Ready money

“ Naturally, when ready money is not to be had on the market, one draws notes and tries to put them in circulation; one pays tradesmen with written promises in the future, and thus exhausts one's credit. ”

“ This resource, however, is limited: on the whole, people cannot, while the quantity of money remains the same, lay out much more of it in some things, without laying out less in others. But what they cannot do by ready money, they can do by an extension of credit. When people go into the market and purchase with money which they hope to receive hereafter, they are drawing upon an unlimited, not a limited fund. Speculation, thus supported, may be going on in any number of commodities, without disturbing the regular course of business in others. ”

“ He must have his losses covered; and system of that sort tells very heavily upon the public, because the merchant must charge a large margin of profit. Now I think the ready-money system would be more favourable for both parties,-because, suppose I were a merchant and dealing in ready money, I might turn over my capital three times a year, and I might have a profit every time, or three several profits ”

“ But purchasing with ready money really gives you more money to purchase with; you can afford to have a greater quantity and variety of enjoyments. In the town, it will tend to hasten your pace along the streets, for the temptation at the windows is answered in a moment by clapping your hand upon your pocket; and the question; 'Do I really want it?' is sure to recur immediately; because the touch of the money will put the thought into your mind. ”

“ Thus, if we would have our possessions rise to the giving point, we have only to stop the leakage—check expenses. This hint may be of service to the poor, and not inappropriate to the rich. Many expend their ready money as rapidly as they receive it; making their calculations to do so; and thus, during the interval between one return of capital and another, plead their inability to meet the frequent calls of benevolence. ”

“ And nothing can more surely aggravate the panic than to forbid the Bank of England to lend that money. Just when money is most scarce you happen to have an unusually large fund of this particular species of money, and you should lend it as fast as you can at such moments, for it is ready lending which cures panics, and non-lending or niggardly lending which aggravates them. ”

“ If you are owing money to the bank, have your plans arranged so that you can realize on your assets quickly.
The good general always plans his campaign to be ready for attack that may come through unexpected sources. The good financier is always ready for an attack on his finances. ”

“ The fallacy, upon which it is founded, lies in not distinguishing between an advance of capital to merchants, and an addition of supply of currency to the general mass of circulating medium. If the advance of capital only is considered, as made to those who are ready to employ it in judicious and productive undertakings, it is evident there need be no other limit to the total amount of advances than what the means of the lender, and his prudence in the selection of borrowers, may impose. ”

“ Forty odd years ago, at the close of the second great war, China was a veritable Eldorado for Europeans, where all turned to gold beneath the lightest touch of alien hands. Fortunes were made with startling rapidity, and money came in so freely that the standard of living amongst foreign merchants and their employés reached to such preposterous heights of luxuriousness, that when the inevitable reaction set in, want, and even ruin, supervened where plenty should have been found. ”

“ It is not an uncommon event for a beekeeper to clean up a sum of money for his crop which will more than equal the value of his bees and all the appliances he uses. Other years may be total failures, but year in and year out no industry pays larger returns on the labor and money expended. ”

“ 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 shop and her belongings were sold to provide money for the way, and the poor woman, forsaking all and carrying the child strapped to her shoulders, turned with a bitter heart from her former prosperous home to face the world on her well-nigh hopeless quest. ”

“ Now, the industry is founded on a sound scientific basis and bids fair to grow at a lively rate in the years that are to come. At present, the amount of money invested in bees and bee appliances is not less than one hundred million dollars. ”

“ What a glorious time for enterprising contractors, what a seductive season for Congressmen to help a friend for a little share in the profits, what a carnival of fraud, what a flying about of stray millions! For, mind you, money will be no object; on the contrary, it must be spent, and the more spent the better, for the greenbacks must be got out, in obedience to the mandate, "to make and keep the volume of the currency equal to the wants of trade." ”

“ It scarcely occurs to any of them that he needs a knowledge as to gold; yet every bargain into which he enters depends for one of its two terms on gold. I cannot but believe that the diffusion among business men of the fuller knowledge of the equation of exchange, of the relation of money to deposits, of credit cycles and of interest, which the future is sure to bring, will pay rich returns in mitigating the evils of crises and depressions which now take them so often unawares. ”

“ Under the operation of the present system, by which prices are constantly falling and money is constantly increasing in value, the surplus earnings of the people are flowing in a steady stream into the vaults of money-lending institutions, and into the pockets of creditors. ”

“ We may each one of us counsel our active and enterprising countrymen to be constantly on their guard, to liquidate debts contracted in a paper currency, and by conducting business as nearly as possible on a system of cash payments or short credits to hold themselves prepared to return to the standard of gold and silver. To aid our fellow-citizens in the prudent management of their monetary affairs, the duty devolves on us to diminish by law the amount of paper money now in circulation. ”

“ Money has been poured out like water by the Russians in constructing the Railway and in building Dalny, and it is very doubtful if this [24] gigantic enterprise will ever be made to pay. It is said that Dalny, which is identical with Talienwan, can never thrive unless Newchwang be closed to foreign trade. The harbour has a depth of 28 feet and is being dredged. The Railway Company’s line of superb steamers carrying mails, passengers and a little cargo between Dalny and Shanghai, is being run at a heavy loss. ”

“ A widow, or a trustee, or other long-time investor, would prefer to buy bonds which guaranteed a regular yearly purchasing power over subsistence, rather than those which merely promised a given sum of money of uncertain value. ”

“ The usual course of development is this: among an advancing people, the number of money transactions increases at first; later, when education has become general, and the people have grown habituated to the giving and receiving of credit, the circulation of money is accelerated, and an increase of the substitutes for money effected. ”

“ Is he bound to stop payment at the end of that partial experiment, and treat the problem as one therein solved? No. He may double his business and losses, and still keep right, in a familiar sense of that nice phrase. If he should trade to the extent of 2000l., and lose 1000l. upon it, he will be able to pay off the first credits out of the net proceeds of his second series of operations; and all the people who get their money—noticing, also, the activity of his business—will sound his praises as “a rising merchant,” “an upright man,” “a punctual tradesman.” ”

“ In our complex modern life, saving and investing take place in many ways. For example, money saved and deposited in a savings-bank finds its way out in a loan on mortgage to help build a house, a factory, or a store; or it pays for bonds, and the proceeds are put into a railroad or some public work, as a school-house, dock, street, etc. In any and all these cases the money deposited in the savings-bank goes ultimately to employ labor and pay wages. So money deposited in any other bank or trust company is loaned out to merchants, manufacturers, and others, and similarly goes to pay wages. ”

“ When a man has earned, out of his hard work, a hundred dollars more than he needs for current expenses, he reasons thus: ‘I can not go into business with a hundred dollars; I can not embark in trade; but, as I work, I want my money to work.’ And so he puts his small gains where they will earn something. He lends his money to a wealthier neighbor, or puts it in the savings-bank. ”

“ Wages and prices, rising together, call perpetually for more money, or at least more tokens and symbols, more paper credit in the form of checks and deposits, with a value that is no longer based on the rock-bottom of redemption into hard coin, but that floats upon the mere atmosphere of expectation. ”

“ The conclusion was inevitable, that there have been no acknowledged or even known, fundamental principles of finance operating in any of the many systems of the many nations, and that the so-called money of the world is not now, nor ever was, money, in the scientific sense of that term. ”

“ They say that the active manager of industry, the business man or entrepreneur, in the first place is always more or less in debt; in the second place, is always buying labor, or materials, or goods, with the intention of selling a product at a later date at an advance in price. He habitually measures his gains in terms of money, and not in terms of the commodities he can buy with the money. In times when prices are falling, he finds it harder to meet his debts, and to dispose of his goods in hand at a money advance over what they cost him. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A legitimate, useful, profitable use of money is to accommodate strangers who come with money that will not circulate in the country. The exchanger gives them current money; they pay a consideration for the convenience; and out of this comes the legitimate profit to be divided between lender and borrower. The rule which applies to one fruitful use of money will apply to a thousand, and, between wise lending and honest borrowing, swamp and forest become field and garden, and mountains wave with corn. ”

“ What is wanted and what is necessary to stop a panic is to diffuse the impression that, though money may be dear, still money is to be had. If people could be really convinced that they could have money if they wait a day or two, and that utter ruin is not coming, most likely they would cease to run in such a mad way for money. Either shut the Bank at once, and say it will not lend more than it commonly lends, or lend freely, boldly, and so that the public may feel you mean to go on lending. ”

“ Ring up the revenues and make the dear people pay it in added purchase price!
The people have a few dollars stored away in savings accounts or stockings, and if they want a thing they will broach their hoardings. They have the money. We want it.
One of the surest and easiest ways to get it is to make them pay more for what they consider essentials to their subsistence, to the comforts and the pleasures of their lives. They have been buying some splendid monthly periodicals at twelve and a half cents to fifteen cents. If they want them, why not make ’em pay twenty or twenty-five cents? ”

“ This is, as you can read from the packet I'm sure you got from Treasury -- it's complicated -- probably why it has that fancy name -- but the goal is quite simple, and that is to provide for small businesses and for consumers that need access to that capital in order to create jobs, in order to borrow money to buy a car, send a child to college, access to that capital, because many of those markets right now are seized up or frozen. ”

“ To the honor of the American people be it said, a very large majority of them have been acting upon these principles for the last five years, and they are all the better for it. It is true, a good deal of wild talk has been indulged in about all sorts of methods to manufacture money out of nothing, and to distribute it so as to keep everybody's pocket full of cash, thereby putting all at ease. ”

“ With the assistance of borrowed money people enter into business, and carry on trades, from which by their abilities, diligence, or good fortune, so much profit arises that they soon acquire more than is requisite for their daily support; and under these circumstances the lender may undoubtedly receive for the beneficial use of his money a certain remuneration, especially as he himself might have employed it to advantage; and as by lending it he runs the risk of losing either the whole or a part of his capital, or at least of not receiving it again so soon as he may have occasion for it. ”

“ And further, I apprehend that their confidence of being helped out in the event of ill-fortune, will mainly depend on their opinion of their own individual credit, with, perhaps, some consideration, not of the quantity of the currency, but of the general state of the loan market. They are aware that, in case of a commercial crisis, they shall have difficulty in obtaining advances. ”