The Principles of Economics, with Applications to Practical ProblemsFetter, Frank A. (Frank Albert)
General
The Principles of Economics, with Applications to Practical Problems
Fetter, Frank A. (Frank Albert)
Economics
1. _The enterpriser guarantees to the capitalist-lender a fixed return._
Agents will yield the highest economic rent of which they are capable
only in the hands of those who can use them with exceptional skill.
Owners of capital who for any reason, such as youth, inexperience, ill
health, incapacity, or conflicting duties, are not able to make agents
yield the average rent, seek out, or are sought out by, those who in
general can make the agents yield more than the average. The interest
contract between them is one of mutual advantage, in that the
enterpriser pays a definite sum to the investor unable himself to apply
his productive agents. Immense sums of capital are now put into the
hands of small enterprisers, such as Western farmers improving their
lands, builders of city homes and business blocks, and small
manufacturers. But stocks and bonds of corporations give a wide variety
of investments which shade off from the safer or capitalistic type, to
the more uncertain, or enterpriser's type. First-mortgage bonds, being a
first claim on the income and property, have the highest security and
yield generally the lowest interest. Even national bonds are not
absolutely safe, and for that reason as well as because of their
fluctuation in price, even their purchase has something of the nature of
an enterprise. Stocks are the enterpriser's type of investment, the
dividends being more uncertain, but giving the chance of a higher return
than the average. It is because some stand ready to assume the risk of
making goods yield average returns or more, that others can sit and
enjoy a fixed income with little effort and in comparative security.
[Sidenote: The enterpriser's insurance of the lender's capital]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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