commerce

"Children of my day, even in s, had very little in the way of toys. Toy shops were almost unknown; modern mechanical playthings, which furnish their own activity, had hardly come into existence. One might, of course, buy oneself a hobby-horse, but generally speaking an individually selected knotty stick from the woods, upon which imagination might work freely, was dearer to the heart. We were not observers, as children today seem to be from birth, of their own accord; and not utilizers, as they are brought up to be; we were creators. Our knotty stick, for all working purposes, in appearance and as far as actual horsepower went, came nearer to and eight-hoofed , or to himself, than any magnificently decorated horse from a smart store."

"I don't remember ever going to a toy store as a child. Although specialty toy stores existed in major cities like New York and Chicago as early as the 1860s, in the towns and suburbs where I lived no store had the primary purpose of selling toys to kids. ... I remember s that sold electric train sets and model-building kits, s where you could buy bikes and baseballs, and s and s that had toy departments, but these stores sold merchandise primarily to adults, not to children. Something radical happened in the intervening thirty-pls years in the marketing and selling of toys. Giant toy stores now dot the landscape, offering huge selections and low prices on toys made all over the world."

"In a way the establishment in 1760 of what, as , was to become the world's most famous toyshop, symbolised the new world that opened up for British toy makers from the middle of the eighteenth century. It was only one of a new toy outlets established in London in the years after 1750. By 1822 the capital possessed no fewer than seventy-one retail toy shops and thirteen wholesalers. ... Such was the proliferation by 1800 that some degree of specialisation emerged, with at least two concentrating solely on ."

"As existing markets expand and REIT-like structures are introduced in more countries, we expect to see the overall market grow by some ten percent per annum over the next five years, taking the market to $1 trillion by 2010."

"This transaction is truly a win-win. It helps maintain affordability in the assets, and, at the same time, the proceeds generated from the transaction strengthen the REIT's position to further increase housing supply across the country as we invest in our existing portfolio and new purpose-built rental developments."

"planet-incinerating Ponzi grifters"

"The crypto bros are spending tens of millions in Washington to make sure this industry is regulated as lightly as possible, ... There are no lobbyists or PACs dedicated to preventing tax evasion, sanctions evasion, and the other forms of illicit finance that cryptocurrency enables,"

"Cryptocurrencies have given rise to an entire new criminal industry, comprising unregulated offshore exchanges, paid propagandists, and an army of scammers looking to fleece retail investors. Yet, despite the overwhelming evidence of rampant fraud and abuse, financial regulators and law-enforcement agencies remain asleep at the wheel."

"Because imagine the combination of social media, the algorithms that drive social media, the amassing of even larger sums of money through the control of certain cryptocurrency chains -- we're looking at not only states such as China or Russia or others manipulating technology of all kinds to their advantage. We're looking at non-state actors, either in concert with states or on their own, destabilizing countries, destabilizing the dollar as the reserve currency."

"[Cryptocurrency is] an asset, a commodity, and a store of value."

"Crypto boosters claimed they were in the vanguard of a revolution that would democratize finance and lead to generational wealth for those who believed. The roar of the rising prices drowned out the skeptics. Incomprehensible jargon became inescapable. Blockchain. DeFi. Web3. The metaverse. What these terms meant was beside the point. Newspapers, TV, and social media bombarded potential investors with stories of regular people who invested in them and got rich quick. None of this led to any sort of mass movement to actually use crypto in the real world. Nobody tossed their credit cards, closed their bank accounts, and abandoned the dollar or the euro in favor of, say, Cardano coins. But the hucksters, zealots, opportunists, and outright scammers who created the boom got unbelievably, unimaginably, impossibly rich."

"Bankman-Fried told me that as many as five of his colleagues at FTX were billionaires. And that was just a single crypto company. Many unprofitable start-ups with questionably legal business plans were valued in the billions. Changpeng Zhao, who founded another crypto exchange called Binance, made a fortune estimated at $96 billion. The numbers got so large that even the most delusional crypto fantasies started to sound reasonable. It seemed like nothing could stop crypto’s manic rise. Until, of course, the house of cards collapsed. Starting in the summer of 2022, many companies in crypto were revealed to be frauds. The bubble popped. About $2 trillion of market value was erased. Billionaires went bankrupt. Millions of ordinary people lost their savings. The financial authorities who’d allowed scammers to run rampant finally decided it was time to lay down the law. Bankman-Fried and many of his associates were arrested. Crypto didn’t disappear entirely, but the fever had broken."

"In terms of cryptocurrencies, generally, I can say with almost certainty that they will come to a bad ending."

"From the day I started digging into the crypto world, I had seen nothing but red flags. Why were all these companies based in infamous offshore regulatory havens? What was up with all these random virtual coins that were supposedly worth tens of billions of dollars? Was that, just maybe, a precarious foundation for the future of finance? Were they all scams? But by the time I visited Bankman-Fried’s island hideaway, the logic of the financial world had broken down. Hardly anyone knew what cryptocurrencies were for. Even supposed experts couldn’t explain them. It was unclear why many of the coins would be worth anything at all. But from 2020 to early 2022, the prices of Bitcoin and hundreds of other lesser coins—with ridiculous names like Dogecoin, Solana, Polkadot, and Smooth Love Potion—were going up and up. While I was in the Bahamas, people traded more than $500 billion worth of them, and the market value of all coins combined topped $2 trillion."

"Having alternative currencies is great, right, because, historically, government's had a monopoly on currency. … At the end of the day, why should only politicians—either directly or indirectly—control the currency? We can reduce transaction cost, provide an alternative, and—look, I don't know whether it'll be Bitcoin or not—but I think the concept of digital currencies is here to stay, and the fact that a politician would write to try to ban them in their infancy is just the wrong way to go about it. Let the market determine whether there's any value there or not. … If people are saying, "Look, we gotta ban Bitcoin because it's somewhat anonymous and anonymous transactions can occur," or "because it's possible for criminals to use it," all of those arguments can be used to say, "Just ban dollars." … The government doesn't need to "treat" it at all… The government policy should be completely agnostic about what unit of exchange is used."

"This is the story of the greatest financial mania the world has ever seen. It started as an investigation of a coin called Tether that served as a kind of bank for the industry. But it morphed into a two-year journey that would stretch from Manhattan to Miami, to Switzerland, Italy, the Bahamas, El Salvador, and the Philippines. It is based on hundreds of interviews with people at every level of crypto, from gamblers to coders to promoters to billionaires. I visited their yachts and parties at the pinnacle of the frenzy and their hideouts as the authorities were closing in. From the beginning, I thought that crypto was pretty dumb. And it turned out to be even dumber than I imagined. Never before has so much wealth been generated with such flimsy schemes. But what shocked me was not the vapidity of the crypto bros. It was how their heedlessness had devastating consequences for people across the world. By the end, I’d find myself in Cambodia, investigating how crypto fueled a vast human-trafficking scheme run by Chinese gangsters."

"Meanwhile, China has been slowly rolling out a digital version of its yuan, also inspired by bitcoin and crypto, in an attempt to both control the domestic flow of money among its citizens and compete with the U.S. dollar for global trade."

"The worst thing you can do is lay the wet blanket of government over this emerging area that frankly a lot of people are going to with or without government. Maybe that's the warning sign. This is going to happen. People are going to continue to move in this direction because cryptocurrency and everything that comes with it is a response to too much government."

"I've always been deeply opposed to crypto, bitcoin, etc. You pointed out the only true use case for it is criminals, drug traffickers, money laundering, tax avoidance. .... If I was the government, I’d close it down."

"There is nothing more sacred in the auditor-client literature than the notion of auditor independence, dating from the emergence of a professionalized service in the 19th century. According to the self-congratulatory atmosphere among the regulators of the world's securities markets, the problem of dubious accounting would be fully solved by strictly limiting the kinds of services that auditors can provide to clients. Yet with each of the surviving Big Four burdened by the weight of a litigation list of cases large enough to be fatal, this unexamined burden has become yet another millstone. To be both blunt and unconventional — it is time to stop making nice, and to discard this 165-year-old piece of conventional wisdom. The concept of auditor independence does not serve the interests of investors."

"It is the duty of the auditor to see that the authority to charge is not made a pretext for extravagance or favouritism."

"One of the biggest problems facing regulatory compliance is individuals running testing applications without understanding all the other simultaneous objectives still required. Running software will never make a person a competent auditor."

"Clearly the attitude of disrespect that many executives have today for accurate reporting is a business disgrace. And auditors, as we have already suggested, have done little on the positive side. Though auditors should regard the investing public as their client, they tend to kowtow instead to the managers who choose them and dole out their pay. (“Whose bread I eat, his song I sing.”)"

"... consider a firm wishing to issue securities. When firms issue securities, they hire a bank as an underwriter. The bank underwrites securities by guaranteeing a fixed amount of proceeds that the issuing firm receives when bonds are sold to investors. In addition to assuming the market risk (and potentially the risk of reputation loss as well), the underwriter also assists the issuer with documentation of the prospectus and with marketing and selling of the bond. The issuer pays a fee to the underwriter for its service which is fully paid at the time the issuance."

"The insurance underwriting cycle has become a touchstone in the debate over medical malpractice reform. On the one hand, trial lawyers and others who seek to preserve existing medical malpractice liability rules commonly report that the high-priced, "hard market" phase of the liability insurance underwriting cycle, and not real developments in malpractice litigation, fueled the medical malpractice insurance crises of the mid-1970s, mid-1980s, and early 2000s. ... On the other hand, medical associations and others who seek further restrictive tort reforms claim that those crises represented the long overdue consequence of escalating tort costs that the competiitve, "soft market" phase of the insurance underwriting cycle had allowed people to wish away."

"I don't see any reason why there should be some huge influx of people, immediately subsequent to the offering, that didn't hear about it in the offering period. ... I think most of the demand will be retail, not so much institutional. Most new offerings are done in a manner, where the idea is to have far more demand than supply and therefore cause people to maybe order stock they didn't even want — just on the idea that this restricted supply will cause a big jump the first day ... if you've seen Yahoo or a number of other offerings. Personally, I don't like that sort of distribution arrangement, because you'll find that 30 to 40 percent of the issue will perhaps trade the first day ... and perhaps at a lot higher price. I think there's something a little wrong with that kind of an offering. ... favored customers get the chance to flip the stock and really are getting paid an exorbitant underwriting fee themselves — even though they are called purchasers — because they sell it the first day."

"It seems to have been about the middle of the last century when some enterprising individuals, whose names have not been handed down to posterity, realizing the disadvantages of personal suretyship, conceived the idea of forming a corporation for the purpose of going into the business of becoming surety on bonds and charging a fee for the service; for in the year 1865 the Legislature of the State of New York, by Chapter 328 of the Acts of that year, authorized the formation of corporations to guarantee the fidelity of persons holding places of public or private trust. No doubt some people were at that time desirous of forming a corporation for that purpose; and it may be that such a company was actually formed. But the first American company that ever actually transacted the business of suretyship in this country was the Fidelity and Casualty Company of New York, which was incorporated in 1876 and began business in 1879."

"There are other downsides of overly relying on supermarket chains, which have more than a 95% grocery market share in the UK and France. Their products use a narrow range of ingredients based on crops and varieties that grow the fastest or are the most efficient to produce in large quantities. Industrial agriculture causes environmental degradation and relies on monocultures which are susceptible to disease. And the whole system tends to support low wages and temporary jobs. Almost a third of agriculture and fishing workers and 38% of food retail and wholesale workers in the UK are paid below the living wage. In the developing world, half of agricultural workers live in poverty – on less than $3.10 (£2.55) per day. In contrast, local systems with fewer steps between the grower and the consumer often support organic and sustainable farms, which are committed to paying fair wages and are more community-driven and diverse, says Kneafsey. They also offer transparency – something that extended supply chains are not usually able to provide. Yet, only 2% of fresh food in the EU is sold directly between farmers and consumers. In the US, food sold directly to consumers by farmers accounted for $3bn (£2.36) in 2015 while grocery store sales, including supermarkets, accounted for $613bn (£483) in the same year."

"I'm all lost in the supermarket I can no longer shop happily I came in here for that special offer A guaranteed personality"

"“Supermarkets are very efficient at providing a lot of food for a lot of people but they have their vulnerabilities,” says Moya Kneafsey, professor in food and local development at Coventry University. In Britain, for example, only 17% of fruit and half of vegetables are grown locally – the rest comes from cheap international trade, as supermarkets promote year-round availability. “Covid-19 begs the question – will the imports we rely on be dependable in the future? Even if supply is OK at the moment, will it be affected by the long-term impact of the virus in producer countries and in the transport sector?”"

"The average storage capacity of a supermarket is only one day’s worth of fresh products, says Jan Willem van der Schans, senior researcher of new business models at Wageningen University and Research. This supply chain needs a buffer – extra provision for when international trade or logistics are disrupted. “Every country has its comparative advantage – we grow bananas in tropical zones and we grow kale in temperate zones, but locally-produced food could be that buffer in the future.”"

"The German and English and French serf, the Italian and Russian serf, were, on emancipation, given definite rights in the land. Only the American Negro slave was emancipated without such rights and in the end this spelled for him the continuation of slavery."

"These individual actions are really trans-actions instead of either individual behavior or the "exchange" of commodities. It is this shift from commodities and individuals to transactions and working rules of collective action that marks the transition from the classical and hedonic schools to the institutional schools of economic thinking. The shift is a change in the ultimate unit of economic investigation. The classic and hedonic economists, with their communistic and anarchistic offshoots, founded their theories on the relation of man to nature, but institutionalism is a relation of man to man. The smallest unit of the classic economists was a commodity produced by labor. The smallest unit of the hedonic economists was the same or similar commodity enjoyed by ultimate consumers. One was the objective side, the other the subjective side, of the same relation between the individual and the forces of nature. The outcome, in either case, was the materialistic metaphor of an automatic equilibrium, analogous to the waves of the ocean, but personified as "seeking their level." But the smallest unit of the institutional economists is a unit of activity -- a transaction, with its participants. Transactions intervene between the labor of the classic economists and the pleasures of the hedonic economists,simply because it is society that controls access to the forces of nature, and transactions are, not the "exchange of commodities," but the alienation and acquisition, between individuals, of the rights of property and liberty created by society, which must therefore be negotiated between the parties concerned before labor can produce, or consumers can consume, or commodities be physically exchanged."

"A large part of what we think of as economic activity is designed to accomplish what high transaction costs would otherwise prevent or to reduce transaction costs so that individuals can negotiate freely and we can take advantage of that diffused knowledge of which Friedrich Hayek has told us."

"Markets are institutions that exist to facilitate exchange, that is, they exist in order to reduce the cost of carrying out exchange transactions. In an economic theory which assumes that transaction costs are nonexistent. markets have no function to perform, and it seems perfectly reasonable to develop the theory of exchange by an elaborate analysis of individuals exchanging nuts for apples on the edge of the forest or some similar fanciful example. This analysis certainly shows why there is a gain from trade, but it fails to deal with the factors which determine how much trade there is or what goods are traded."

"The superior gratification derived from the use and contemplation of costly and supposedly beautiful products is, commonly, in great measure a gratification of our sense of costliness masquerading under the name of beauty."

"Microeconomics, including the study of individual choice and of group choice in market and nonmarket processes, has generally been considered a field science as distinct from an experimental science. Hence microeconomics has sometimes been classified as "non-experimental" and closer methodologically to meteorology and astronomy than to physics and experimental psychology... But the question of using experimental or nonexperimental techniques is largely a matter of cost, and generally the cost of conducting the most ambitious and informative experiments in astronomy, meteorology, and economics varies from prohibitive down to considerable. The cost of experimenting with different solar system planetary arrangements, different atmospheric conditions, and different national unemployment rates, each under suitable controls, must be regarded as prohibitive."

"It is always sound business to take any obtainable net gain, at any cost and at any risk to the rest of the community."

"Quality means meeting customers' (agreed) requirements, formal and informal, at lowest cost, first time every time."

"There are in the Exhibition some beautiful examples of such amongst the productions of other countries as well as of our own. They are made by the united labour of many women. The cost of a piece of lace will consist of:"

"Low cost relative to competitors becomes the theme running through the entire strategy, though quality, service and other areas cannot be ignored."

"In general terms, transactions costs are the costs that arise when individuals exchange ownership rights to economic assets and enforce their exclusive rights. A clear definition of transactions costs does not exist, but neither are the costs of production in the neoclassical model well defined."

"It costs so much to be a full human being that there are very few who have the enlightenment, or the courage, to pay the price...One has to accept pain as a condition of existence. One has to court doubt and darkness as the cost of knowing."

"Markets are institutions that exist to facilitate exchange, that is, they exist in order to reduce the cost of carrying out exchange transactions. In an economic theory which assumes that transaction costs are nonexistent. markets have no function to perform, and it seems perfectly reasonable to develop the theory of exchange by an elaborate analysis of individuals exchanging nuts for apples on the edge of the forest or some similar fanciful example. This analysis certainly shows why there is a gain from trade, but it fails to deal with the factors which determine how much trade there is or what goods are traded."

"True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost."

"Following the lead given by new institutional economics, we shall take the transaction as our unit of analysis. For our purposes, a transaction can be thought of as any act of social exchange that depends on information flows for its accomplishment. Transactions can be as simple and brief as the purchase of a packet of cigarettes, or as complex as and extended as those which bind a Zen master to his disciples. Like institutional economists, we are interested in the relationship that can be established between different transactional characteristics and the phenomenon of institutionalization. Our use of the term transaction, however, will extend beyond that of institutional economics where the focus has tended to be primarily on transaction costs and efficiency considerations. These, to be sure, are relevant. But, as we shall see, they are not the whole story."

"Shopping, true feminine felicity!"

"Ah, human felicity! to have at once so many wants suggested and supplied! Wretched Grecian daughters! miserable Roman matrons! to whom shopping was an unknown pleasure, what did, what could employ them?"

"Towards this fine honor of a trade converged all the finest, all the most noble sentiments—dignity, pride. Never ask anything of anyone, they used to say. … In those days a workman did not know what it was to solicit. It is the bourgeoisie who, turning the workmen into bourgeois, have taught them to solicit."

"The music of the soul is also the music of salesmanship. Exchange value, not truth value counts. On it centers the rationality of the status quo, and all alien rationality is bent to It."