#financial history

[paullovescomics]

Non-fiction books read in the first half of 2024

Hidden Figures, by Margot Lee Shetterly

The Entrepreneurial State, by Mariana Mazzucato

The Myth of Persecution, by Candida Moss

The Scythian Empire, by Christopher I. Beckwith

Sensational, by Kim Todd

Survival of the Friendliest, by Brian Hare and Vanessa Woods

[newhistorybooks]

“It is often said that money is a social construct. But few of us take the time to painstakingly chronicle the political, economic, and social processes by which it is constructed. In Easy Money, Dror Goldberg traces the story of modern legal tender currency back to its 17th century Transatlantic roots and the upstart colony of Massachusetts. It is a story of war, politics, law, religion, and circumstance in which necessity reveals itself as the mother of monetary invention. It is also a story with important lessons for the future of money.”

[empirearchives]

Napoleon & the creation of the tax collection system

Not wanting to impose new taxes on the people, the tax work under Napoleon was focused on reforming tax collection by creating a system which was more efficient, complete and equitable. He also worked to destroy the link which existed between private interests and state service concerning public revenue.

From Le prix de la gloire: Napoléon et l'argent by Pierre Branda. Translated by me, so any mistakes are my own 🙂

The [financial] work of the Consulate mainly concerns the reorganization of tax collection. Until now, this essential element was not administered directly by the Ministry of Finance. The Constituent Assembly had wanted the tax rolls for direct contributions, that is to say the “tax sheets”, to be established by municipal administrations. Their work was complex, since each year they had to draw up a list of taxpayers, determine each person’s share of tax and send them the amount of contribution to be paid. Unmotivated (or even corrupt), the municipalities had taken little care in the execution of their mission, since a large proportion of taxpayers had not yet received their tax assessments for Year VIII, or even from Year VII or year VI. Also, with two or three years of delay in preparing the rolls, it was not surprising that tax revenues were low (nearly 400 million francs were thus left in abeyance). If the mailing of tax matrices left much to be desired, the collection of direct contributions was not much better. The tax collector was not an agent of the administration either: this function was assigned to any person who was willing to collect taxes with the lowest possible commission (otherwise called “least collected”). With such a system, failures were numerous, often due to incompetence, but also due to the prevailing spirit of fraud. However, in their defense, the collectors’ profits were most of the time too low to provide such a service; so to compensate for their losses, they were “forced” to increase the number of small and big cheats. In any case, in such a troubled period, letting private individuals carry out such a delicate mission could only be dangerous for the regularity of public accounts. In short, the mode of operation of taxation that Bonaparte and Gaudin inherited was failing on all sides and threatened to sink the State.

One month after Gaudin’s appointment, on 13 December 1799, the Direction des contributions directes was created with the mission of establishing and sending tax matrices. This administration, dependent on the Ministry of Finance, was made up of a general director, 99 departmental directors and 840 inspectors and controllers. The organization of direct contributions became both centralized and pyramidal, the opposite of the previous system, decentralized and with a confused hierarchy. The work of preparing the rolls, for so long entrusted to local authorities, passed entirely “in the hands of the Minister of Finance” putting the taxpayer in direct contact with the administration. With the tax system now free of obstacles, the beneficial effects of such a measure were soon felt. With ardor, the agents of this new administration carried out considerable work: three series of tax rolls, that is to say more than one hundred thousand tax slips, were established in a single year. It must be said that the Ministry had not skimped on their salaries (6,000 francs per year for a director, 4,000 for an inspector and 1,800 for a controller), which was no doubt a factor in their success.

Reform of tax collection was slower. It wasn’t until 1804 that all tax collectors became civil servants. Under the Consulate, tax collectors were gradually replaced in the departments, then in the main towns, and finally in all communes whose tax rolls exceeded 15,000 francs. By the end of the Consulate, the entire tax administration was entirely dependent on the central government. Subsequently, the administration in charge of indirect taxation (taxes on tobacco, alcohol or salt), created on 25 February 1804 and known as the Régie des droits réunis, was built on the same pyramidal, centralized model. It was the same, later, for customs.

According to Michel Bruguière, historian of public finances, “Napoleon and Gaudin can be considered the builders of French tax administration. They had also developed and codified the essential principles of our tax law, so profoundly at variance with the rules of French law, since the taxpayer has nothing to do with it, while the administration has all the powers.” Having understood the true cause of the “financial plague”, Bonaparte wanted an effective, almost “despotic” instrument to avoid the unfortunate fate of his predecessors. As a good military man, he created a fiscal “army” to provide the regime with the sinews of war. It was also necessary to definitively break the link between private interests and state service in all matters concerning public revenue. The days of the fermiers généraux of the Ancien Régime and the “second-hand” tax collectors of the Directory were well and truly over. Napoleon Bonaparte’s fierce determination to centralize power in this area, as in many others, undoubtedly gave his regime the means to last.

———

French:

Pg. 208

Pg. 209

Pg. 210

[allaboutforexworld]

10 Interesting Books About Bitcoin

Bitcoin, the pioneering cryptocurrency, has sparked a global financial revolution and inspired countless discussions about the future of money. Whether you’re a seasoned investor, a curious newcomer, or someone interested in the technological aspects of Bitcoin, there’s a wealth of literature available to deepen your understanding. Here are ten interesting books about Bitcoin that offer a…

[kc22invesmentsblog]

The South Sea Bubble (1720): Lessons from a Historic Financial Fiasco

Written by Delvin In the annals of financial history, the South Sea Bubble of 1720 stands as a stark reminder of the perils of irrational exuberance and speculative frenzy. Driven by investor mania, the South Sea Company, a British trading company, witnessed its stock price soar to unprecedented heights before plummeting dramatically. This blog post delves into the story of the South Sea Bubble,…

[open-era]

The Dot-Com Bubble: From Rags to Riches...and Back

Learn from the past: The Dot-Com Bubble was a stark reminder of speculative excess and its consequences. Valuable lessons for today's investors and entrepreneurs. #FinancialHistory #LessonsLearned

In the late 1990s, a phenomenon known as the dot-com bubble captivated the world, fueling dreams of untold riches and transforming the stock market into a frenzy of irrational exuberance. As the internet’s rapid growth opened up new opportunities for innovation and entrepreneurship, countless start-ups emerged, adorned with flashy “.com” domain names. Investors, eager to ride the wave of the…

[marzipanandminutiae]

thoughts on "tradwives" as a 19th-century social historian

It's great until it's not.

It's great until he develops an addiction and starts spending all the money on it.

It's great until you realize he's abusive and hid it long enough to get you totally in his power (happened to my great-great-aunt Irene).

It's great until he gets injured and can't work anymore.

It's great until he dies and your options are "learn a marketable skill fast" or "marry the first eligible man you can find."

It's great until he wants child #7 and your body just can't take another pregnancy, but you can't leave or risk desertion because he's your meal ticket.

It's great until he tries to make you run a brothel as a get-rich-quick scheme and deserts you when you refuse, leaving your sisters to desperately fundraise so your house doesn't get foreclosed on (happened to my great-great-aunt Mamie).

It's great until you want to leave but you can't. It's great until you want to do something else with your life but you can't. It's great. Until. It's. Not.

I won't lie to you and say nobody was ever happy that way. Plenty of women have been, and part of feminism is acknowledging that women have the right to choose that sort of life if they want to.

But flinging yourself into it wholeheartedly with no sort of safety net whatsoever, especially in a period where it's EXTREMELY easy for him to leave you- as it should be; no-fault divorce saves lives -is naive at best and dangerous at worst.

Have your own means of support. Keep your own bank account; we fought hard enough to be allowed them. Gods willing, you never need that safety net, but too many women have suffered because they needed it and it wasn't there.

[vyeoh]

Fic where after realizing his feeling charles looks up edwardian courting tactics because he CANNOT chance edwin misunderstanding him after rejecting him the first time. he does his research and after countless books and internet dives, he's reached a solution: he will propose marriage

[sometimeslondon]

A couple more examples of the Clash of the centuries at the Tower of London

[alwaysbewoke]

McCarty was born on March 7, 1908, in Shubuta, Mississippi. She was raised in nearby Hattiesburg by her aunt and grandmother. McCarty, who never married and had no children, lived frugally in a house without air conditioning. She never had a car or learned to drive, so she walked everywhere, including the grocery store that was one mile from her home. When she was 8 years old, McCarty opened a savings account at a bank in Hattiesburg and began depositing the coins she earned from her laundry work. She would eventually open accounts in several local banks. By the time McCarty retired at age 86, her hands crippled by arthritis, she had saved $280,000. She set aside a pension for herself to live on, a donation to her church, and small inheritances for three of her relatives. The remainder—$150,000—she donated to the University of Southern Mississippi, a school that had remained all-white until the 1960s. McCarty stipulated that her gift be used for scholarships for Black students from southern Mississippi who otherwise would not be able to enroll in college due to financial hardship. Business leaders in Hattiesburg matched her bequest and hundreds of additional donations poured in from around the country, bringing the total endowment to nearly half a million dollars. The first beneficiary of McCarty’s largesse was Stephanie Bullock, an 18-year-old honors student from Hattiesburg, who received a $1,000 scholarship. Bullock subsequently visited McCarty regularly and drove her around town on errands. In 1998 the University awarded McCarty an honorary degree. She received an honorary doctorate from Harvard University, and President Bill Clinton awarded her the Presidential Citizens Medal. McCarty died of liver cancer on September 26, 1999, at the age of 91. In 2019 McCarty’s home was moved to Hattiesburg’s Sixth Street Museum District and turned into a museum.

x

[kemetic-dreams]

Anti-literacy laws in many slave states before and during the American Civil War affected slaves, freedmen, and in some cases all people of color. Some laws arose from concerns that literate slaves could forge the documents required to escape to a free state. According to William M. Banks, "Many slaves who learned to write did indeed achieve freedom by this method. The wanted posters for runaways often mentioned whether the escapee could write." Anti-literacy laws also arose from fears of slave insurrection, particularly around the time of abolitionist David Walker's 1829 publication of Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World, which openly advocated rebellion, and Nat Turner's Rebellion of 1831.

The United States is the only country known to have had anti-literacy laws.

Significant anti-African laws include:

1829, Georgia: Prohibited teaching Africans to read, punished by fine and imprisonment

1830, Louisiana, North Carolina: passes law punishing anyone teaching Africans to read with fines, imprisonment or floggings 

1832, Alabama and Virginia: Prohibited Europeans from teaching Africans to read or write, punished by fines and floggings

1833, Georgia: Prohibited Africans from working in reading or writing jobs (via an employment law), and prohibited teaching Africans, punished by fines and whippings (via an anti-literacy law)

1847, Missouri: Prohibited assembling or teaching slaves to read or write

Mississippi state law required a white person to serve up to a year in prison as "penalty for teaching a slave to read."

A 19th-century Virginia law specified: "[E]very assemblage of negroes for the purpose of instruction in reading or writing, or in the night time for any purpose, shall be an unlawful assembly. Any justice may issue his warrant to any office or other person, requiring him to enter any place where such assemblage may be, and seize any negro therein; and he, or any other justice, may order such negro to be punished with stripes."

In North Carolina, African people who disobeyed the law were sentenced to whipping while whites received a fine, jail time, or both.

AME Bishop William Henry Heard remembered from his enslaved childhood in Georgia that any slave caught writing "suffered the penalty of having his forefinger cut from his right hand." Other formerly enslaved people had similar memories of disfigurement and severe punishments for reading and writing.

Arkansas, Kentucky, and Tennessee were the only three slave states that did not enact a legal prohibition on educating slaves.

It is estimated that only 5% to 10% of enslaved African Americans became literate, to some degree, before the American Civil War

[hamletshoeratio]

"A strong queen is just what this country needs!"

The Irish who know the queen in question as the famine queen:

[newhistorybooks]

“Meticulously researched and elegantly structured, Virtuous Bankers not only reveals as never before the inner workings of the eighteenth-century Bank of England, but also brings that key institution evocatively to life. There have been many books written about the Bank: this is one of the very best.”

[pub-lius]

do you know how hamilton felt about the madison-hamilton fallout? just realized everything i know about it is from madison’s perspective

oho boy do i

This has actually been a subject of interest of mine since I read The Three Lives of James Madison by Noah Feldman (great book, highly recommend). In the study of Alexander Hamilton, this is a crucial event that would define his proceeding political actions.

For some background for those who may not know what anon is referencing, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison were colleagues and "friends" (if you could call it that) from their time in the Confederation Congress until Hamilton submitted his financial plan to Congress, which was all in all about a decade. In that time, they lobbied for a convention to revise the Articles of Confederation, worked together in the Constitutional Convention, and wrote The Federalist papers together in defense of strong federal government together. The Federalist was like the manifesto of the Federalist party, which placed Hamilton at the head of that party, and, arguably, James Madison as well, until he switched to the Democratic Republican party.

Hamilton's experience was far different from Madison's, just in general, but especially when it came to close friendships between men. The closest relationship he had before James Madison was with John Laurens, who we know died tragically in 1782. Although we are all aware of my feelings on rat bastard Ron Chernow, I thought that this excerpt of his biography of Hamilton described this point very well.

"[Laurens'] death deprived Hamilton of the political peer, the steadfast colleague, that he was to need in his tempestuous battles to consolidate the union. He would enjoy a brief collaboration with James Madison... But he was more of a solitary crusader without Laurens, lacking an intimate lifelong ally such as Madison and Jefferson found in each other," (Alexander Hamilton, Chernow 172-73)

As Chernow mentioned, James Madison was already closely associated with Thomas Jefferson, who he kept well appraised of the circumstances in America while Jefferson was serving a diplomatic position in France. In my personal opinion, I think it was largely due to this that Madison began to attack Hamilton later on, since as soon as Jefferson arrived back from Paris, Madison suddenly had severe moral oppositions to Hamilton's plan, rather than just rational apprehension.

I also want to touch on Hamilton's perspective in their friendship, along with their fallout, specifically when it comes to The Federalist. Hamilton put such a high value on his work, and he held himself to a very high standard. There are a couple instances of him outsourcing his work to other men he admired, such as his last political stance, that the truth of an accusation can be used in libel cases. He asked several men to help him in writing a larger treatise on the matter than what he was able to make (due to yk the bullet that got put in his diaphragm), but these weren't just his friends. These men were very crucial figures in American law, which shows that, unlike men like Jefferson, he was very selective in who he chose to associate with when it came to his work.

This wasn't any different in 1787. When he chose John Jay and James Madison to assist in writing The Federalist, his reasons for both had nothing to do with their personal relationships. Jay was one of the most successful legal minds of the new country, and James Madison, was not only a Virginian, but was an absolute genius and fucking workhorse. If you like him or not, or if you like the Constitution or not, its undeniable that the Virginia Plan was absolute fucking genius, and Hamilton knew that.

This also shows a great amount of trust in Madison. Hamilton was an incredibly untrusting dude. He kept most of his emotions and personality away from work, and really the only people who knew who he was entirely were close family, one or two family friends included. They were the only people who knew his background, which is directly tied into his work, which was the most important thing to him. Without his work, in his eyes, he would have nothing. So for him to trust Madison with something he and the world viewed as one of his most important contributions to American history, that was incredibly significant.

Also I should mention that Hamilton definitely knew how important The Federalist would be, and this is clear in his introductory essay, which is confirmed that he himself wrote.

One thing that any Hamilton historians will agree on is that he was so set in his ways. If there was a moral or philosophical question before him, he would think about it constantly, consult his books and his peers, and once he decided on his stance, there was little to no chance of changing that. The Federalist are, if not anything else, the basis of Hamilton's political thinking. Hamilton, being the arrogant bitch that he was, assumed that every other genius would be equally steadfast in their beliefs.

But James Madison was different in that regard. He was also very tied in with his state's interest, as well as that of the planter class. Hamilton also had a strong bias towards his state and class, but not with the same attitude as someone who was born into it.

Therefore, when Madison openly opposed his Report on Public Credit with a speech in the House of Representatives, Hamilton viewed it as a deep betrayal of his trust, his work, and his principles. Hamilton saw this as a devastating insult to everything he stood for by someone he thought he could completely rely on. This was the 18th century burn book.

That speech immediately kicked off Hamilton lobbying to oppose Madison's counter-proposal, which he won because, frankly, Madison hadn't been expecting Hamilton to immediately come at him with the full arsenal, but Hamilton didn't half-arsenal anything. It was after that that Hamilton was able to process what had happened. According to one of Hamilton's allies, Manasseh Cutler, Hamilton saw Madison's opposition as "a perfidious desertion of the principles which [Madison] was solemnly pledged to defend." Ouch.

The final break between them was on the subject of the National Bank aspect of Hamilton's plan. This is when Madison redefined himself as a Democratic-Republican with a firm belief in strict construction of the Constitution, giving Hamilton free reign to take out his hurt feelings on him through the art of pussy politics* and this entirely dissolved the friendship that had once been there.

*pussy politics (noun): a form of politics in which grown men act like pussies by only supporting the governmental actions that benefit their families/wealth/land/class/etc. and it is very embarrassing and frustrating to sit through

Hamilton would spend a large part of his career battling Madison, and talking a lot of shit about him, which is what has allowed me to paint this stupid ass picture of two grown men fighting over banks. The personal language that he uses in regards to Madison is very different to the accusatory tone he took with his other enemies, and that in it of itself says a lot, but I hope this was able to shed some light on why Hamilton felt the way he did and what exactly he felt. Again, I love talking about this, so feel free to ask follow up questions!

[emilyelizabethfowl]

no but seriously if any (or worst case scenario, all) of the ASL actually joined the Marines, Garp would be begging them to go and do anything else, even if that meant becoming pirates, within a week flat

[realasslesbian]

This boomer opinion that "my kids deserve no inheritance, I'm going to spend it all on jetskis and cruises, they should just work hard like I did uwu" is so funny to me because this is the same generation who'll constantly berate the childfree about "leaving behind a legacy" and it turns out the legacy these boomers are leaving behind is their children struggling with lifelong poverty during the worst financial times since The Great Depression, something that their own parents went through and subsequently left these boomers an inheritance so as to avoid.