As a partial offset to the drag that our growing capital base exerts upon returns, we have a very important advantage now that we lacked 24 years ago. Then, all our capital was tied up in a textile business with…
As a partial offset to the drag that our growing capital base exerts upon returns, we have a very important advantage now that we lacked 24 years ago. Then, all our capital was tied up in a textile business with…
Adam Smith:The Wealth of Nations, Book II, Chapter II, Paragraph 717
Adam Smith《The Wealth of Nations》· Book II, Chapter II · Investing
But though the whole expense of maintaining the fixed capital is thus necessarily excluded from the neat revenue of the society, it is not the same case with that of maintaining the circulating capital. Of the four parts of which this latter capital is composed, money, provisions, materials, and finished work, the three last, it has already been observed, are regularly withdrawn from it, and placed either in the fixed capital of the society, or in their stock reserved for immediate consumption. Whatever portion of those consumable goods is not employed in maintaining the former, goes all to the latter, and makes a part of the neat revenue of the society. The maintenance of those three parts of the circulating capital, therefore, withdraws no portion of the annual produce from the neat revenue of the society, besides what is necessary for maintaining the fixed capital.
What counts, however, is intrinsic value - the figure indicating what all of our constituent businesses are rationally worth. With perfect foresight, this number can be calculated by taking all future cash flows of a…
As a partial offset to the drag that our growing capital base exerts upon returns, we have a very important advantage now that we lacked 24 years ago. Then, all our capital was tied up in a textile business with…
Benjamin Franklin:The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, Excerpt 14
Benjamin Franklin《The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin》· The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin · Leadership
Ralph was inclin'd to pursue the study of poetry, not doubting but he might become eminent in it, and make his fortune by it, alleging that the best poets must, when they first began to write, make as many faults as he did. Osborne dissuaded him, assur'd him he had no genius for poetry, and advis'd him to think of nothing beyond the business he was bred to; that, in the mercantile way, tho' he had no stock, he might, by his diligence and punctuality, recommend himself to employment as a factor, and in time acquire wherewith to trade on his own account. I approv'd the amusing one's self with poetry now and then, so far as to improve one's language, but no farther.
As a partial offset to the drag that our growing capital base exerts upon returns, we have a very important advantage now that we lacked 24 years ago. Then, all our capital was tied up in a textile business with…