Cash

“ This is a scene of large business, and would, in proportion, employ a large cash, and it is the easiest thing in the world to make the bank the paymaster of all the large customs, and yet the merchant have so honourable a possession of his goods, as may be neither any diminution to his reputation or any hindrance to their sale. ”

“ If you had no cash to spare, that did not matter. Your credit was good, and your note, as an acknowledgment of the purchase, and a formulary of trade [Pg 31] all that was wanted. To give a note of ten thousand dollars, to-day, for a piece of property that there was a fair chance of selling, in a fortnight, for twenty thousand, was, certainly, a temptation. Of course you had to sell, if you did sell, as you bought, for paper, not for cash. But that was nothing. Every body was getting rich, and, therefore, everybody was safe. ”

“ When you went into these places you would find the spirit of jollity rampaging on the walls: “In God we Trust, All Others Cash.” “Don’t complain about our coffee; some day you may be old and weak yourself.” “We have an arrangement with our bank; the bank does not sell soup, and we do not cash checks.” ”

“ They forget that in England not one shilling of paper money of any description is received but of choice,—that the whole has had its origin in cash actually deposited,—and that it is convertible at pleasure, in an instant, and without the smallest loss, into cash again. ”

“ Every Saturday morning a man comes to my bank to cash a cheque for a hundred and fifty pounds. (How he gets through all that money in a week I have never had the courage to ask him.) Every Saturday morning I come to my bank to cash a cheque for—well, whatever it happens to be, you know.
The trouble is that we nearly always coincide; only the other man always seems to coincide first. ”

“ Do you not mean that it is the value you pay for the goods you give in exchange, plus your profit upon these goods?-I say the price we could afford to pay in cash is just the price we do pay cash, which is paid not to the knitter, but to the party in the south that we buy our goods from. Our goods cost us cash: that cash, thousands of pounds every year, would go into the hands of the knitters here; but in that case we would just give them that money, less the profit we have on the goods. ”

“ In that event the check and the promissory note and the bill of exchange, operating as orders to the book-keepers of banks and clearinghouses, would effect transfers of debits and credits the world over so that all Trade would be barter systematized—plain barter freed from the obstructions incident to barter in primitive Economic circumstances. Except for the use of “pocket cash,” Money pieces of every kind, whether metal or paper, would be like children’s toys to grown-ups. ”

“ The answer was in the affirmative. “That an undue scarcity of cash now prevails is a truth too obvious for me to attempt to prove. Hence whoever contributes to increase the quantity of cash does not only himself but likewise the community an essential benefit.” ”

“ Money in this shape, one would almost think, is of a different value from money in any other: the exchange it bears against cash in business, or cash in the prospect of him who knows he can win it, is prodigious. At the very lowest computation, a thousand pounds in the purse of a young lady is worth ten thousand in the stock of a man of trade. ”

“ In a money economy those who have cash use it to pay their bills or settle their accounts.
Those who buy on credit pay interest to money lenders. The money lenders, later the bankers, make their profits by helping others to spend beyond their own means. ”

“ Do you think he might get his meal cheaper by going to another shop and paying for it in cash?-He might, or he might take better care of his money, and manage to spin it out more.
7935. I suppose a merchant like yourself, if you were giving long credit in that way, would require little more profit on your goods?-Of course.
7936. But you can afford to sell cheaper because you are paid in cash?-Yes; and I think it would be better for the public in general if all payments were made in cash.
7937. Do you employ some men in your curing business?-No; I just do it with my own family. ”

“ Cash-payment never was, or could except for a few years be, the union-bond of man to man. Cash never yet paid one man fully his deserts to another; nor could it, nor can it, now or henceforth to the end of the world. ”

“ He will most require this aid in the making of leases, deeds, agreements, and other legal instruments.
The balance of cash, which may often be considerable, ought not be allowed to lie idle in the house. All money is part of the vital blood of society, and should be kept in circulation. ”

“ Money is never buried under ground in a country, where it acts so essential a part; it cannot then be its fate in England: all the money in the possession of England stands in full evidence; it consists,—1st, in objects of private luxury, the quantity of which is by no means extravagant;—2dly, in the mass of cash in circulation. ”

“ Samuel Pounce.—But let's see my cash— 'tis very true, the old saying, a man meets with more friendship from strangers than his own relations—Let's see my cash: 1, 2, 3, 4, there on that side; 1, 2, 3, 4, on that side; 'tis a foolish thing to put all one's money in one pocket; 'tis like a man's whole estate in one county—These five in my fob—I'll keep these in my hand, lest I should have a present occasion.—But this town's full of pickpockets ”

“ In the opposite event, he deposits cash. In this way he is constantly converting one of the two media of exchange into the other. A private individual usually feeds his purse from his bank account; a retail commercial firm usually feeds its bank account from its till. ”

“ Why, very little in actual cash. We pay everything by check—tradesmen and servants; and even if we happen not to have a charge account where we make a purchase, they know who we are and are always willing to charge it to us. ”

“ But what they get for it is generally settled for in goods at the end of the year?-No, not generally. If a boy runs an account himself, it is settled in goods; but if it is an account with his father, it is settled in cash. ”

“ Cash money, indeed, or the other things mentioned, having once been put in a safe place, are not taken away except when, by mandate of the king, they are sent to him to be distributed for his necessary uses. But there are many things in the repository vaults of the treasury which are carried around, and they are shut up and guarded by the treasurer and the chamberlains, as has been more fully shown above: such are the seal of the king concerning which thou dost ask, the doomsday book, the so-called exactory roll, which some name the writ of farms. ”

“ Seasonal calls on an inelastic money supply for actual cash to move crops and pay agricultural wages may make a real difference in the value of money; scarcity of money of the right denominations for retail trade may give an agio to such money, [550] but the money and credit used by specula [Pg 523] tors, bill brokers, dealers in foreign exchange, investment bankers, etc., increases, rather than decreases, the funds available for ordinary industry and commerce. ”

“ And in these transactions with fishermen, from whatever place they come, is the payment generally made in goods or in money?-Part in both. They get what goods they want, and their balance is paid in cash. I cannot say that more is paid in goods or in cash. ”

“ A payment of $25,000 in money to the First National Bank will be all the cash required to pay checks representing $175,000. The economy in the use of money is still better illustrated by the following statement of an actual transaction. ”

“ I submit to the inhabitants of this flourishing town, whether this is a mere supposition, or a moderate state of facts; and whether this reasoning will not, in a greater or less degree, apply to every commercial town in the United States.
But is not money scarce? With respect to the quantity of goods in store, money is very scarce: With respect to the produce of the country, there is money enough. Almost every article of home produce will command cash; but the merchant cannot get cash for his goods. Money is the representativ of goods bought and sold. ”

“ On the fourteenth and the fifteenth day of the first month all men and women born under the Jen or “Man” star make certain straw images dressed in clothes and containing a number of the copper cash which form the currency of the country. Strictly speaking, there should be as many cash in the image as the person whom it represents has lived years ”

“ And further, their proportion of cash can be increased as rapidly as the Bank of England is prepared to make advances, which it can and does to an extent which again is only limited by its own prudence. ”

“ The economical or saving advantages of paper money are appropriated by the issuers to themselves, in the form of a non-interest bearing loan, which they make to those owners of money or to those who are entitled to a money-claim and to whom the paper money is acceptable instead of cash money.913 A diminution for instance of the number of bank notes or of state paper [pg 445] money does not diminish the available capital of the people. ”

“ It can only consist of receipts and expenditures, and so it is said to have two sides, a debtor and a creditor side.
All accounts are kept in money. If goods be bought, they are estimated by the money paid for them. If a debtor give a bill of exchange, being a promise to pay a certain sum at a certain time, it is put down as worth that sum of money. All the tools, furniture, horses, &c. used in the business are rated at their value in money. All the actual coin, bank-notes, &c., which are in or come in, being the only money in the books which really is money, is called cash. ”

“ The people in his vicinity, in turn, purchase his goods on similar conditions, with this difference, that they often substitute for cash agricultural and other productions, which the merchant, at length, turns into ready money. ”

“ If he sells anything, his profits are of the most moderate description—perhaps three cash on each pen, and two cash on each cake of ink. With a view to this class of demands, a small fund is sometimes kept on hand by the larger scholars, who compel the younger ones to contribute to it. ”

“ It enables the banks to sell their credit and make a gain, to use a part of their money deposits to buy mercantile paper with, and so get a bank interest on them; it enables dealers in commodities [302] to realize in cash minus the discount the sum of what they have sold on time; and by means of accommodation notes or bills, which only differ from the others in that there is no actual debt between the parties, business men may swell the volume of their business temporarily, and non-business people may borrow small sums for convenience or emergencies. ”

“ But whether, if we had a national bank, and our present cash (small as it is) were put into the most convenient shape, men should hear any public complaints for want of money?
10. Qu. Whether all circulation be not alike a circulation of credit, whatsoever medium (metal or paper) is employed, and whether gold be any more than credit for so much power?
11. Qu. Whether the wealth of the richest nations in Christendom doth not consist in paper vastly more than in gold and silver? ”

“ 'T is pleasant purchasing our fellow-creatures; And all are to be sold, if you consider Their passions, and are dext'rous; some by features Are bought up, others by a warlike leader, Some by a place—as tend their years or natures; The most by ready cash—but all have prices, From crowns to kicks, according to their vices. ”

“ Cash-payment is not the sole nexus of man with man,—how far from it! ”

“ We place gold, and all such substances, on the side of documents, as far as they operate by signature;—on the side of store as far as they operate by value. Then the currency represents the quantity of debt in the country, and the store the quantity of its possession. The ownership of all the property is divided between the holders of currency and holders of store, and whatever the claiming value of the currency is at any moment, that value is to be deducted from the riches of the store-holders. ”

“ Speaking on the same theme, paper money, Governor Johnston said: "Every man of property - every man of considerable transactions, whether a merchant, planter, mechanic, or of any other condition - must have felt the baneful influence of that currency." ”

“ Money travels rapidly from hand to hand, from one pocketbook to another, from bank to bank, to borrower or drawer, in constant circulation.
"Has any one of your economists calculated how many times an active one-dollar multiplies itself in a year from the time it is first issued from the Treasury? How much does it earn in interest, compound interest, commissions, bonuses, dividends, and profit gain from constantly being shifted from person to person, bank to bank, and loan to loan? ”

“ The substitute for all kinds of bank notes as the money for the people should be a purely people’s money—a national currency whose basis of value would be the accumulated wealth of the country, and also its capacity for regularly increasing such wealth. Is there any reliance to be placed in a currency issued by an individual or a number of individuals through an incorporated bank, based upon his or their wealth, which is at all times liable to pass into the hands of other individuals? ”

“ The Sources of Currency Supply.—It is, then, clear that the larger part of the circulating medium of society is not money; that not all of the money that there is is bullion money; and that not even all of the bullion money need be ultimate money—redemption money of the highest rank. The sources of currency in society are various—some of it bullion, with a cost of production limit upon its supply, some of it government paper, substantially free of cost, some of it banking credit with certain peculiar and appropriate costs attending its issue. ”