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Columnist maxim_sokolov provides a dumbed down Malthusian version of Ricardo's economic model, in which rent holders and capitalists act as market foes. To justify his ideological position the author conveniently forgets about modern international division of labor, wherein rent holders, labor, and captalists switch roles depending on the direction of trade flows. For example, Russian oil exporters, i.e. rent holders, turn into equipment importers, i.e. capitalists, when they buy oil production equipment in the West. So whatever price advantage they gain on the initial sale is given back during subsequent technology purchases. Very simple. That's why long-term international trade is built on win-win deals and not on price gouging or extortion.

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Agnetha is the ultimate soamo woman. He, like Sandro Botticelli, has been drawing her all his life.

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In the last century in the industrial countries there was much uncertainty as to whether a man could get money but very little as to what it would do for him once he had it. In this century the problem of getting money, though it remains considerable, has diminished. In its place has come a the uncertainty as to what money, however acquired and accumulated, will be worth.

Galbraith, Money, p. 3.

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There is nothing about money that cannot be understood by the person of reasonable curiosity, diligence and intelligence. Galbraith, p 6.

The study of money, above all other fields in economics, is the one in which complexity is used to disguise ruth or evade truth, not to reveal it. Most things in life - automobiles, mistresses, cancer - are important only to those who have them. Money, in contrast, is equally important ot those who have it and those who don't. p.6

(no subject)

Metal was an inconvenient thing to accept, weigh, divide, assess as to quality in powder or chunks, although more convenient in this regard than cattle. Accordingly, from the earliest known times and more likely somewhat before, metal was made into coins of predetermined weight. This innovation is attributed by Herodotus to the kings of Lydia, presumably in the latter part of the eighth century BC.

Coinage after the Lydians developed greatly in the Greek cities and in their colonies in Sicily and Italy to become a major art form. p. 10.


Coinage was a notable convenience. It was also an invitation to major public and minor private fraud. For profligate or hard-pressed rulers, and these, over time, have been n clear majority of their class, it regularly appeared as a flash of revelation that they could reduce the amount of metal in their coins or run ill some cheaper brass and hope, in effect, that no one would notice, at least soon. . Thus a smaller lmount of silver or gold would buy as much as before, or the same pure weight that much more. p.11

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Human nature lay be an infinitely variant thing. But it has constants. )ne is that, given a choice, people keep what is the ,est for themselves, i.e., for those whom they love be most.

With numerous coins in circulation variously aduIera ted, clipped, filed, sweated, trimmed, and with he worst being offered first, coins became a probm. The path was now open for the next great rcorm, which was to go back to weighing. This decilve step was taken by the City of Amsterdam in 1609 -a step that joins the history of money to the history if banking. It was a step especially occasioned by the arge trade of Amsterdam. That, in turn, was assoated with one of the most pervasively influential :vents in the history of money-the voyages of Columbus and the effect on Europe of the ensuing conluest and development of Spanish America.

Discovery and conquest set in motion a vast low of preciou~ metal from America to Europe, and the re~ult was a huge rise in prices-an inflation occasioned by an increase in the supply of the hardest of hard money.
p. 13

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In one view it was the gold and silver per se that nurtured that capitalism. In fact, it was not the metal but its consequences, and these were not at all mysterious. The high prices and low wages meant high profits. From the high profits came high savings and a strong incentive to their investment.

p. 16


note the relative ease of control for different flows.

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The merchants of Amsterdam at the end of the ixteenth century-a hundred years after the great flow f silver had started-were the recipients of a notably diverse collection of coins, extensively debased as to gold or silver content in various innovative ways. A manual for money changers issued by the Dutch parliatnent in 1606 listed 341 silver and 505 gold coinS.
Within the Dutch Republic no fewer than fourteen rUnts were then busy turning out money;

For each merchant to weigh the coin.. he received was a bother; the scales were also deeply and justifiably suspect.dam Smith told. 170 years later. of the solution: "In order to remedy [the aforemenhoned] inconveniences, a bank was established in 1609 l1I1~er_ the guarantee of the City. This bank received oth foreign coin, and the light worn [and other de>ased] coin of the country at its real intrinsic value in the good standard money of the country, deducting lly so much as was necessary for defraying the eJl!" lease of coinage, and the other necessary expense 01 lanagement. For the value which remained, after thi! imall deduction was made, it gave a credit on its books."12 Thus appeared, to regulate and limit abuse of he currency, the first notable public bank.
p. 19-20

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With the rise of these banks the profits from sweating, adulterating and otherwise diminshing the coinage fell. And, equally or more important, with the rise of national states coins became fewer and better minted.
The problems assiciated with money ceased to be those of coinage; the became, instead, those of banks and exchequers, not excluding those of the institutions that had been established to safeguard the coinage.