski (quoted by Tim Judah in “Ukraine on the Brink”)

“We used to make shit in this country. Built shit. Now we just put our hand in the next guy’s pocket.” – David Simon and George Pelecanos, “Bad Dreams,” The Wire

“The one irredeemable error of a supply program is not too much, but too little.” – “Report of War Department Procurement Review Board” (quoted in Robert W. Coakley and Richard M. Leighton, Global Logistics and Strategy: 1943-1945)

“A man is master of his liberty; time is their master; and, when they see time, they’ll go or come.” – William Shakespeare, The Comedy of Errors

“Foul cankering rust the hidden treasure frets, but gold that’s put to use more gold begets.” – William Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis