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Crossing the Atlantic: Migrants and Settlers in Canada

Marjory Harper and Stephen Constantine

in Migration and Empire

Historic data on the Canadian population reveal the contribution made to its increase by immigration and especially by migrants of English, Irish, Scottish and (to a lesser extent) Welsh origin. ... More

Historic data on the Canadian population reveal the contribution made to its increase by immigration and especially by migrants of English, Irish, Scottish and (to a lesser extent) Welsh origin. Their motives, numbers, destinations, occupations and experiences between c.1815 and the 1960s are analysed. Philanthropists, land speculators and governments were involved in promoting settlement schemes, and their intentions are evaluated. Controversies generated by aided immigration and by the disappointed hopes of immigrants are explained, and Canadian objections to immigrants from inside as well as from outside the UK, including some on racial grounds from within the empire (as from India), are examined. The chapter concludes by scrutinizing the transfer and adaptation in Canada of immigrant identities, and the contribution of immigration to Canadian economic and political development.Less

“My negro Woman Judah”: William's Decision

Claudio Saunt

in Black, White, and Indian: Race and the Unmaking of an American Family

In the two decades preceding removal, Creeks and other Indians in the South were under great pressure to distance themselves from their black relatives. Georgia and the United States seized Creek ... More

In the two decades preceding removal, Creeks and other Indians in the South were under great pressure to distance themselves from their black relatives. Georgia and the United States seized Creek land in the Treaty of Indian Springs and the Treaty of Washington. After the Creek removal treaty of 1832, white land speculators began stealing Indian allotments. At this time, William Grayson purchased his father's slave, Judah, and married her.Less

Futures Contracts and Futures Markets

Hendrik S. Houthakker and Peter J. Williamson

in The Economics of Financial Markets

This is the first of two chapters dealing with futures contracts, and it concentrates on the defining characteristics of a futures contract, on ways in which it can be settled, on types of ... More

This is the first of two chapters dealing with futures contracts, and it concentrates on the defining characteristics of a futures contract, on ways in which it can be settled, on types of commodities and financial instruments in which futures trading is likely to be successful, and on measures of the importance of futures markets; the discussion is with respect to the USA. The exchanges on which futures contracts are traded are also explored: the history of organized markets, the role of the clearinghouses, the form of quotations, and the main market participants – hedgers, speculators, arbitrageurs and floor traders. The following chapter examines some of the theory and empirical evidence on the pricing of futures contracts, paralleling the discussion of stock and options prices in earlier chapters; it should be noted that some of the finer points in Ch. 9 may not be fully clear without the analysis of futures prices presented in Chapter 10. The first section of Ch. 9 looks at forward contracts, and the rest of the chapter is devoted to futures contracts (which are a highly standardized forwards contract) per se – with sections on the origin of futures trading, basic elements of futures contracts and the organization of futures markets. An appendix discusses the Euromarkets and the swap market.Less

The Fugitive's Properties: Uncle Tom's Incalculable Dividend

in The Fugitive's Properties: Law and the Poetics of Possession

Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin stands as more readily pertinent to the coupling of law and literature, imaginative labor and speculative valuation, than many scholars of that text ... More

Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin stands as more readily pertinent to the coupling of law and literature, imaginative labor and speculative valuation, than many scholars of that text have for much of its history presupposed. This chapter suggests that in Uncle Tom's Cabin, slaves stand alongside slaveholders and speculators as figures of fiscal and linguistic “imprudence”. In the discussion of the economic “character” that circulates among them, specific attention is drawn to the slaves' linguistic imprecision and an analogy between punning and usury. In this last connection, linguistic “nonsense” serves as the most oft-encountered sign of fiduciary impropriety; the slaves' linguistic imprecision provides the symptomatic externalization of the economy's subjective effects.Less

Introduction: Footstool of Liberty’s Throne: Hero-Making versus Historiography

Kevin T. Barksdale

in The Lost State of Franklin: America's First Secession

This section identifies two interpretive paths of the historical scholarship of the statehood movement of Franklin. It notes that Franklin defenders have treated the statehood movement as a serious ... More

This section identifies two interpretive paths of the historical scholarship of the statehood movement of Franklin. It notes that Franklin defenders have treated the statehood movement as a serious rebellion—the cry of the West, distancing it from the economic motivations and internal factionalism which taints the Franklinites and their supporters. The section further notes that Thomas Perkins Abernethy penned a scathing economic interpretation of the development of the Tennessee frontier which emphasizes the central role land speculators played in the organization of Tennessee, and which condemns the consequences of their monopolization of land and corruption of regional politics on the unsuspecting yeoman farmers of the Valley. It explains that this study seeks to find Franklin's historical middle ground and reveal the complex, chaotic, and often tragic historical reality behind the backcountry movement to create America's first trans-Appalachian state.Less

On the Potential for Speculation to Threaten Biodiversity Loss

Joanne C. Burgess, Chris J. Kennedy, and Charles (Chuck) Mason

in Nature in the Balance: The Economics of Biodiversity

Many wildlife commodities, such as ivory, rhino horn and bear bile, have been stockpiled in large quantities by speculators who expect that future price increases justify forgoing the interest income ... More

Many wildlife commodities, such as ivory, rhino horn and bear bile, have been stockpiled in large quantities by speculators who expect that future price increases justify forgoing the interest income associated with current sales. When supply from private stores competes with supply from ‘wild populations’ (in nature), and when speculators are able to collude, it may be optimal to coordinate on an extinction strategy. This chapter finds that it is optimal to deter poachers’ entry either by depressing prices (carefully timing own supply) or by depressing wild stocks. Which strategy maximizes profits depends on the initial wildlife stock and initial speculative stores. The model is applied to black rhino conservation, and results suggest that it is likely that “banking on extinction” is profitable if current speculators can collude. This chapter also finds that extinction is favoured by such factors as low discount rates or high growth rates.Less

On the Dark Side of the Market

Alex Preda

in Framing Finance: The Boundaries of Markets and Modern Capitalism

This chapter examines the double game of relentless increases in efficiency. The notion that financial speculation is endowed with a special force, which justifies its economic functions, is echoed ... More

This chapter examines the double game of relentless increases in efficiency. The notion that financial speculation is endowed with a special force, which justifies its economic functions, is echoed in the tension between thrilling speculation, on the one hand, and the hard work of everyday capitalist accumulation, on the other hand, as well as in the representation of super human speculators. They are rather part and parcel of the observation lens set in place by writers of investment manuals and stock exchange histories, a lens through which the individual actors of the exchange can be seen in their relationship with entities such as the state, the economy, and the society at large. While such a lens can and does include elements such as educational fiction it does not primarily claim esthetic autonomy. Its aim is not contemplation and reflection as such, but observation as a path to action. Debates and controversies around the status of financial speculation and of speculators evolve around topics set within the boundaries of finance, not by a neutral or adversarial instance, and certainly not by a contemplative, reflexive one.Less

Panic!

Alex Preda

in Framing Finance: The Boundaries of Markets and Modern Capitalism

This chapter investigates how the notion of panic crystallizes in representations of the market and how it affects the hierarchy of speculators. The charismatic features of the latter cannot ... More

This chapter investigates how the notion of panic crystallizes in representations of the market and how it affects the hierarchy of speculators. The charismatic features of the latter cannot withstand crowd movements like panic. One of the major contradictions at the boundaries of markets appears to be the same as that between an individualism grounded in a vitalistic notion of force and the crowd's stampede. The chapter explores how the notion of (financial) panic, emerging almost simultaneously in economic and psychiatric writings, deals with this contradiction. It also examines how representations of panic—from the media, for instance—are used by market participants to make sense of their own actions. Based on a reconstruction of actual practices, the chapter argues that such representations should be understood as material observational tools, which help dispersed actors to see their situations as identical or similar.Less

Conclusion: Back to the Future

Alex Preda

in Framing Finance: The Boundaries of Markets and Modern Capitalism

This chapter provides the domain of historical documents in order to explore how these boundaries of finance works. Such boundaries are not a mere historical curiosity, but something which is very ... More

This chapter provides the domain of historical documents in order to explore how these boundaries of finance works. Such boundaries are not a mere historical curiosity, but something which is very much with us, and forcefully so. In the light of their historical development, the chapter explores the proliferation of cognitive intermediations, valuations, interpretations, and predictions of market movements. Returning to the issue of status groups, it asks whether, in an era of automated transactions, securities analysts will play an ever growing role as the prominent status group in financial markets. Recent financial scandals, as well as regulatory measures, suggest that this is already happening. With regard to the almost total dependence of contemporary financial transactions on sophisticated technological systems. The chapter raises the question of whether new forms of manipulation and deceit constitute the dark side of what is taken to be rationalization and progress. It also explores a whole series of phenomena, such as fascination with charismatic speculators. In an era of global markets, the boundaries of finance play a crucial role in legitimating both universal market expansion and reform projects, such as the ones concerning pension systems.Less

Rules, Tools, and Fools

Jim Paul and Brendan Moynihan

in What I Learned Losing a Million Dollars

This chapter categorizes the responses of the people in dealing with the uncertainty. When faced with an eminent risk, a person behaves like one of three personas: engineer, gambler, or speculator. ... More

This chapter categorizes the responses of the people in dealing with the uncertainty. When faced with an eminent risk, a person behaves like one of three personas: engineer, gambler, or speculator. The engineer builds safety margins into his calculations to eliminate any fringes of uncertainty. He controls most of the variables which affect the outcome of his work. The gambler knows nothing about the event on which the outcome of his gambling depends because the distinguishing feature of gambling is that it deals with the unknown. The speculator does not have the advantage of the engineer, but the speculator does know more than the gambler because while the gambler is dealing with pure chance, the speculator has some knowledge about what determines the outcome of his activity. The chapter encourages any investors to be a speculator, saying that successful trading is the result of successful speculation.Less

Abandoning the Stockholders

Lawrence E. Mitchell

in Corporate Irresponsibility: America`s Newest Export

This chapter argues that the key to unlocking long-term value in American corporations and to ensuring a governance and ownership structure which will provide for sustainable corporate productivity ... More

This chapter argues that the key to unlocking long-term value in American corporations and to ensuring a governance and ownership structure which will provide for sustainable corporate productivity and profitability is to break the bonds that tie managers to stockholders. It is also necessary to create incentives to keep stockholders invested in the long-term rather than as short-term speculators. The basic operating premise of American corporate law is that stockholders invest their money and in so doing cede control over the future of their investments to corporate management. The chapter reveals that in addition to the federal antifraud and insider trading laws, state corporation laws are full of rules coming under the general rubric of fiduciary duty that are designed to ensure that managers serve the corporation's interests and not their own.Less

Migration

Dan Allosso

in Peppermint Kings: A Rural American History

This chapter explains explain why migrants to western New York like the Ranney family looked farther west and bought parcels in Michigan even as they began making new farms in Phelps. It explores the ... More

This chapter explains explain why migrants to western New York like the Ranney family looked farther west and bought parcels in Michigan even as they began making new farms in Phelps. It explores the pattern of sparse frontier settlement that extended all the way to the French village and British garrison at Fort Detroit. It also discusses the acquisition of western lands that highlighted the competing agendas of rural settlers and urban speculators. The chapter talks about brothers Andrew, Nahum, and Archibald Burnett, who moved to Phelps after 1813 and became the source of the first peppermint planted in Western New York. It also deals with peppermints that were simultaneously planted and distilled around Phelps as it became economically important in Ashfield.Less

Realism in Financial Markets

William K. Tabb

in The Restructuring of Capitalism in Our Time

This chapter explains the nature of endogenous financial crises by drawing on an alternative approach offered by Hyman Minsky, with particular emphasis on his understanding of the incentives of ... More

This chapter explains the nature of endogenous financial crises by drawing on an alternative approach offered by Hyman Minsky, with particular emphasis on his understanding of the incentives of speculators and of financial cycles in relation to Frank Knight and John Maynard Keynes's stress on uncertainty. It discusses the main assumptions of Minsky's financial instability thesis, including the view that fragility grows over the extended period of prosperity as risk is rewarded, leading to the taking of greater risk. It also considers the “Minsky Moment,” when an overleveraged system encounters financial difficulties, along with the high cost of free financial markets. It suggests that debt-driven fiscal policy was not effective in rectifying the distortion to the economy caused by finance when the long-running accumulation by financialization faltered.Less

Interest Rate Defense against Speculative Attack as a Signal: A Primer

Allan Drazen (ed.)

in Managing Currency Crises in Emerging Markets

This chapter deals with an interest rate defense against a speculative attack on a currency regime. It argues that a major effect of high interest rates is to signal the government's willingness or ... More

This chapter deals with an interest rate defense against a speculative attack on a currency regime. It argues that a major effect of high interest rates is to signal the government's willingness or ability to defend the exchange rate against a potential crisis. It explores a class of models in which an interest rate defense alters the speculators' views of the type of government they face, introduces an alternative way of defending a currency system and considers the information an interest rate defense conveys about the ability of a government to defend.Less

The Stock Market Game in Post-war Britain

Kieran Heinemann

in Playing the Market: Retail Investment and Speculation in Twentieth-Century Britain

After World War II, the financial sector took a back seat in Britain’s political economy and Labour’s nationalization programme initially wiped out significant areas of investment. In the post-war ... More

After World War II, the financial sector took a back seat in Britain’s political economy and Labour’s nationalization programme initially wiped out significant areas of investment. In the post-war decades it was common for politicians of all parties to attack stock market operators as harmful gamblers. This anti-finance rhetoric has obscured our view of retail investment in those years in the way that it became almost invisible from public debate—and a historiography—that was dominated by nationalized industries, Keynesian demand management, and the welfare state. If anything, contemporaries were and scholars have been preoccupied with the ‘Cult of Equity’, the rapid growth of institutional investment at that time. While more private individuals ventured into the stock market—there were approximately 3 million direct shareholders by the early 1960s—their share of listed equity was declining. Hence, the small investor’s comeback went unnoticed in comparison with the shift of pension funds and life insurance companies from bonds into equities once markets had recovered by the mid-1950s. Investors small and large made and lost fortunes in two unprecedented boom markets while the burgeoning climate of affluence and permissiveness loosened traditional reservation against financial securities. More and more middle-class Britons not only invested in equities as a means of retirement planning, but also discovered the stock market as a hobby that offered thrills of risk and reward similar to gambling.Less