Assets

“ These liabilities are in turn supported by the assets of the business men. If we continue to follow up the ultimate basis of the bank's liabilities we shall find it in the visible tangible wealth of the world. ”

“ When property rights fall into definite shape and the price system comes in, and more particularly when the practice of investment arises and business enterprise comes into vogue, such differential advantages take on something of the character of intangible assets. ”

“ Some types of undertakings are more subject to the effects of wasting assets than others. Concerns dealing in investments, insurance of all kinds, brokerage and commission, manufacturers’ agents, banking and financial houses, professional firms, and the like, only a small portion of whose capital is tied up in fixed assets, are comparatively unaffected by the charge for depreciation. ”

“ Exchanges within the Asset and Liability Groups.—All changes in individual assets and liabilities, however, are not always the result of business or economic forces. There may be an even exchange of one asset for another asset, as when delivery equipment is purchased for cash. ”

“ It makes no difference whether it involves a quantity of goods entrusted in natura to a travelling merchant, the proceeds of which may consist in other goods in natura acquired by trade, or whether it involves a manufacturing enterprise, the assets of which consist of buildings, machinery, cash, raw materials, partly and wholly manufactured goods, which are balanced against liabilities. ”

“ Capital assets are fixed assets—the plant and those assets in which the capital must first be invested before revenue can accrue. When the group of capital liabilities is shown it usually includes both the long-term obligations incurred for raising capital as well as the capital stock. This unfortunately does not recognize a distinct section for the net worth items. ”

“ Said capital must be unimpaired, that is, the assets of such company must equal or exceed all liabilities for losses reported, expenses, taxes and other outstanding liabilities, including the legal reserves as provided in sections 43-3-12 * * *.' Rev. ”

“ Presumptively all the property of the corporation or company is held and used for the purposes of its business, and the value of its capital stock and bonds is the value of only that property so held and used. ”

“ I call those first-rate which are composed of treasures one possesses under one's hand, such as mines, lands, and funded property, in such states as France, Austria, and England, provided these treasures and property form a total of about a hundred millions; I call those second-rate fortunes investments in manufacturing enterprises, joint-stock companies, viceroyalties, and principalities, not drawing more than one million five hundred thousand francs, the whole forming a capital of about fifty millions ”

“ But the harlots have another kind of capital which you, my blind practical friend, don’t call ‘Property’; but which I, having the use of my eyes as well as of my hands, do. They have beauty of body;—many of them, also, wit of mind. And on these two articles of property, you observe, my friend, being much more their own, and much more valuable things, if they knew it, than china and timepieces—on these they [318] do make an annual income, and turn them over, as you call it, several times perhaps in the year. ”

“ Deeds, mortgages, bank balances, money in hand, corporation stocks and the like, belong in no Economic category at all below the surface of customary titles to property. They are nothing but evidences of legal title to property of any kind—Natural Resources, Artificial Objects, Man himself when and where ownership of Man by Man is conventional. ”

“ The capital is not an ideal, fictitious, arbitrary sum of meney set down in the articles of association, but, in the theory and practical operation of the system, is composed of substantial property, and which gives value and solidity to the stock of the institution. ”

“ The manufacturers who had private property—that is, property and money apart from the capital employed in their business—were in a different position, and could either retire from business, and make the best of what they had left, or keep on manufacturing in the hope that they should retrieve their losses, and that times would mend. ”

“ The immediate supply of loanable funds is indeed a matter of great importance, but before any economic interpretation of that condition be made it is essential to examine the sources of those funds.
Underlying everything is wealth, which in the economic sense is physical property, either in the form of land, buildings, railways, machinery, etc., and stocks of commodities. A relatively small element of wealth is the physical property that we know as gold. ”

“ The argument, in effect, makes any increase of value of property income, emerging as such and taxable at the moment of realization by sale or some act of separation, as by dividend declared or by distribution, as in the instant case.
To sustain the argument these definition are presented:
'1. Capital is anything, material or otherwise, capable of ownership, viewed in its static condition at a moment of time, or the rights of ownership therein. 2. Income is the service or return rendered by capital during a period of time. ”

“ The author says:
"The physical property is that which enables the corporation to do business. Without physical property it could not produce the commodity which it sells. The amount of money actually invested in acquiring that physical property represents the measure of capital on which it is morally entitled to earn interest and profit; and, in the stage of promoting and financing the enterprise, all hope of earnings is based on the amount of money required to construct the property." ”

“ The Inventory of Movable Property or Securities—The capital represented by movable properties, stocks, bonds, shares, etc., is the only kind of capital which lends itself to statistics—The great groups of movable properties: National Funds, Railway Shares, Insurance Companies, Foreign Banks, Mortgage Companies, and agricultural and industrial undertakings. ”

“ We live under the dominion of capital, that is to say, of property other than land, or rather, perhaps, of an accumulated, and still accumulating, interest or dividend-bearing essence of all property (which is labour stored up in some material) , 107reconvertible at will, for productive purposes, into land, labour, or anything men have of exchangeable value. This mighty essence of all property is within the reach of us all, in proportion to our respective opportunities and abilities, and the efforts to gain possession of it we choose to make. ”

“ The property is considered as an operating property in the sense that it is reproduced complete, ready to operate; and any expense, or any element of value needed to complete it, is an element of the physical value, but any value arising as a result of surplus earning power, any good-will value, going-concern value, or value due to established business, strategic location, favorable traffic arrangements, etc., should be considered as intangible values. ”

“ Gold, silver, precious stones, and every other article of that kind, may be, on many occasions, and in many places and circumstances, of no value or use to the owner; and they are to be considered as wealth only in such places where they will be taken in exchange for, and command, such things as the possessor stands in need of, or has an inclination for; all which are the produce of the labour of man. The possession, therefore, of those things which can obtain and command the labour of man, is to be considered as wealth. ”

“ It is not less difficult to pronounce how far the effect of any given quantity of money, as capital, or in other words, as a medium for circulating the industry and property of a nation, may be increased by the very circumstance of the additional motion which is given to it by new objects of employment. ”

“ A title to its site is not a title to Wealth, but to Land, which, however, may be exchanged for Wealth. Such general titles as Money obligations declare, are titles to anything upon the market when demanded, including Wealth that may have been produced years after the total consumption of everything for which the Money title was originally exchanged. One’s “savings” in the form of Money or credits are not Wealth produced but titles to Wealth not yet delivered to him, and perhaps yet to be produced. ”

“ The capital which has paid for these costly places of business and elegant residences, and is invested in these gigantic enterprises, has been created out of the immense material wealth of the State—not borrowed on a factitious credit. Its merchants do not make princely fortunes in a day, but what they acquire they keep. ”

“ Under the head of Capital will be considered, at a fair rate of valuation, Stock of every description, all Implements of Husbandry and other articles, which may be applicable to the purposes of productive Industry, or which may be necessary for the establishment of the Settler on the land where he is to be located. ”

“ It is a valid asset—a tangible security for one's money—from a business point of view. And Americans or foreigners like myself and my niece, for instance, are securing substantial property and equal return, when we bring large fortunes in our marriage settlements to this country. ”

“ Each of them, and a large number of other like organizations—insurance companies, savings banks, and trusts—hold as investments of capital stock, earnings, and profits, and as trustees for minors, widows, individuals, copartnerships, and corporations too numerous to mention, resident in the United States and elsewhere, large amounts of real estate, situated in the various States of the Federal Union, and amounting in aggregate value to hundreds of millions of dollars. ”

“ Embraced in the rule I have presented in the beginning, never to tax anything that would be of value to your State, that could and would run away, or that could and would come to you, are two or three kinds of movable property which I regard as most important, and which I will mention—to wit, money, merchandise, and capital to be used in manufacturing. ”

“ In a word, what the company says is income shall be income, and what it says is capital shall be capital.' 'In most if not in all cases, the inquiry as to the time when the profits were earned by the company is an immaterial one as between the tenant for life and remainder-man. ”

“ The income of the company was derived from such franchise, and an authority to mortgage the income was an authority to mortgage the subject from which it is derived. A grant of the profit of land passes the land itself, for what is the land but the profits thereof? ”

“ They came to understand that property is a [114] physical actuality, the result of some form of labor; that capital is that portion of the results of production which can be reserved and made available for new and further production; that money is an instrumentality for facilitating the distribution and use of capital and the interchange of products and services; that production alone buys production ”

“ Property in persons or things has been a characteristic feature of all civilizations. Property owners, receiving rents, interest, dividends, in proportion to the amount of property which they own are not called upon to make equivalent return in exchange for their property--based income. ”

“ Property, and the pursuit of property, may be found to be a remedy for much that we regret to see in them, and it may be proved to be possible by moral and intellectual training—their wages being already in very many cases sufficient for this purpose—to qualify a fair proportion of them for attaining to the possession of some little capital in money for investments of one kind or another. ”

“ A vast proportion, far exceeding ninety per cent of all the transfers, bargains, sales of goods, stock, and real estate, are liquidated and settled by the use of checks, bills of exchange and book accounts, without recourse to any actual money whatever. ”

“ If I approach, for instance, the works of one of our great Trusts, purchase it with public money, bestow, even as a gift, the shares thereof to its workmen, can I count upon any tradition of property in their midst which will prevent their squandering the new wealth? ”

“ If, then, a certain number of men are the sole dealers in articles of primary necessity, it follows that the public treasury, in passing and repassing through their hands, deposits and accumulates real property there. ”

“ Thank God, sir, I have long possessed property far more than sufficient for all my desires. But, as those gentlemen know, it is one thing in this country to have property, and another to be able to withdraw a large sum of money from a business in active operation ”

“ It is easily seen that the acquisition of fortunes by tradesmen is in reality nothing but a participation of landed property, which is the basis, the source, and substance of all wealth, and into it all must be resolved. ”

“ The Fixed Capital is that portion of the wealth of the country which is represented by real estate, buildings and all permanent improvements, such as railroads, mill property, irrigation enterprises, etc. ”

“ It is equally true, that the money-proprietor must view, with the same indifference, his property giving life to this or that branch of industry or agriculture, provided, that in the hour of need or fancy, he finds at hand, on the most equitable terms, the greatest quantity and variety of the best products of agriculture and industry, which the interest of his money, or the amount of the salaries he enjoys, gives him a right to expect. ”

“ Gentlemen, if all these things are done, can be done and ought to be done by the National Government, can anyone doubt the soundness of this proposition: That it is interstate commerce to ship by mail, or freight, any kind of property?
What is property? "Property is a thing or things subject to ownership; anything that may be exclusively possessed and enjoyed; chattels, lands, possessions." Gold, gold certificates, silver, silver certificates, United States notes, checks, drafts, promissory notes are all certainly within this definition. ”