I believe this is the third Christmas that I’ve continued reading the Christmas short stories from Everyman’s Pocket Classics. The stories are written by well-known classic authors and each one so far has been excellent. This is the seventh story in the compilation, written by Willa Cather, and is set on a cold Christmas Eve in the city of Chicago
“A rather handsome, light traveling carriage on springs rolled into the gates of an inn in a certain provincial capital, the kind of carriage that is favoured by bachelors: retired lieutenant colonels, second captains, landowners possessing a hundred souls or so of serfs — in a word, all those who are called the fair-to-middlin’ sort.”
Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol was born in Sorochyntsi, Poltava Province in Tsarist Russia, which would now be part of the Ukraine. His earlier works included short stories such as The Overcoat, The Nose and The Diary of A Madman. His later works, including Dead Souls, satirized the political corruption and laziness of government workers and how they abused their positions in Imperialist Russia.
Good heavens, I almost missed this spin. I was going to change up my Classics Club list as the list I had wasn’t really targeting my top reads but there’s no time to do it now, so I’ll go with the original.
“When the course of civilization takes an unexpected turn — when, instead of the continuous progress which we have come to expect, we find ourselves threatened by evils associated by us with past ages of barbarism — we naturally blame anything but ourselves.”
I suspect that you would call The Road to Serfdom F.A. Hayek’s magnum opus. It was written in 1944 towards the end of the Second World War, when countries had been exposed to various socialist political experiments and the effect they had on the countries that adopted them were very, very evident. But Hayek did not take for granted that people’s common sense would see the dangers. He was well aware of the hazards socialism still posed with its pernicious ideology and promises of a better future where everyone would be equal, the rich would pay their fair share, and all would be secure within the society.
There is no subtler, or surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debase the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which only one man in a million is able to diagnose. ~ John Maynard Keynes, 1883-1946, Economist
We think that the slip of paper that says “One Dollar” (or coin, in Canada) in our wallet is actually a dollar but we are mistaken. The one-ounce silver ingot the author has on his desk is actually a dollar. Why? Well, let’s see where the dollar came from ……
I have no idea what’s going on with these spins. But I keep doing them and if I look back, I think I’ve finished books that I’ve spun, but not necessarily on time. In any case, I’m making my way through my Classics Club list and that’s the point, right?
You have to choose (as a voter) between trusting the natural stability of gold and the honesty and intelligence of members of the government. And with due respect for these gentlemen, I advise you, as long as the capitalist system lasts, to vote for gold. ~ George Bernard Shaw
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Supply and Demand: Who will first reach that clump of grass?
The question, whether one generation of men has the right to bind another, seems never to have been started …. [I believe] no generation can contract debts greater than may be paid during the course of its own existence …. The conclusion then, is, that neither the representatives of a nation, nor the whole nation itself assembled, can validly engage debts beyond what they may pay in their own time. ~ Thomas Jefferson
During the 1970s and early 1980s, many western countries experienced double-digit inflation. Even Japan had double-digit inflation. Double-digit inflation means that each year prices are rising at 10% or more. So, for example, if a coffee cost $1.00, it would cost $1.10 the following year. Inflation this serious and far-reaching had not happened in the U.S. since the country had become a nation. However, we have an example from Roman times of where this type of inflation occurred and we can see the trouble it caused.
There is so much talk about money and inflation and recession in the world lately. These important topics affect our daily lives yet it seems that few people actually know how they work, including myself. So with a vague idea that inflation isn’t directly driven by what we’re being told in the news, I decided to learn more. What Ever Happened To Penny Candy by Richard J. Maybury is a simple yet highly educational book on economics that will assist you in your career, business, investments and money strategy. It will also give you tools so you don’t have to blindly rely on what others tell you. Forewarned is forearmed. I’ll be posting chapter by chapter and the first is: Money: Coins and Paper.
“They were not railway children to begin with.”
And they weren’t. To begin with, Roberta, Peter and Phyllis lived with their parents in London in a nice house with servants and virtually anything they desired. But one day there is a knock on the door and the whole family’s life is turned upside down.