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Front Page Titles (by Subject) II: NOTES ON WESTERN'S 'SECOND ADDRESS TO THE LANDOWNERS', 1822 - The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, Vol. 5 Speeches and Evidence
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II: NOTES ON WESTERN'S 'SECOND ADDRESS TO THE LANDOWNERS', 1822 - David Ricardo, The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, Vol. 5 Speeches and Evidence [1819]Edition used:The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, ed. Piero Sraffa with the Collaboration of M.H. Dobb (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2005). Vol. 5 Speeches and Evidence 1815-1823.
Part of: The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, 11 vols (Sraffa ed.)About Liberty Fund:Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals. Copyright information:First published by Cambridge University Press in 1951. Copyright 1951, 1952, 1955, 1973 by the Royal Economic Society. This edition of The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo is published by Liberty Fund, Inc., under license from the Royal Economic Society. Fair use statement:This material is put online to further the educational goals of Liberty Fund, Inc. Unless otherwise stated in the Copyright Information section above, this material may be used freely for educational and academic purposes. It may not be used in any way for profit.
The question of the Usury Laws was first raised in the House of Commons, after the end of the war, by Brougham in a speech of 1 February 1816.1 The law then in force was an Act of Queen Anne (12 Anne Stat. 2. c. 16) which limited the rate of interest to five per cent. Following Brougham's suggestion, on 22 May 1816 Serjeant Onslow, M.P. for Guildford, moved to bring in a bill for their repeal; this bill, which was later withdrawn, was the first of a series of unsuccessful attempts to obtain their repeal. Onslow's motion was introduced again in May 1817, when it was postponed till the following year. On 21 April 1818, again on Onslow's motion, a Committee was appointed 'to consider the effects of the Laws which regulate or restrain the Interest of Money'.2 The Chairman of the Committee was Onslow himself and among the members were the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Lord Castlereagh, Robinson, Wallace, Huskisson, Sir John Newport, Sir James Mackintosh, Baring, Brougham, Sir Samuel Romilly; Sir Henry Parnell was added to the Committee on 28 April. 3. That the present period, when the market rate of interest is below the legal rate, affords an opportunity peculiarly proper for the repeal of the said laws.1 No action was taken till 10 Feb. 1819 when Onslow again introduced a Bill to repeal the Usury Laws; but on 9 June it was postponed once more. It was revived on 12 April 1821, when it was the occasion of a debate in which Ricardo took part;2 after being deferred several times the bill was dropped. A similar bill was introduced by Onslow in 1823, when Ricardo again spoke in support;3 it was however once more abandoned. Onslow renewed his attempts in 1824 and 1826 with no better success. Ricardo's Evidence is here reprinted from the 'Report from the Select Committee on the Usury Laws', in Parliamentary Papers, 1818, vol. vi.4 Numbers have been prefixed to the questions, and questions and answers printed in separate paragraphs. The Suspension of Cash Payments by the Bank of England, which had been effected by the Order in Council of 26 February 1797, and confirmed by the Bank Restriction Act of the same year (37 Geo. III c. 45), was continued by an Act of 1803 (44 Geo. IIIc. 1), 'until Six Months after the Ratification of a Definitive Treaty of Peace'. After the Peace of Paris however the Resumption of Cash Payments was postponed by successive Acts,1 the latest of which, in 1818, had fixed the date for Resumption as 5 July 1819. Early in the Session of 1819 the Chancellor of the Exchequer intimated in the House of Commons that he would bring forward a measure for continuing the Restriction Act for a short period; but, soon after, he announced that in consequence of a communication from the Directors of the Bank (who preferred to 'submit to the Consequences of a Parliamentary Inquiry' rather than consent to a temporary and inadequate measure)2 he proposed to move for a Committee of inquiry.3 On 2 February 1819, on the motion of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, it was agreed that a Committee of Secrecy consisting of twenty-one members should be appointed 'to consider of the State of the Bank of England, with reference to the Expediency of the Resumption of Cash Payments at the period fixed by law, and into such other matters as are connected therewith; and to report to the House such information relative thereto, as may be disclosed without injury to the Public interests, with their Observations'. On 3 February the members were chosen by ballot as follows: Lord Castlereagh, the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Vansittart), Tierney, Canning, Wellesley Pole, Lamb, Robinson, Grenfell, Huskisson, Abercromby, Bankes, Sir James Mackintosh, Peel, Sir John Nicholl, Littleton, Wilson, Stuart Wortley, Manning, Frankland Lewis, Ashurst, Sir John Newport.1 Peel was Chairman. On 4 February the Lords appointed a Secret Committee, with the same terms of reference as the Commons'. The members were: Earl of Harrowby (Lord President), Duke of Wellington, Marquess of Lansdowne, Earl Graham, Earl Bathurst, Earl of Liverpool, Earl of St. Germains, Viscount Gordon, Viscount Granville, Lord King, Lord Grenville, Lord Redesdale, Lord Lauderdale.2 The enquiries of both Committees soon became centred round the plan of bullion payments, which had been outlined by Ricardo in the Appendix (1811) to his High Price of Bullion and developed in his Proposals for an Economical and Secure Currency (1816). Ricardo's plan hd been intended as a permanent system of currency; but the Committees at first considered it only as a temporary device to facilitate the resumption of cash payments. And although in the later stages of the enquiry the plan was discussed as a permanent system, it was eventually as a temporary measure that it was recommended by the Committee and embodied in Peel's Act. Nevertheless, even after the Act had been passed, Ricardo and his friends retained the hope that the plan might still be adopted permanently.3 Also the scheme, which was adopted, of reducing the price of gold according to a fixed scale until the mint price was reached was an idea of Ricardo; he had suggested it in 1811 in a letter to Tierney4 (now a member of the Commons' Committee), but not in his published writings. Some account of the proceedings of the Committees in their early stages is given in his Diary by J. L. Mallet,1 who was in close touch with some of the principal witnesses, particularly William Haldimand2 and Alexander Baring,3 as well as with some of the members. In the entry for 13 February 1819, he writes that he 'dined at the Marcets with Abercrombie, Sharpe, Ricardo, Mr Geo. Philips, the Rev. Sidney Smith and his wife, Mr and Miss Boddington. In the evening Mr Blake, Sir Edward Coddrington, Dr Wollaston, and other People came in'. The conversation first turned on Parliamentary Reform: 'The examination of William Haldimand (Mrs Marcet's Brother) before the Lords Committee, for two days successively,1 and during five hours in each day—and the effect produced by his evidence and the information he had given the Committee, was a subject of general remark and congratulation.... It was on 12 February, during the examination of Haldimand before the Lords' Committee, that the plan of bullion payments was first mentioned. He was asked: 'Does the Witness think, that gradual Reduction [in the Amount of Paper Circulation] would be secured by compelling the Bank of England to sell Bullion at the price of 82s. during the first three Months; 81s. during the next three Months and so on in Succession, reducing it in Fifteen Months to the Mint Price?'1 Haldimand asked for time to consider the question and when recalled on 15 February he said: 'I have consulted two sensible Men, whom I consider to understand the Subject; and I do think, in Concurrence with them, the Plan well calculated to secure to the Public a gradual and certain Restoration of the ancient Value of the Currency.'2 The first reference before the Commons' Committee to the plan was in a question put to William Ward, a Director of the Bank, on 23 February: 'What would, in your opinion, be the effect of requiring the bank of England to sell gold and silver bullion, in quantities not less than the value of £100 sterling, to holders of their notes, at the present market price, and to lower the price at a given rate weekly, until it fell to the mint price, provision being at the same time made that the bank should, in each week, buy bullion at a fraction less than the selling price of each week?' Ward objected that such a plan would not save the Bank from a run 'occasioned by panic or by politics'.1 'Bank notes will be required to be made a legal tender so long as, and no longer than the bank gives 25 ounces of gold for 100l. in bank notes.'1 The following day, 3 March, Alexander Baring stated before the Lords' Committee that he had 'a very favourable Opinion of the Plan of Currency suggested by Mr. Ricardo, as combining the two Desiderata of an extensive Paper Circulation, with Security against its Depreciation.'2 Meanwhile Ricardo had been in touch with members of the Committees and was expecting to be examined. On 28 February he had written to Trower: 'The inquiry into the state of our currency, and exchanges, is proceeding in both houses very satisfactorily. I have had many conversations with several of the Committees of both Houses—with Lord Grenville, Marquis of Lansdown, Lord King, Mr. Huskisson, Mr. F. Lewis, Mr. Grenfell and others. All have a very perfect knowledge of the subject, and all agree that the progress of the public in comprehending the question has been very great. The Bank Directors themselves have improved, and they are far behind every other person. I confidently rely on measures being taken to place our currency in a satisfactory state. I am told that I shall be examined.'3 On 4 March he gave evidence before the Commons' Committee and outlined his plan. It is curious that in his evidence, both to the Commons' and to the Lords' Committees (below, p. 379, Q. 21 and p. 422, Q. 21) Ricardo recommended that the Bank should have the option of paying their notes either in specie or bullion; whilst in the subsequent debate in the House of Commons he opposed Ellice's amendment which gave to the Bank just such an option (above, p. 11). Perhaps Ricardo at first took it for granted that, Bullion payments being more advantageous to the Bank, the latter would not normally exercise the option of paying in specie; and later, when the reluctance of the Bank Directors to operate the plan became apparent, he thought it necessary to make Bullion payments obligatory.1 Thereafter most of the witnesses before the Commons' Committee were asked for their opinion on the plan of bullion payments. N. M. Rothschild, on 8 March, to the question whether he was acquainted with 'the plan proposed by Mr. Ricardo for the regulation of the payments at the bank', replied: 'I cannot recommend it, because, in case any news comes from abroad that there is the smallest chance of a war, every one will come at once and take out gold bars; a man may fetch a hundred thousand pounds worth of gold bars out of the bank in five minutes; but if you pay in cash, the bank will find out this, and they must count the cash; and in the course of a short period the government will hear of this, and the bank may be protected.'2 He added that there would be many other difficulties in the plan; in particular, there was the danger of silver bars cased over with gold being passed for gold bars. 'There has been another modification of that plan suggested, which would have this effect, that the bank should immediately or at the expiration of three months commence the payment of its notes in cash, but that they should pay in coin at the market price of gold, and that there should be a gradual reduction of the price of the gold which they should pay, until the market price of gold was reduced to the mint price; do you conceive the adoption of that plan would facilitate the resumption of cash payments?— I have paid very little attention to that, and am not able to give an answer; as to the other, I read the work, and it seemed to me to suggest an ingenious plan to counteract some of the objections which have occurred to the resumption of cash payments.'1 On 11 and 12 March Alexander Baring was examined on 'Mr. Ricardo's plan'.2 He said that 'The plan in question is, in fact, no other than that of the bank of Hamburgh, only substituting a currency of paper in lieu of a transfer of book debt; and the bank of Hamburgh has always been found, from long experience, the best institution for preserving the standard of value; the payments of the bank of Hamburgh are solely in silver bullion. 'You have probably heard that another plan has been suggested for the resumption of cash payments, with reference to the present actual price of gold, and varying the amount at which the issues should be made from time to time, in proportion as the price of gold shall come nearer to the mint price; setting aside the question of good faith, which is involved in the first step of such a plan, do you think in other respects that it is practicable and advisable? —I should think not; I do not think the bank could be placed in a state of cash payments much earlier, by making a small difference in the price at which they would begin to pay, than by abiding by the old standard; there might be some facility, but not sufficient to justify so great a novelty.'1 On 17 March John Smith, a London banker and a member of the House, questioned on 'Mr Ricardo's suggestion', agreed that it would be advantageous to country banks. Asked for his opinion of 'the merits of that plan generally' he answered that he felt 'favourably disposed towards it'.2 Two more witnesses were examined by the Commons' Committee on the plan. Vincent Stuckey, a country banker, on 22 March, agreed that 'the plan for the resumption of cash payments, commonly called Mr. Ricardo's' would 'afford a facility both to country bankers and to the bank of England'. Asked further 'What are the inconveniences which you consider would arise from this change in the mode of paying the notes of the bank of England?', he replied 'I am not aware of any inconvenience which can arise; I think it would be attended with very considerable convenience to pay the larger sums in bullion: it appears to me to be a very great improvement on a well-regulated paper currency; and it has always struck me, that at the resumption of cash payments by the bank, the above would be by far the best plan I ever heard of: I think it would do away a great part of that which many dread, a great and general demand for guineas; and after a year or two, seeing how the plan answered, the circulation of coin might be introduced, if found necessary.'3 Thomas Smith, an accountant,1 asked on 24 March 'Have you heard and considered of a plan, which is generally known by the name of Mr. Ricardo's plan, for the resumption of cash payments?' replied 'I wrote a reply to it a few weeks after it was published'.2 To the question 'Do you think the plan of Mr. Ricardo preferable to the one for the resumption of cash payments, in the sense in which cash payments are ordinarily used?' he replied 'I conceive Mr. Ricardo's plan to be perfectly illegal, and to be impossible to be put in practice without risking the destruction of the bank, and the ruin of the country'. He then explained his own views on a standard of value and criticised at length Ricardo's plan.3 Baring replied: 'the Plan which I consider as by far the most perfect, and to which I know no Objection of any Sort, and which I am not sure that I should not prefer even to the old State of Currency, if that State could be easily returned to, is the Plan alluded to in the Question.'1 Richard Page,2 a general merchant, asked on 17 March 'Are you acquainted with Mr. Ricardo's plan?' answered 'I have read it' and added that under this plan 'you have got one sort of Currency for every rich Man, and another sort of Currency for a poor Man ... you give the rich Man the best, and you give the poor Man the worst.'3 Thomas Tooke was examined on 22 March. In reply to a question on the restoration of the value of Bank of England paper he said: 'I have heard of no Measure better adapted, than one which has been suggested, of obliging the Bank by an Act of the Legislature to sell Gold Bullion at certain stated Prices progressively downwards, till it shall have reached the Mint Price; because I conceive, that there would be very great Danger of any Measure short of this failing of its Effect, as no Words merely conveying the Promise of a Resumption of Payments in Specie can satisfy the Public that it will actually take place at the Period fixed'.4 On being asked whether he thought it possible to effect the restoration by stages so as to reach the mint price by 5 July 1820, he expressed the hope that this might be effected in a shorter period and stressed the disadvantages attending a long interval: 'These Disadvantages are the Suspence and more or less Uncertainty in undertaking all commercial Operations, which may be influenced in their Results by the State of the Currency while they are in Progress.'5 Asked further: 'Have you considered whether, after the Value of Bank Paper had been brought back to the Mint Standard, it would be more expedient that the Bank should thenceforth pay in Coin, on the same Footing as before the Restriction, or that their Payments should continue to be made not in Coin but in Bullion, at the Mint Standard?' he delivered in answer a written paper: 'The Plan of a Circulation of Paper, convertible into Gold Bullion only at the Mint Price, is admirable for its Ingenuity and Simplicity, and there can be no Doubt of its Convenience and Cheapness. It is particularly well calculated to serve as an intermediate Measure for limiting and regulating the Paper Circulation, till Arrangements can be made for establishing the whole Currency on a permanent Footing. But if proposed in itself as a permanent System, I cannot but consider it as objectionable. A Circulation so saturated with Paper would be liable to Abuse, and to a Suspension of the Check of partial Convertibility, on lighter Grounds than if the Currency consisted of Coin and of strictly convertible Paper. And, taken in a general point of view, it must be admitted, that a Basis of so frail a Material, resting so exclusively on Credit and Confidence, is exposed to the Danger of frequent Derangement, and in some conceivable Cases to total Destruction. But, above all, is the Objection arising from the extended Inducement to Forgery. And independent of these Objections to an exclusive Paper Currency, it strikes me that many Contingencies and Exigencies might arise, wherein an abundant Stock of the precious Metals might be of essential Advantage. Upon the whole, therefore, in as far as I might be permitted to give an Opinion, it would be in favour of a Return to Payments in Coin.'1 The rest of Tooke's paper discussed the question of a seignorage on the gold coin. He agreed with the remark of Ricardo, in the Principles of Political Economy,2 that with a seignorage of five per cent the currency might be depreciated to that extent before coin were demanded and he supported the remedy proposed by Ricardo that Bank notes should be made payable in bullion, though not in coin, at the mint price. He suggested, as an improvement, that the gold bars should be issued by the Mint, instead of the Bank, 'because, independently of other Advantages, the high Prerogative of the Crown, as the Source from whence every Thing like metallic Money should emanate, would be preserved, as in fact the Bar Gold thus stamped, and thereby acquiring additional Value, would be the simplest and cheapest Form of metallic Money.'1 Meanwhile the necessary permission from the House of Commons enabling Ricardo, as a member of the House, to appear before the Lords' Committee had been asked by the House of Lords on 17 March and granted by the Commons on 19 March.2 Before concluding their hearings the Lords' Committee recalled the Bank Directors to ascertain their views on the plan, which had come under discussion since their first appearance. On 31 March Jeremiah Harman, a former Governor, said: 'The Plan suggested would be a great Change in our ancient Monetary System, without an adequate Object, as it strikes me; and no one can foresee all the Consequences it might lead to.'3 He also objected to the adoption for a period of a scale of gradually reduced prices on the ground that it 'would be a virtual Re-opening at £3. 17s. 10½d.' Moreover 'it would oblige the Bank to go into the Bullion Market at a very great Disadvantage, and subject it to be the Sport of Bullion Dealers and Exchange Jobbers.'4 Samuel Thornton, also a former Governor, recalled on 2 April, expressed himself in favour of the plan of bullion payments on a graduated scale as a temporary measure: it would facilitate the ultimate resumption of cash payments, and it would allow a considerable saving of the precious metals. He suggested January 1820 as the earliest period at which the Bank could commence bullion payments at the market price, and twelve to eighteen months from that date before payments could be made at the mint price. He thought that it would be 'a necessary Part of the Plan to pay on a graduated Scale' to relieve the Bank from the liability to pay in cash their notes dated prior to 1817.5 The Governor, George Dorrien, heard again on 5 April, agreed that the plan of bullion payments would be a security to the Bank and would be a check on any sudden run upon it, and approved the principle of a graduated scale; he thought that bullion payments could not be begun before a year and a half and that a further twelve months would be required to bring down the price to the Mint standard.1 A bill to this effect was immediately brought in by Peel; it passed through all its stages in the House of Commons on the same day (5 April),2 and in the House of Lords on the following day, when it received the Royal Assent. By this time Ricardo knew that his plan would be recommended in the final reports of the Committees. In a letter to McCulloch of 7 April, referring to the latter's review of Economical and Secure Currency in the Edinburgh Review for December 1818, he wrote: 'You have I am sure been the means of affording the most useful instruction, to many members of the Committees of both houses, and as for myself, I am under great obligations to you, for my plan might have slumbered, or have been forgotten, if you had not rescued it from oblivion, and said more in its favour than I had been able to do. You will be pleased to know that an investigation into the probable results of adopting that plan, or some modification of it, has formed one of the leading subjects of examination, by both Committees, and from the speech of Mr. Peel, as well as from those of Mr. Canning, and the Marquis of Lansdown, I have very little doubt but that it will be recommended, as a temporary, if not a permanent measure, in both reports.'3 'The Committee of the Lords was unanimous with the exception of Lord Lauderdale who stuck to his own theory: the Committee of the Commons unanimous with the exception of Tierney and Mr Manning. Tierney from factious motives, and ignorance of the question: Manning as a Bank Director of the old school. There were no doubt many Members of the Lords Committee and some Members of the Commons Committee who went into the measure with their eyes shut and great terror and reluctance; but the weight of talent and influence carried them on. All the first men were agreed, including Lord Wellington.—Lord Castlereagh and Vansittart lagged behind: Ned Cooke, Lord Castlereagh's right hand, was at the very time writing the most alarming pamphlets:1 Lord Harrowby and Lord Bathurst were dragged into the measure: but Lord Liverpool, Lords Grenville, Wellington and Lansdowne, Peel and Canning being agreed, no paper administration could be formed, and the reluctant multitude were obliged to yield. It will ever resound to the credit of Peel to have taken so honourable and decided a line: he went into the Committee, as he said himself,2 without any opinions; and if he had any bias it was against the proposed measure. He had always voted with Vansittart; and his Father Sir Robert Peel entertained so decided an opinion, that he proposed the resolutions and the Petition in the London Tavern,3 and presented the Petition to the House, warning them of their danger, and lamenting the error of his son... 'That on or before the 1st October 1820, the Bank shall pay their Notes in Gold of standard fineness, at the rate of £.3. 19s. 6d.; and on or before the 1st May 1821, as before mentioned, at the ancient standard rate of £.3. 17s. 10½d.'1 '4. That for two years, from and after the first of May 1821, the Bank shall pay its notes in gold bullion only at the Mint price; and that whenever Parliament shall think proper to require the Bank to pay its notes in coin, notice thereof shall be given to the Bank one year before hand, such notice not to be given before the first of May 1822.'1 Commenting on the plan recommended by the Commons' Committee, Ricardo wrote to McCulloch on 8 May: 'The Committee have deviated in two points from the plan as originally suggested—they think that the bars of bullion delivered by the Bank, in exchange for notes, should be assayed, and stamped, at the Mint; and they have advised that after 1823, at the latest, we should revert to the old system of specie payments. Perhaps, in both instances, they have done right, for the Bank persisting in the most determined opposition to them, they were under the necessity of having the bullion stamped that it might be legally called money of a large denomination, and that the Bank might not raise a clamour against them for having imposed upon that corporation the obligation of paying in Bullion, from which they said their charter protected them. In the second place they had to contend with public prejudice, and perhaps too with prepossessions which they themselves felt in favour of coin. If no inconvenience is suffered from the working of this plan for the next 5 years, the Bank will be amongst the foremost in contending that it should be adopted as a permanent system.'1 A set of Resolutions based on the recommendations of the Committees were moved by Peel in the House of Commons on 24 May2 when Ricardo made his first important parliamentary speech; they were adopted on the following day. Peel's Bill, which embodied the Resolutions, received the Royal Assent on 2 July 1819.3 From the beginning the ingots had caught the public imagination and were referred to in the press as one of the oddities of the day. 'The proposed Ingots have already obtained a name. They are called Ricardoes from their inventor, as the gold Napoleons were named from Bonaparte.'4 'Mr Ricardo's ingots were the fashionable novelties of the day, like the automaton chess player,5 or the fair Circassian6 .'7 When they actually came into existence, in 1820, the market price of gold being below 81s, the demand for them was only as collectors' pieces: 'The Bank resumed bullion payments on 1st February, in ingots (to the amount of 300l.), commonly called Ricardos; and I understand that in the first three days only three were applied for. One for Lord Thanet, one for a country banker, from curiosity, and the other I know not for whom. The price of gold is from two to three shillings below the Mint price, which accounts for this little demand.'1 The Reports of the Lords' and Commons' Committees, with Minutes of Evidence and Appendices, were printed in Parliamentary Papers, 1819, vol. iii.1 The Lords' Reports with Minutes of Evidence and Appendix were ordered to be reprinted on 15 February 1844, and an Index was added. These are the official editions in folio. An unofficial edition, in octavo, of the Commons' Second Report and Minutes of Evidence was published by Charles Clement, London, in 1819. Professor Cannan, referring to McCulloch's supposition that this was a report of Ricardo's speech on 24 April 1823 in the debate on Lord John Russell's motion, says: 'That McCulloch had not taken the most ordinary pains to verify a haphazard conjecture by referring to Hansard is shown by his use of the words "most probably"; that he had not taken the trouble to read the speech which he was reprinting is shown by the fact that it talks of "the Bill", and is particularly addressed to criticism of two "clauses" in the Bill.1 If Hansard is to be trusted, it was never delivered.'2 Not only was the speech never delivered, but it appears that it was not written for delivery, having been almost certainly composed before Ricardo entered Parliament. The latest date for its composition is fixed by its allusion to the law 'against the exportation of the coin' as being 'on our statute-book'.3 The law was repealed early in July 1819, and its existence could hardly have been used as an argument by Ricardo after 26 May 1819 when Peel's Resolutions for the Resumption of Cash Payments, which recommended the repeal, were adopted by the House of Commons. Now, between February 1819, when Ricardo took his seat in Parliament, and this date, the question of Reform did not come before the House in any shape. In 1818, however, when Ricardo was negotiating for a seat in Parliament, the question of Parliamentary Reform was a constant subject of discussion with his friends. In May he had daily walks with Mill in Kensington Gardens, and he wrote to Malthus 'we could make a very tolerable reformer of you in six walks if your prejudices be not too strongly fixed.'4 Trower, when on a visit to London, joined in some of these walks1 and after his return to the country continued the discussion with Ricardo by letter. In August Mill went on a visit to Ricardo at Gatcomb and in September they were both in London for a fortnight, always continuing their discussions.2 A comparison of the Ricardo-Trower correspondence in the summer of 1818 with the Observations on Parliamentary Reform and the Defence of the Plan of Voting by Ballot points to the two papers having been also written in 1818. This is confirmed by a comparison with his later speeches on Reform, which he actually delivered in Parliament on 18 April 1821 and 24 April 1823;3 in these speeches he put forward proposals identical with those of the Observations and the Defence, but he omitted certain arguments which were relevant to the political situation of 1818 but would have been uncalled for in 1821 and 1823. Thus the argument in favour of the ballot in the letter to Trower of 27 June 1818 that 'we should get rid of the disgusting spectacle of the lowest blackguards in every town assembling about the Hustings, and insulting in the grossest, and most cruel manner, those respectable candidates against whom their antipathies are excited',4 which is echoed in the Defence of the Ballot,5 but not mentioned in the later speeches, was occasioned by the behaviour of the mob at the Westminster election in June 1818. Also, both in his letters to Trower of 1818 and in the Observations Ricardo finds it necessary to defend his proposals for Reform against the charge that, 'by extending the franchise, you open the door to anarchy, for the bulk of the people are interested, or think they are so, in the equal division of property, and they would choose only such demagogues as held up the hope to them that such division should take place'6 —a danger which is not referred to in the speeches of 1821 and 1823. The fears entertained in the disturbed years 1818 and 1819 by 'those who have property to lose',7 had by that time largely disappeared.8 If the supposition that the two papers were written in 1818 is accepted, they may be identified as two of the 'Discourses' which Ricardo wrote at the instance of Mill as an exercise in speech-making before entering Parliament. In a letter of 23 September 1818, written from Bagshot and occasioned by the successful conclusion of the negotiations for Ricardo's seat, Mill urges him to familiarise his mind with the things which must go to the composition of 'good government'. 'Then' he writes 'there will be no fear about the language in which your thoughts will spontaneously clothe themselves. Let those discourses, therefore, which we have so often talked about, be written without delay.'1 He then gives detailed instructions on the method of composition, and adds: 'When the writing is done, you should talk over the subject to yourself. I mean not harangue, but as you would talk about it in conversation at your own table; talk audibly, however, walking about in your room.' The discourses were to be sent to Mill, who would be 'the representative of an audience, of a public'.2 By 26 October Mill had heard from Ricardo that he was about to begin writing,3 and by 18 November, having returned to London, he had received and read two discourses.4 A third discourse was written shortly after, according to a letter from Mill of 4 December, but does not appear to have been sent to Mill.5 The fact that the Defence of the Ballot is in the form of a parliamentary speech suggests that Ricardo wrote it for a fictitious debate on a Bill for the Reform of Parliament in which he imagined himself to be taking part,1 attributing to previous speakers the objections which were then current.2 IINOTES ON WESTERN'S 'SECOND ADDRESS TO THE LANDOWNERS', 1822Amongst the pamphlets from Ricardo's library which are in the Goldsmiths' Library of the University of London, there is a copy of the Second Address to the Landowners of the United Empire, by C. C. Western, Esq., M.P., second edition, London, Ridgway, 1822, which is annotated by Ricardo.1 The pamphlet was first published late in 1822, when Ricardo was on his continental tour;2 by the end of the year, when Ricardo returned to England, a second edition had appeared; and his notes must have been written after his return.3 The pamphlet contains a violent attack against Peel's Act of 1819 and against the supporters of the resumption of cash payments. It was referred to by Ricardo in a speech on Western's motion respecting the resumption of cash payments, on 11 June 1823 (above, p. 317 ff.), when he replied to Western's accusations. Ricardo's notes are written on the margins of the pamphlet and have been partly cut off by the binder. They are here printed in italics. Ricardo's first comment is occasioned by Western's discussion of the 'inconsiderate and hasty course' which led to the resumption of cash payments in 1819, as proposed by Peel's Committee. 'Of the probable consequences of such a course upon the general prosperity of the country,' writes Western, 'the Committees of the Lords and Commons, incredible as it may appear, not only made no adequate enquiry, but seemed purposely to turn their backs upon information tendered, and prophetic warnings given by persons who possessed the fairest claims to attention.' (p. 5.) Ricardo notes: 'This Committee recommended a recurrence [to]1Cash payments after a period of 4 years. When [they] did so gold was £4.2.—pr. oz. Mr. Western sup[por]ted a measure which was to make us recur to Cash [payments in a single day] altho' gold was then £4.15.—p[r. oz.]'.2 Western then discusses the effects upon the agricultural situation of the measures respecting the currency: 'Peel's Bill, I say, is the sole cause of our excessive and unparalleled distress. [Ricardo underlines 'sole' and notes: 'Take notice sole cause! '] It is not that abundant harvests may not lower the price of corn occasionally to some degree of temporary injury to the growers; but no human being ever heard before of their being ruined by the blessing of Providence on their labours.... It is not a ruinous abundance of corn, but a destructive famine of money that is the bane of the country' (pp. 6–7). Ricardo notes: 'See Mr. Western speech 1 March 1816, in which he shews the effects of abundance on price.'3 Western's remedy is the revision of Peel's Bill of 1819 and the lowering of the standard, in order to obtain a more abundant currency. The effect would be an advanced money price of commodities, but, he asks, what mischief therefrom? 'The mortgagee would prefer paying higher for his wheat, and his mutton, &c. with the continuance of an interest of five per cent. for his money. The fundholder would enjoy in security, and upon a good title, what he possessed, instead of risking it by a robbery of the public [Ricardo notes: '[R]obbery!'], which can be retained only by force, and not by right. The labourer would again perceive that his labour, which is his property, had some value [Ricardo twice underlines 'some ' and notes: '[H]as it no [v]alue now? ']; he would soon find an eager demand for it in the market; and wages, like all other commodities for which there is an increasing demand, would experience a consequent advance.' (p. 24.) Ricardo notes: '[W]hy should an [al]teration in [the] value of [mo]ney cause [an] increased [de]mand for [la]bour? ' Western quotes Hume in his support: 'Give us a sufficient currency, and we should be in the situation which Mr. Hume in his Essay upon Money, written nearly 100 years ago, describes a country in which money began to flow more abundantly. "Every thing," he says, "takes a new face—labour and industry gain life— the merchant becomes more enterprising—the manufacturer more diligent and skilful—and the farmer follows the plough with more alacrity and attention." ... We are in the situation in which Mr. Hume, contrasting his former picture, shews us, of a country in which the quantity of money is decreasing. "The workman," he says, "has not the same employment from the manufacturer and merchant—the farmer cannot sell his corn and cattle—the poverty, beggary, and sloth thatmust ensue, are easilyfore-seen."' (pp. 24–5.) Ricardo notes: 'An erroneous view of Mr. Hume'. On Western's incidental remark, that 'A further increased quantity of currency has recently taken place by the advance of about two millions to the Government by the Bank, to make the payments to the 5 per cent. creditors' (p. 26), Ricardo notes: '[Id]eny [t]his.' Western then considers the question whether the people at large would be sufferers from the rise in prices consequent upon the suggested abundance of money. He admits that when high prices are the consequence of scarcity, they must be 'considered amongst the most severe inflictions to which a people are subject' (p. 31). But, 'High price from abundance of money is purely nominal; as if shillings were rained down from heaven, it would very soon require a great number of them to purchase a loaf of bread, and the price would be high; or if sixpences were proclaimed to be shillings, we should nominally pay as many shillings as we do now sixpences. But from high price so caused, or rather low value of money, no evil follows, no alteration of course takes place in the relative proportion of food, to the number of mouths there are to consume it. The bulk of the people must have an increased quantity of money, before the sellers can obtain the higher price, the demand of the opulent classes being too trifling, hardly indeed varying at all. I have often wished that some of those persons, who keep up the fallacy respecting a high money price, would tell me why the people should not be able to obtain as ample a share of the larger quantity of money as of the smaller; this is the point, which if truth were their object, they would see they were bound to make out, and for their own credit, I earnestly invite them for once, at least, fairly and calmly to make the attempt.' (p. 31.) Ricardo notes: 'I do not dispute the principle here laid down but I ask in my turn what injury the people w[ould] suffer if the quantity of money was reduced o[ne] half or three fourths. It is entirely a question.'1 Western continues: 'Now when debts and taxes are considered, the advantage of a high money price becomes as apparent as the destructive consequences of the lower measure of value are now....The farmer with 40s. for his quarter of wheat, and the labourer with his 8s. per week, must feel the excessively increased difficulty of paying the same taxes as they did when the wheat produced 80s., and the labour 16s. The former are indeed sinking under it, and their labourers participate, as of necessity they must, in the distress of their employers. The renewed burnings in many parts of England, with the resolutions of societies of farmers, published in the newspapers, against the use of thrashing machines, are sufficient proofs that the agricultural labourers are reduced, in those districts at least, to a state of acute misery.' (pp. 31–2.) Ricardo notes: 'very sophistical. When wheat is at 40/- the labourer will not receive the same money wages as when it is at 80/-. If the real value of the farmer's taxation as a grower be increased he can [pass on] that increase to the consumer.' Western gives an illustration to show that the effect of a rise in the value of money on debtors is out of proportion to the effect of a fall upon creditors: 'suppose a man with an income of two hundred per annum, arising from the efforts of industry in the production of any species of commodities, and that a portion of his capital is borrowed, the interest of which amounts to one hundred per annum—raise the value of money one half [Ricardo underlines the last seven words and notes: 'Do you not mean, "double the value of money? "'], his commodities can only return half their money price, that is to say, one hundred pounds per annum, and this industrious man is obviously left wholly destitute; but this is not all—the creditor receiving only, it is true, the same nominal sum, nevertheless obtains that which enables him to possess himself of twice the quantity of the industrious man's commodities; in truth he seizes the whole property of his debtor: now lower the value of money and let us see what follows; the industrious man pays the debt with half the quantity of his commodities, their money value being doubled, and his creditor retaining the same nominal sum, can only command half of them; this is horrid injustice: but the man is not left destitute; he retains half his income; there is exactly the difference between the half and the whole' (p. 34). Ricardo notes: 'Because the degree of variation is less. In one case you raise the value of £1- to £2- in the other you lower the value of £1- to 10/-'1 Western proceeds: 'As to calculating the effects of raising or lowering the value of money, without reference to debtors and creditors, it would be absurd; because we know the vast extent of public and private debts, and because all our national establishments, civil and military, are charges upon national industry, and as such, operate as debts; the Monarch and the private soldier, the First Lord of the Treasury, and the lowest Clerk in office, are alike in the predicament of creditors; they suffered by lowering the value of money, but were not ruined [Ricardo notes: 'fallaci[ous]']; their suffering was acknowledged and alleviated, if not removed, but they are now, in conjunction with public and private creditors, absorbing the entire fruits of the industry of the country' (p. 35). There are no comments on Western's text after p. 35, but Ricardo underlines certain passages (as reproduced below) which are obviously directed against himself. It is to these charges that he replied in his speech of 11 June 1823 (above, p. 317 ff.). 'The more I reflect upon the state of this country, its immense public debt and taxes, its unrivalled complication of private debts and engagements, the more I am astonished that the idea should ever have suggested itself to the mind of any Statesmen, to raise the value of the money in which they were created; the measure certainly owes its origin, in chief, to men who were gainers or expectant gainers by it; namely, Ministers receiving salaries from the public, others who wish to be Ministers, and some great monied proprietors were called in, who were supposed to be specially qualified to advise upon such a subject. Difficult, however, as it is to account for such an extraordinary proceeding, I do not entertain a suspicion of any selfish motives on the part of the Ministers or their rivals; and I try to believe the same of the great monied men; but when I see public creditors and mortgagees swallowing up the rents of the landowners, the profits of the tenant, and the general fruits of industry, it requires the fullest effort of charity to believe they did not intend it; if we allow them to be honest, they must all of them be content to be regarded by us sufferers, as extremely ignorant of the subject they not only pretended fully to understand, but exclusively to be the only competent judges of. They told us at first that Peel's Bill would only produce a difference of three or four per cent. in the money price of commodities; they have now nearly admitted its operation to the extent of fifteen or twenty, which of itself must be allowed to be proof sufficient of ignorance at all events: but the actual amount of degradation is in fact much nearer fifty per cent. than twenty.' (pp. 36–7.) 'Some of you have estates which were in cultivation centuries ago, and which now yield nothing: to preserve them in cultivation at all, without any rent, is in various instances actually a burthen. [Ricardo writes three exclamation marks on the margin.] ... Why will you not investigate the question? why give up the exercise of your own understanding? why surrender up common sense to the parade of science? Believe me, the economists and bullionists are not gifted with more sense than other people, though they have more pedantry; their confidence and pretensions are imposing certainly, and I do believe have imposed upon some of our more ingenuous Statesmen; but the mist in which they have involved the subject is disappearing, and the dreadful consequences brought upon us by their advice are fully exposed to view; the practical illustration before our eyes of the terrible mistake the Government has been led into, can hardly longer be denied.' (pp. 39–41.) 'No. 5 [of the tables in the Appendix] shews the amount of undue gain of the public creditors, by the alteration of the currency through Peel's Bill, and which is a distinct breach of faith on the part of the Government towards the people of this country, and a palpable robbery. It really appears to me, that our Statesmen, on either side the House, evince by their conduct, a want of any just comprehension of faith towards the public, who pay taxes. I should have thought their first care, at all events the first care of the House of Commons, should have been, that the public should not pay morethan they borrowed.It is hardly denied by any body, that, at this time, the public are compelled to pay substantially, to the extent of twenty or twenty-five per cent. more than they borrowed, and not one word of complaint is uttered by those guardians of the public purse. It is only for the creditors, and all who receive taxes, that they appear solicitous; and for the preservation of sacred faith towards whom, we hear so much canting declamation.... If these observations find their way to the public, I shall of course undergo the censure of those arrogant pretenders to exclusive good faith; but it is high time to speak out, or we shall be inevitably crushed.' (pp. 44–5.) Western reprints in an Appendix a 'Letter upon the Cause of the Distress in Ireland', to the editor of the Dublin Morning Post, signed 'A Native of Connaught' and dated 'Killcongoll, July 15, 1822.'; on this letter Ricardo comments: 'According to this letter, the ruin of the poor tenant is caused by the increased value paid to some of the persons who have an interest in the land. If he retain less of the produce they get more—this will not account for scarcity in the country, nor for the high price of potatoes. What I contend for is that there is no anomaly in a glut of wheat from abundance, and a starving population, when that population lives exclusively on the potatoe.' [1 ]Hansard, XXXII, 41; cp. also ib. 381. [2 ]Journals of the House of Commons, 1818, p. 272. [1 ]Hansard, XXXVIII, 995–6. [2 ]See his speech above, p. 109. [3 ]See above, p. 323. [4 ]The Report and Evidence were reprinted in April 1821 (Parliamentary Papers, 1821, vol. iv). [1 ]1814 (54 Geo. III c. 99), 1815 (55 Geo. III c. 28), 1816 (56 Geo. III c. 40), 1818 (58 Geo. III c. 37). [2 ]Minute of the Committee of Treasury, 20 Jan. 1819, in Lords' Report, Appendix, p. 300. [3 ]Hansard, XXXIX, 72 and 104. [1 ]Journals of the House of Commons, 1818–19, pp. 64 and 77. [2 ]Journals of the House of Lords, 1818–19, p. 43. [3 ]See Ricardo's letters to McCulloch of May 1819, quoted below, p. 367–8, and of January 1822, below, IX, 141. [4 ]Below, VI, 67. [1 ]The editor is much indebted to the late Sir Bernard Mallet for allowing him to quote this and many other passages from the unpublished MS in his possession. [2 ]A Director of the Bank, at this time out by rotation. [3 ]Alexander Baring was the head of the house of Baring Brothers, the magnitude of whose loans to the French Government in 1818 and 1819 complicated the problem of the resumption of cash payments. Baring himself was in Paris during the early stages of the enquiry, when the examination of the witnesses seemed to proceed somewhat aimlessly; a focal point was provided when, on his return to London at the end of February, Baring's views in favour of a delayed resumption of payments on Ricardo's plan became known. In the subsequent debate in the Commons the Chancellor of the Exchequer referred to Baring's evidence as 'certainly the most important of any' (Hansard, XL, 739). And The Times in a leader remarked 'We wish that the Bank had been able to control Mr Baring's loans, rather than Mr Baring's loans had controlled the Bank' (18 May1819). Mallet records in his MS Diary a conversation with Baring in which the latter described his intricate financial operations in Paris and surmises that Baring was apprehensive of an early resumption: 'Narrower means of credits, a closer system of discounts, a return to a sound currency in this great commercial country, could not fail affecting all Europe for a time; and it is for a time, and for that very time, that Baring wants facilities of every kind.' (Entry of 2 March 1819.) [1 ]Friday 12 and Monday 15 February. [1 ]Lords' Report, 'Minutes of Evidence', p. 44, Q. 35. [2 ]Lords' Report, 'Minutes of Evidence', p. 47, Q. 52. [1 ]Commons' Report, 'Minutes of Evidence', p. 78. [1 ]Commons' Report, 'Minutes of Evidence', pp. 123–4. [2 ]Lords' Report, 'Minutes of Evidence', p. 107, Q. 35. [3 ]Below, VIII, 19. [1 ]It should be noticed that, in spite of Ricardo's own evidence, the Committees assumed throughout that his plan excluded payments in specie. [2 ]Commons' Report, 'Minutes of Evidence', p. 160. [1 ]Commons' Report, 'Minutes of Evidence', p. 171. [2 ]Commons' Report, 'Minutes of Evidence', p. 189. [1 ]Commons' Report, 'Minutes of Evidence', p. 191. When recalled on 25 March Baring confirmed this answer; see ib. p. 204. [2 ]Commons' Report, 'Minutes of Evidence', p. 224–5. [3 ]Commons' Report, 'Minutes of Evidence', p. 247. [1 ]Not to be identified with Ricardo's friend of the same name. [2 ]A Reply to Mr. Ricardo's Proposals for an Economical and Secure Currency, by Thomas Smith, London, Richardson, 1816. [3 ]Commons' Report, 'Minutes of Evidence', pp. 257–9. [1 ]Lords' Report, 'Minutes of Evidence', pp. 131–2, Q. 167. Later he was questioned about the period in which 'the Plan of Mr. Ricardo' could be carried into effect (p. 136–7). [2 ]Author, under the pseudonym of Daniel Hardcastle, of a series of letters to The Times on the Bank Restriction; see below, VIII, 3, n. 1. [3 ]Lords' Report, 'Minutes of Evidence', p. 158–9, Q. 79. [4 ]Lords' Report, 'Minutes of Evidence', p. 179–80, Q. 83. [5 ]ib. p. 180, Q. 84. [1 ]Lords' Report, 'Minutes of Evidence', p. 180–1, Q. 89. [2 ]Above, I, 372. [1 ]Lords' Report, 'Minutes of Evidence', p. 182, Q. 89. [2 ]Journals of the House of Lords, 1818–1819, pp. 147 and 157. [3 ]Lords' Report, 'Minutes of Evidence', p. 221, Q. 88. [4 ]Lords' Report, 'Minutes of Evidence', p. 222, Qq. 96 and 97. [5 ]ib. pp. 225–34. [1 ]ib. p. 243–4. [2 ]See Ricardo's speech supporting the bill, above, p. 2. [3 ]Below, VIII, 20. [1 ]See An Address to the Public on the Plan Proposed by the Secret Committee of the House of Commons for Examining the Affairs of the Bank, by Edward Cooke, London, Stockdale, 1819. [2 ]Speech of 24 May 1819, Hansard, XL, 677. [3 ]The meeting on 15 May 1819 at the City of London Tavern, held to oppose the Reports of the Committees. [1 ]Commons' 'Second Report', p. 15. [1 ]Lords' 'Second Report', p. 18–19. [1 ]Below, VIII, 26–7. [2 ]The text of the Resolutions is given above, p. 7–8. [3 ]59 Geo. III. c. 49. An amendment to the original bill had been adopted on Ellice's motion; see above, p. 8 and n. [4 ]The New Times, 15 May 1819. [5 ]The Automaton Chess-Player was on exhibition at No. 4 Spring Garden (Advt. in The Times, 6 Feb. 1819). [6 ]The Fair Circassian was the name popularly applied to a lady in the suite of the recently arrived Persian Ambassador. Much curiosity had been aroused by the seclusion in which she was kept; 'hundreds of loungers and dandies' crowded outside the Embassy in the vain hope of a glimpse of her. 'The door of her room is constantly guarded by two black eunuchs, who have sabres by their sides. They are her only attendants, being selected to dress and undress her.' (The Times, 30 April 1819.) [7 ]The New Times, 15 June 1819. [1 ]Letter from E. B. Wilbraham, 7 Feb. 1820, in Diary and Correspondence of Charles Abbot, Lord Colchester, 1861, vol. iii, p. 113. Cp. Tooke's History of Prices, vol. ii, p. 98–9, and Ricardo's speech of 8 Feb. 1821, above, p. 76. [1 ]The title of the Commons' Reports is: 'Reports from the Secret Committee on the Expediency of The Bank resuming Cash Payments, Ordered by the House of Commons to be Printed, 5 April and 6 May 1819.' [1 ]Below, pp. 508–10. [2 ]'Ricardo in Parliament', Economic Journal, June 1894, p. 251, reprinted in Cannan's The Economic Outlook, 1912, p. 91. [3 ]Below, p. 511–12. [4 ]Letter of 25 May 1818, below, VII, 263. [1 ]Letter from Trower, 7 June 1818, below, VII, 268, and to Trower, 27 June 1818, ib. 275. [2 ]Below, VII, 285, 298–9. [3 ]Above, pp. 112 and 283. [4 ]Below, VII, 272–3. [5 ]Below, p. 504–5. [6 ]Observations, below, p. 499; and cp. to Trower, 27 June and 20 Dec. 1818, below, VII, 273 and 369–70. [7 ]Below, p. 501. [8 ]As evidence of how fully the ruling classes had recovered their self-confidence by 1823, a passage from a speech of Robinson, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, describing 'the condition of those great masses of our population which are congregated in the manufacturing districts', may be quoted: 'What was the state of that population three or four years ago, when they laboured under the severe pressure of acknowledged distress, and what is its actual condition? Where is the disquietude, the tumult, the sedition, the outrage of that period? Vanished. What have we in their place? Peace, order, content and happiness.' (Speech on the Financial Situation of the Country, 21 Feb. 1823; Hansard, N.S., VIII, 201.) [1 ]Below, VII, 301. [2 ]ib. 302. [3 ]ib. 317. [4 ]ib. 329. Mill promised 'a more detailed criticism', but no such criticism is extant. The tenour of the other letters leaves little doubt that reform was the subject of the discourses. [5 ]ib. 349–50, 358, 364. [1 ]He may have had before him the report of the debate in the House of Commons on 2 June 1818, on the Resolutions for the Reform of Parliament which had been drafted by Bentham and introduced by Sir Francis Burdett. See Hansard, XXXVIII, 1118– 1185 and cp. Bentham's Works, ed. by Bowring, vol. x, p. 491 ff. [2 ]Thus cp. the passage in the Defence of the Ballot that 'One Hon. Gentleman has observed, that he is prepossessed in favour of open voting, without being able to give any reason why he prefers it' (below, p. 512) with the allusion to the opponents of the ballot in a letter to Trower of 18 Sept. 1818: 'I have never heard any solid reasons for their objections:—they are all to be resolved to an antipathy, for which they can give no account' (below, VII, 299). [1 ]Bound with other pamphlets in vol. vi of the Ricardo Collection of Tracts. The notes are here reproduced by kind permission of the Goldsmiths' Librarian. [2 ]Ricardo left London on 12 July 1822; the first edition of the pamphlet was advertised in the Morning Chronicle of 9 Nov. 1822. [3 ]On 23 Nov. 1822 Ricardo had written from Paris that he expected to be 'the object of much personal attack' from the country gentlemen. See below, X, 349. [1 ]Cut off by the binder here and below. [2 ]On Western's attitude in 1811 see above, p. 316. [3 ]See the quotation from Western's speech of 7 (not 1) March 1816, above, p. 318–19. [1 ]The remainder of the note is cut off by the binder. [1 ]The remainder of the note is cut off by the binder. |


text:
Contact Information:
Porzio, Bromberg &
Newman P.C.
156 West 56th Street, Suite 803
New York, New York
Voice: 212.265.6888
Facsimile: 212.957.3983
Four Wagner Davis P.C. attorneys move to Porzio, Bromberg & Newman P.C.
After more than 28 years of practice at Wagner Davis P.C., we are pleased and excited to announce that we joined the law firm of Porzio, Bromberg & Newman P.C., effective March 1, 2013.
Attorneys Steven R. Wagner, John R. Wagner, Bonnie Reid Berkow and Karen E. Schwimmer are now with Porzio, Bromberg & Newman P.C. and continue to provide to all of our valued clients the same high quality legal services that they have come to expect—with the additional advantages of more extensive resources, cutting-edge technology and greater geographical reach that a larger firm can provide.
Steven R. Wagner 646.348.6727 email@example.com |
John R. Wagner 646.348.6759 firstname.lastname@example.com |
Bonnie Reid Berkow 646.348.6738 firstname.lastname@example.com |
Karen E. Schwimmer 646.348.6732 firstname.lastname@example.com |

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Vacuum: Oh Yeah, You Clean Those Drapes
This is basically an updated version of the Proton Packs used by the Ghostbusters. Allegedly, it can suck a ghost through a garden hose. And speaking of which, hey lady -- I've got a little something that could use some...no? We're not going there? Okay.
Capable of cleaning virtually any surface from carpet to tile to stone or hardwood floors., the Ergonomic Backpack Vacuum comes with a powerful suction that is even able to tackle items like broken glass, confetti, nuts and bolts and pet hair among others. Each $170 purchase will come with padded backpack straps, a HEPA filter to remove 99.9% of all dust, telescoping wand, easy reach attachments, a 26 ft. power cord, reusable collection bag and six disposable bags.
Hell yeah broken glass, confetti, nuts and bolts and pet hair -- that sounds like a party! So why wasn't I invited. Is it because of last time? I already told you -- I THOUGHT I WAS IN THE BATHROOM!
Ergonomic Backpack Vacuum [ubergizmo]
Thanks to sarah, FDSY and Chris, who must really love vacuums. Or sucking. SWISH.
I'm not even gonna lie: ghosts scare the shit out of me. And I'm not just saying that because they grope me in my sleep, but I did wake up last night to Edward Cullen standing at the foot of my bed. Haha, what do you mean he's a vampire? That bitch was glowin'! Plus rubbin'... / Continue →
This Space Invaders lamp shade is available from meninos in both ceiling and table varieties for 60 bones. Each side of the cube features a different invader from the game and is sure to scare the crap out of you on your way to the kitchen in the middle of the night. Just say... / Continue →
This is a video of inventor Jem Stansfield climbing the exterior of a BBC building to show off a pair of vacuum gloves he made out of an old vacuum. Amazingly, he gets to the top, but I question how much assistance he got from the rope holder. Also, if those gloves are that ... / Continue →


text:
Although medical doctors have many years of education and practice, they are still just human—and all humans make mistakes. After one such mistake proved fatal for a relative, Joe Graedon, M.S., and Teresa Graedon, Ph.D., went to work trying to get hospitals to institute better safety measures.
In their book Top Screwups Doctors Make and How to Avoid Them, the Graedons discuss potentially fatal medical errors that occur in hospitals, doctors' offices, pharmacies, and elsewhere. The book includes ways that patients can be on the alert to make sure nothing happens to them—including what questions they should ask, how to ensure they're getting the right medications, and so on. The authors also note that having a friend or family member come with you to the doctor to act as a note-taker and an advocate is always a good idea.
The Graedons have been involved with patient advocacy for more than 25 years, and this book is the culmination of their long experience. However, even though the statistics they quote are scary, there's no reason to panic. The authors are quick to point out that if you have any questions or concerns about your treatment, you should speak to your doctor first. The book isn't about making people distrust doctors; it's about making sure patients are armed with the knowledge they need to significantly reduce the chance of mistakes. Remember: Although you need to be careful and alert, you should still trust the medical professionals who treat you.
In addition to their own experience, the Graedons consulted Dr. Peter Pronovost, M.D., Ph.D., who created a five-step checklist to increase safety at hospitals. For more on Dr. Pronovost's work, check out his profile in the Post.
Top Screwups Doctors Make and How to Avoid Them is an easy-to-read book with an important message. As the Graedons point out, taking charge of your health and safety by asking questions and making sure you know what's going on is one of the best way to reduce potential mistakes. If you or a relative is often in and out of the hospital or has a revolving carousel of medications, you should read the Graedons' book. Forewarned is forearmed, and having this knowledge could stop a potentially fatal error.
Top Screwups Doctors Make and How to Avoid Them will be available from Crown Archetype on October 4, 2011, at a list price of $26.


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Old Calcutta
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Susan Littlefield gave props (6 Feb 2013):
She's adorable! A sweet portrait!
Krishna Dronamraju gave props (18 Mar 2013):
My favorite! Cute.


text:
Alphabet soup on the Wednesday OPEN thread
"Success is that old ABC — ability, breaks, and courage."
Charles Luckman
Who has the best lights in town? Vote now for your favorite in our holiday lights contest.
"Success is that old ABC — ability, breaks, and courage."
Charles Luckman
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I still want to know why GDAD won't criticize Dan for his "juvenile idiocy" in claiming that Rachael Maddow is hot. Dan should be more mature( and a better judge of good looking women)
I think we all know whodunit!!
The entire "Who's got the hottest anchors" bit is too monumentally stupid for one thread, far less three.
hey dano, I'm told that females think Peyton Manning is hot. I betcha some think the same of maddow. "attractive", "hot", what's the big diff?
How are the Rachel Maddow swimsuit posters selling?
#1 Terps, I answered your idiocy back on the previous thread. Go look.
Why the hell are you dragging this juvenile pre-K crap onto yet another thread? You're turning into another MMM.
How are the Rachel Maddow swimsuit posters selling?
Comment by Suzie — November 28, 2012 @ 10:59 am
While I haven't seen one, my guess is that they are selling better than the SuzieQ Swimsuit Calendars.
The reason that you did not say that Rachael Maddow is hot is because she is not hot. She tries to look like a man.
The Republicans continue to shoot themselves in the head.
#1 And as Dan points out, he didn't use the word "hot." Seems like you're regressing to the days of your Elmwood Park prevarications.
If today's Republicans are not paying attention to this, they will go the way of the dinosaur.
#9 Gee, then why did you lie and claim he used the word "hot," terps?
Rachael Maddow needs a swimsuit poster wearing those goofy black manglasses. Even GDAD would think that's hot.
Terps, I don't know what your issue is with, Rachel Maddow, but I will say I think she is very attractive. To stoop to your level on this; she iz hot yo! On da real, she would be one of my baby mommaz any day! What do you have next period?
I think ladies with short hair like that is really cute!
What's the difference between hot and attractive? Maturity? Is this blog designed for a nursing home or something?
You libs won. Cheer up a little bit. If someone is hot, call them hot. You may actually begin to emerge from the grumpy funk.
Maddow wears a minimum of makeup and purposely keeps her hair cropped so she is not seen as another vacuous bimbo. She wants her words to speak for her. I personally think she is attractive but who cares what she or Chris Wallace looks like?
Distressing news about the rate of sea level rise. Sea levels are increasing at a rate of 3.2mm (.126 inches) a year instead of the previous estimate of
2mm/yr. In fact the conservative estimate was that of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an agency which many deniers claim is alarmist.
Rachel Maddow is smarter, better educated, and makes a lot more money than most people on this blog. These facts can render poorly endowed men insecure.
And again he whines! We are perfectly cheerful terps, we are not the ones making a spectacle of ourselves, you are. As long as you are here behaving like a tween, we cannot help but be in a "grumpy funk". Grow up or go away.
Let's get back to mature subjects like wealth redistribution. Oh God it has to be depressing to be a liberal.
Please stop feeding the Trolls!! This is ridiculous.
It is indeed depressing, terps. The reason being that we have to keep reading your ridiculous crap. Don't you have some money to go count?
Can one of you libs admit that it felt good for one day to talk about something other than hating the rich. You all claim to not be depressed, but Dan is the only one who even attempts to be lighthearted and funny. You all view the word as an unfair, racist, homophobic place run by greedy white males who need to be punished. It is impossible to be happy with that world view. You can elect democrats every day for the next hundred years and none of you will be happier.
Why? Because envy and revenge never bring happiness.
"For those of you who have been wallowing in that, how about you write some comments that are worthy of a 17-year-old, at least."
Check out my post at 12:11 p.m., nobody here commented on it, including you.
Best and worst run states:
1. North Dakota
2. Wyoming
3. Nebraska
4. Utah
5. Iowa
50. California
49. Rhode Island
48. Illinois
47. Arizona
46. New Jersey
Yes… Yes, terps. Let's talk about wealth redistribution.
It's easy to be a "well run" state if you don't have any people living there. That's my take-away from JohnW's statistic.
#26 See what happens to his mood when terps has to buy a guy a couple of lunches?
"Dan is the only one who even attempts to be lighthearted and funny" comment by terps
terps, you continue to be as wrong as a sore loser can be. For instance read comment #64 on this thread, then click the link at the end:
I clicked on Justin's link and heard Romney's 47% bit for the first time. It sounded a lot worse than I'd imagined it did. Tough to get elected by a country when you openly express hatred and scorn for half of it. Can't believe that strategy didnt work out for him.
John Wilburn,
The 5 best run states you mentioned have a combined population of 8.900,582 in the 2010 census. Of the five worst, New Jersey alone has 8,807,501. Smallness has its advantages.
I wake up happy that Obama won every single day. Then, at some point, Boehner and McConnell wander into my field of sight and they make me even happier about it. And now Reid's going after the phantom filibuster and the Senate republicans are wetting themselves over it… and that also makes me happy. As a democrat, I've got a lot to be happy about.
#30 Something that one of our trolls has said before when talking about countries. So I'm sure she would agree when it comes to states.
I think because he is so miserable, terps assumes the rest of the world is. If we saw the world as you right wingers present it here, that would indeed be cause for despair. That you keep getting beaten back on the national level gives us all hope and encouragement. Long may you rant and offend. I just wish you did it somewhere else so we could enjoy this blog.
You see those median incomes in all of those states? That is why people consider 250K and up to be "the rich". Like Dan says, the vast majority are not and never will be.
It appears Cuccinelli has secured the GOP nomination for Governor. I sure hope the Dems run somebody worthwhile. I would rather vote for a candidate than against one, but I can't see how any choice could be worse than KC. If it seems close, I will probably vote for whomever is running against him. If it looks like a solid Dem victory , I might just skip it. I'm still not sure how I feel about McAuliffe, byt better him than KC.
Governor McAuliffe it is.
There are grumblings out of DC that the Obama camp wants to raise taxes now, then work on spending cuts in 2013. If true, we will plummet off the fiscal cliff for sure and I wouldn't blame the GOP, although I'm sure many on this board will.
Side Note: If you take the unfunded entitlments vs. projected revenue for the next 50 years, we are actually $87 trillion in debt.
dobbs, I can remember voting for Chuck Robb for Senator in the 90′s after I had sworn him off. A guy named Ollie North made me do it.
I hope you can open this link. It gives some historical perspective on fiscal cliff management in U.S. history.
I wake up happy that Obama won every single day.
Translation: Keep them goodies rollin' in.
I mean sure, the takers are always going to be glad Democrats win. They are satisfied to trade their freedom for government subsistence. These kinds of people have no concept of real achievement and the rewards that come with it. They don't think that way. Seventy years of slow conditioning has gotten people to this point. It's probably the saddest consequence of this takeover.
Cooch in 2013!
It's very easy to see the plan. 0bama wants the fiscal cliff. He knows the media will blame the GOP. He's happy to let the Bush tax cuts sunset, because he'll get the tax hikes and military cuts he wants. Then in a magnanimous showing, he'll propose to 'cut' income taxes for some groups, just not the rich. Meanwhile everyone's taxes will have risen substantially because of 0bamacare and other taxes, but the far-left media won't mention any of that.
And this was all possible because Boehner folded his pair of aces a year and a half ago. The Tea Party House voted to cut $4 trillion without tax increases. Boehner should have stopped negotiating at that point. He would have prevailed.
Girl has been correct on everything so far including the election when you discount the cheating.
I wanted to repeat this post, because it's important and needs to be read. It's from a thread from several days ago that I just responded to:
Those candidates who uphold the word of God and condemn abortions will prosper in the end. Those who decide to placate the evil elements and go with the pro-abortion view will lose.
You can't go wrong by doing the right thing. The two people most likely to be canonized saints in my lifetime, Mother Teresa and Pope John Paul II, both spoke out vehemently against abortion at every opportunity. There is absolutely no doubt God sees abortion as a grievous abomination.
It's time everyone here to open your eyes and see this hideous act for what it is.
Rachel Maddow is smarter, better educated, and makes a lot more money than most people on this blog.
Smart people don't believe in an ideology that has never succeeded in the history of the world in bettering mankind. Intelligent people look at history, observe the systems that have produced prosperity. Communism has only produced misery.
That's why inherently, no liberal can be called intelligent.
. . . And, the GOP is going to help him drive that bus over it!
I certainly don't look for any backbone from Boehner now. America is going to have to go through a lot more misery before people begin to see. Once they understand, it will be too late. Russia had to live with it's error for 70 years. Cuba is at 53.
You people who think you won, what is it you've won? Can any of you name one single thing 0bama has done for capitalism? For the private sector? How long before you figure this out?
It's easy to be a "well run" state if you don't have any people living there.
This is the same chick that blabs about Iceland and Luxembourg being so much better run than America.
Six posts in 25 minutes. The Suz is posting in full-auto mode!
And like most full-auto fire, it misses the mark more often that not.
#55, JW, it's understandable that you'd choose the analogy you did, but you miss the point. Full auto firing allows one to make everything a target, and thus declare 100% accuracy everytime. This is why the consistently wrong poster #54 claims to be always right, and why makers of fully automatic weapons, or those that can be easily converted to full auto, will still claim that they save lives, because they distort definitions to suit themselves.
And like most full-auto fire, it misses the mark more often that not.
Which posts was I wrong on, John W.? The one where I agreed with you about best-run states? Or the one in which I implied Rachel Maddow wasn't a beauty queen?
What is it that Wall Street seems to know that the conservatives on here seem to deny??
I love how everything I post, I get to see twice.
"Let's get back to mature subjects like wealth redistribution. Oh God it has to be depressing to be a liberal."
Comment by Terps at #23
Fellow bloggers, I must admit that Terps may be right. My happiness crumbled this afternoon as my Liberal world was shaken to its core by news more shocking than the dearth of Republican votes in the Melrose Precinct; more egregious than banning concealed carry at your favorite local watering hole; more piercing than Warner Dallhouse's pomposity; more catastrophic than … SOCIALISM! That is what proposed Rule 14b advances – an international socialist agenda! Those commies at the Royal and Ancient and the USGA devised this shameless scheme to redistribute wealth on professional golf tours around the world. I mean, in the past two years, three – THREE – entrepreneurs using belly putters won three of golf's richest prizes, thereby creating thousands of jobs world-wide (not really, but mentioning job creators is so vogue).
By now, you all realize I am speaking of Rule 14b (effective in 2016 – the delay in implementation is modeled after the ACA) will ban the practice of anchoring a club against the body to make a stroke. I think this is #101 on Alinsky's list of … what was that list for? Anyway, no more long putters for aging capitalists who no longer possess the requisite gravitas to putt like a real man or woman. Doomed I am (even Yoda feels the sting of this rule change), as my ability to putt conventionally vanished about the same time cashiers started asking, "Are you eligible for a senior discount, sir?"
So Terps, I bow to your prescience. I am indeed, depressed!
I see that many spent an inordinate amount of time on the irrelevant topic of attractiveness of professional women. Not surprised. It's a complete double standard of course. For some reason we value a bikini more than brain.
This was elegantly illustrated to me by accident this week. In the course of designing a student activity, I sought some images on web to use as illustrations. In particular, I wanted images of children fishing: a boy, and a girl.
So, bear in find we have safe searches for images in an elementary school and the first image search term I used was "boy fishing".
The returned image search was just what I wanted.
The next search term was "girl fishing"
It was not what I needed. You should try the same search. Promise it's not pornographic. But it does illustrate something about our culture.
#49 Ah yes, other than troll's horrendously wrong election prediction, let's fondly recall some of the other gems (and this is just from memory; think how long the list would be if I had kept track):
–The Giles 10 Commandments case would play a huge role in the election.
–Obama would step in to settle the Chicago teacher strike and hog all the credit.
–The MSM would overwhelmingly attack and demean coaches Boeheim and K simply because they are conservative Catholics.
Just a few examples of the troll's accuracy.
Scott W, I had just moved back from California in the fall of '94, and since I was planning to go back, I kept my voter registration on Marin County, mainly due to being disappointed in Robb. Voting for Ollie was never gonna happen. I consider him to be a criminal. So, I turned in an absentee ballot. Turns out I've never been back to California, but at the time I thought I eventually would.
I did the fishing search, Mike Scott. What it illustates about our culture is not good.
Re: Dan Casey @ 11:20 am
Exact quote vs. sentiment?
As to one version often misattributed to Jefferson, "The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not." see: http://tinyurl.com/3ecxz9b
Although it cannot be found in his works (as documented by this site) note the statement,
"It bears a very vague resemblance to Jefferson's comment in a prospectus for his translation of Destutt de Tracy's Treatise on Political Economy: 'To take from one, because it is thought that his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, —the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry, & the fruits acquired by it.'" — Lipscomb, Andrew A. and Albert E. Bergh, eds. The Writings of Thomas Jefferson. 14:446; Washington, D.C.: Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association of the United States, 1903-04. 20 vols.
Similar variations and "vague resemblance" can also be found in other writings of the FFs — albeit, to the best of my knowledge, not the exact wording of "When the citizens realize they can vote themselves money from the public treasury, that nation is doomed."
There are a number of James Madison quotes (particularly about Article 1, Section 8, Clause 1) that have echos of the sentiment.
There are some Franklin quotes that have something of the sentiment in them, e.g., "I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it." – On the Price of Corn and Management of the Poor, November 29, 1766.
IMHO, to point out that the exact words cannot be found does not establish that the sentiment was missing among the FFs.
That's right Dan. I think I heard somewhere it was Bush's fault.
#67 And rampant communism.
From whom is it we "take from" "because it is thought that his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much"? When did wanting the wealthy to pay their proportionate and progressive share become abhorrent to Jefferson?
"Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise." –Thomas Jefferson to J. Madison, 1785.
"My observations do not enable me to say I think integrity the characteristic of wealth." –Thomas Jefferson to E. Pendleton, 1776.
And why is that seen as because they "acquired too much" as opposed to simply fair?
Just flipping through the "Rate My Professors" site and decided to see what Paul Krugman's students thought of him.
On the whole, not much. "Lazy, unprepared, boring, terrible lecturer, unintelligent, and not open to discussion" are among the descriptions. The few who said positive things by and large added politically partisan comments.
So this is at a liberal university, folks, a so-called renowned genius. Yet those who know him first hand don't like him. So he's wrong on everything AND he's a load. This is why my nephews didn't go Ivy, people. They wanted a real education.
Werent you the band manager /bass player
for a 3 piece band in Silver Spring..
Grumpy Funk and the Righteous Terp.
I think I saw a band poster when I was in
service….whatever happened to Grumpy and Funk?
Re: Dan Casey @ 9:37 pm
Don't believe that I attributed the Yogi Berra's "sentiment" to Jefferson or to any of the FFs. So, what's the point of your straw-man?
(BTW, just because Yogi Berra said something doesn't mean other BB players didn't think it, either.)
My suggestion was that to point out that albeit the exact words cannot be found does not establish that the sentiment was missing among the FFs — particularity as there are other recorded quotes that have a "vague resemblance" to an exact spurious quotes in question and there are still others, which express somewhat parallel sentiment.
FWIIW, there are many, many points upon which the FFs were not in total agreement. Hence, the high likelihood that some FF or FFs disagreed with others on virtually any point.
FWIIW2, I dislike spurious quotes. I applaud exposing them. OTOH, it is a stretch to assume that exposing a spurious quote proves that there was not such a sentiment.
IMHO, that is rather like the Argumentum ad Logicam fallacy (a.k.a. the Fallacy fallacy):
Argument A for the conclusion C is fallacious.
Therefore, C is false.
No. Whatever the truth-value of a conclusion is not proven or disproven. Just that one argument for it is disproven.
Likewise proving a given quote is spurious only proves it is spurious.
Fallacious arguments and spurious quotes only establish that the opposition in a debate have failed to make their point. Neither fallacious arguments and spurious confirm the the truth-value of a conclusion or the existance of a sentiment.
However, the existence of other documented quotes do, OTOH, have probative value as to the existence of the sentiment.
#67 Actually, Dan, I'm looking forward to the explanation as to how somebody who claims to be always right was unable to see the massive "fraud" coming, while dummies like Nathan Silver and a number of polls had it exactly right.
Maybe all of them were let in on the fraud ahead of time? Yeah, that's the ticket. It makes as much sense as suzie's claim of widespread fraud in the millions that the Republicans have yet to uncover proof of.
#73 Aw, isn't that sweet. I post some quotes from a conservative who thinks Krugman is exactly right about the economy and suzie has to go look up something negative in response.
Dave Hicks, not for nothing, but when people quote a famous and influential political history icon, it is the quote that is important, carries the impetus of the point and gives it the gravitas so desired. The "sentiment" belying an incorrectly attributed quote is quite irrelevant in this particular scheme. Defending it, even more so.
#76 That restored my faith in humanity today, Art.
Thanks Art, that was truly a wonderful story, he seems like a great person and a credit to the police force!
Re: Sandi Saunders @ 12:53 pm
"when people quote a famous and influential political history icon, it is the quote that is important, carries the impetus of the point and gives it the gravitas so desired."
I fully agree. You are absolutely right. That's why I dislike (hate might be a better word) spurious quotes.
OTHO, disproving the quote takes the wind out of the impetus of argument being put forward for the debater's point and discredited the debater making the point — however, it has no bearing on the truth-value of a conclusion. The conclusion is not proven or disproved.
It's a gotcha — not a proof of truth-value.
Re: Sandi Saunders @ 12:53 pm
"The 'sentiment' belying an incorrectly attributed quote is quite irrelevant in this particular scheme."
I'm not sure I understand the intent of that sentence.
a : to give a false impression of
b : to present an appearance not in agreement with
a : to show (something) to be false or wrong
b : to run counter to
I'm the last one to complain about typos /proofos / spellchecker road kill / etc.
However, did you intend, "The 'sentiment' underlying an incorrectly attributed quote is quite irrelevant in this particular scheme."
If so, disagree — particularly in a case like this where the "sentiment" or "opinion" is often attributed to the FFs (plural) and where the "sentiment" or "opinion" is documented in the FFs' writing. IMHO, all the more so, when some appear to be claiming that the spurious quote proves something other than the opposing debater blew it by introducing the spurious quote.
Historical Argumentum ad Verecundiam and /or Ipse Dixit fallacies are typically suspect anyway — as situations etc change over time.
Were you to misquote an historical figure about gun control would that discredit your basic position on gun control or just be a tactical mistake in debating skills?
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text:
National Park Service |
of Historic Light Stations Rhode Island Lighthouses |
to Inventory - Home Page Back to Inventory - List of Rhode Island Lighthouses |
ROSE ISLAND LIGHT State: RHODE ISLAND Location: NORTH OF NEWPORT HARBOR Nearest City: NEWPORT County: NEWPORT U.S.C.G. District: 1 Year Station Established: 1870 |
Photo courtesy of Ted Smith, 2002 |
Historic Tower:
Modern Tower? NO Existing Sound Signal Building? YES
Current Use: MUSEUM/GUEST HOUSE/PRIVATE AID TO NAVIGATION Owner/Manager: CITY OF NEWPORT/ROSE ISLAND LIGHTHOUSE FOUNDATION Open to the Public? YES (Go to Lighthouses to Visit for access information) Web Site: Link National Register Status: LISTED; Reference #87000033 Name of Listing: ROSE ISLAND LIGHTHOUSE (LIGHTHOUSES OF RHODE ISLAND TR) On State List/Inventory? YES; Year Listed: 1986 Miscellaneous: REPLACED BY LIGHTS ON NEWPORT BRIDGE IN 1971; REHABILITATED TO 1912-1920 CONDITION FROM 1989-1992, RELIT 1993 |


text:
Movie Summary | Infoplease.comMagnificent Desolation: Walking on the Moon
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Coaches' timeouts are worse. Basketball teams should get one, full stop.
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Recent Comments
Date | Title | Body |
3 days 14 hours ago | Plus there |
was that little thing called losing Mitch McGary after the above prognastication was made. That seals it for me. JB should be given strong consideration for NCOY not just BT COY. Tim Miles too, but not more so than JB. |
1 week 5 hours ago | Stauskas |
Has toughest decision. If I was his adviser I would tell him to go if he gets some assurances from teams in that 20 range. |
1 week 3 days ago | BTN |
Actually blamed having all of their guys back as the reason they played so poorly...saying they weren't used to playing with each other. |
3 weeks 3 days ago | Did you know it was over |
When we were done by only three with a ton of click left too? |
4 weeks 1 day ago | Just bc |
You go 2-9 does not mean your soft. He definitely needs a more attacking mindset though to complement his skill set. The nba does not need a finesse player with his physique, size and game. He is explosive without the always on attitude to utilize his explosiveness. I would say he needs to be a bigger terror on d too if his offense is going to plateau where it's st. Otherwise, I am thinking second rounder. Still a big fan. |
4 weeks 1 day ago | Gr3 |
Is no longer the prospect you think he is. I hope he turns it around but he is not an nba player right now and the scoutniks are starting to see it. I am just hoping he gets to being a dominant d1 player. He can do it but it's not even close right now. I would say Irving 's scoring ability might have his projections exceed Robinson 's if current trends hold. Great kid. |
4 weeks 1 day ago | Actually |
Negative recruiting might technically be "unethical", but not against ncaa rules. |
4 weeks 1 day ago | F the celebration police |
Life is short and we just beat a ranked rival on their home court. Nice victory...students have a few for me! |
4 weeks 1 day ago | This! |
Well done! |
4 weeks 1 day ago | Um |
Let's beat Wisconsin first. One game at a time people! |
4 weeks 4 days ago | This guy is in his 50s or 60s |
He should not be allowed back into a NCAA game if he is dropping n bombs on kids. Not sure if that is shat he did but if that's the case they better protect the players too here. |
4 weeks 4 days ago | I would still have a problem with it |
I totally understand it but I have a problem with physically attacking some one vs dealing with it in a verbal way. Can you imagine if Smart had the wherewithal to grab an attendant and had the guy thrown out aka post pistons palace? |
4 weeks 4 days ago | Are you sure it was a racial epithet? |
I still think he should have handled it differently but that would change my outlook on it a bit. |
4 weeks 4 days ago | I agree |
The only reason it was hard for me to listen to him today was that he was pretty much spot on. |
5 weeks 20 hours ago | Why is it |
All or nothing? |
5 weeks 1 day ago | Love that he even lead |
The way in signing as early as he could. Dude is a game changer. Countess and Peppers on same field. Watch out.,,I bet our our d line will "all of the sudden get better" when no one can get open. |
5 weeks 2 days ago | I was 90-91 |
Lived at LA's, Gepettos, Mr Spot, and Blimpy. Loved me some LA's fried food! |
5 weeks 2 days ago | Nooooooooooooooo.... |
All of my fake id's were in there! |
5 weeks 3 days ago | Observations |
1. Did not understand the lack of back cuts from Stauskas and Robinson. Conley was good at the rim but the denial of our wings, particularly stauskas was begging for this. |
5 weeks 4 days ago | BTW: Love me some Gilbert |
For everything he has done in Detroit...but I just think one would be hard pressed to assert that MSU produces these types of folks (and the corresponding opportunities folks like this create) nearly as much as UofM has....If you drill down into white collar and positions of power too...I would guess its not even close, no? |
5 weeks 4 days ago | Umm.. |
Not "trotting" anything out there...but the list for Michigan is light years longer and more prestigious, no? Michigan has thousands of Gores and Gilberts, but MSU has really no one like the founders of Google, a President of the United States or the guy running Twitter (which, two of which, have basically revolutionized the internet and changed global culture). Maybe I am too Maize-blind but it seems to me the accomplishments of UofM grads and the reach of the UofM alum base far exceeds that of MSU. And this fact, proves the point that a UofM degree opens more doors and opportunities, by far, than a MSU degree. And has been stated above, the farther you move away from the state, the more pronounced the difference becomes. |
5 weeks 4 days ago | I work in NYC in a fortune 50 company |
There are literally hundreds of Michigan grads (and an internal UofM group) and you would be hard pressed to find a Spartan. Michigan grads do better and have a better chance than msu grads with similar degrees. Fact. |
5 weeks 4 days ago | You are on crack |
I've looked at your posts throughout here and it seems to me MSU's Rose Bowl run has really left an impression on you. Great season, but your Rose Bowl run does not mean your students automatically become gifted and talented program candidates. It's okay though, msu admittedly has wonderful people (except when they seduced by their temporary success on the athletic field) and successful grads (in particular nurses, farmers, teachers, and packaging experts of which my relatives are legion)....but again...the schools academically are not in the same stratosphere. |
5 weeks 4 days ago | Your response doesn't make sense |
Unless you are an msu related business located in Michigan or some msu alum, located who knows where...if an equivalent resume comes in the door, a super majority of employers would pick the michigan one. Same thing would happen if it were Harvard v Michigan. It's not a debate. |
5 weeks 4 days ago | This second point is the relevant one |
Michigan undergrad is to Harvard undergrad, as msu's undergrad is to Michigan's undergrad. Big big difference. Now I can tell you that I would still hire a Spartan who was top in their class, a great fit and who could " overcome" their lack of a great undergrad school....AND I would avoid a social reject from an Ivy League school or Michigan if they underperformed their resume....but there is an advantage for a reason. |
5 weeks 4 days ago | Don't let |
Some limited "guys I work with" examples get in the way of facts. I work with some folks from Ivy League schools, but I still get that their school, academically, was net net far better and that many of their colleagues are net net far more successful than most of my colleagues. That said our alums created Google, run Twitter right now and owns the Dolphins right now ( to name a few)...what has Sparty done lately? Comparing Michigan to Ivy League schools in this regard is a far better comparison than comparing msu with UofM. C'mon man. |
5 weeks 4 days ago | Dude |
Unless you are an employer from mid michigan, a GS degree at UofM is probably better than any undergrad degree at msu. |
6 weeks 2 days ago | Fascinated |
It would be fascinating to me to sit in on a Bama recruiting pitch. I wonder if its "hey you have to play up to snuff, love competition and not get injured every year (implicit, you might get cut)" or "this is one big family mom, and we will take care of your son for four years as if he were our own." I tend to think the latter is what is said but that is completely unsubstantiated. |
6 weeks 2 days ago | This article |
Made me unusually jacked up to see this guy play. Loved his do anything attitude. Kid sounds like he wants to break through walls for this team and he is not even there yet. Nice pickup. Love the attitude. |
6 weeks 6 days ago | Yup |