The nature of capital and income

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 102659555X

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-82920

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Fisher, Irving http://d-nb.info/gnd/118533541

Title:: The nature of capital and income

Place of publication:: New York

Publisher:: The Macmillan Company

Year of publication:: 1923

Scope:: XXI, 427 Seiten

Digitisation:: 2019

Collection:: Economics Books

Usage license:: Get license information via the feedback formular.

Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Part II. Income

Collection:: Economics Books

132 NATURE OF CAPITAL AND INCOME [Cmar. VIII much income or outgo comes from ‘cash’ we need only follow the well-established usage of bookkeepers which regards a stock of cash as though it were a gold mine which, consequently, is to be credited with all the gold or cash which comes out of it, and debited with all that goes into it. This usage often puzzles the novice, but its cor- rectness is undoubted and it harmonizes with our defini- tion of services and disservices. For the services or desirable events which come from one’s stock of cash — the events, in fact, for the sake of which that stock of cash exists — are the furnishing of money from time to time; the disservices, or the undesirable events occasioned by that stock of cash, are the absorption by it of money from time to time. In other words, my purse serves me whenever it pays my bills; it costs me whenever I, so to speak, pay its bills. In this respect it is precisely similar to any other stock of wealth. A bin of coal serves its owner when it renders him fuel; it costs him when it has to be filled. The cost may be the sacrifice of money, of labor, or of coal taken from some other store of coal. In the case before us, the income from “cash,” or all the payments the lawyer takes out of his pocket-book or check book, amounts, let us say, to $3780, whereas the outgo to “cash” — all sums paid to it — amounts to $4000, leaving $220 as a net outgo. The claim on the servants, like the lease of the house, involves an obligation to pay as well as a right to receive. We shall suppose that the servants render services during the month worth $100, and also cost $100 in wages, leav- ing no net balance. Similarly the office clerks cost $500 in wages and yield $500 worth of assistance to the lawyer in the preparation of his cases. The man himself receives from his practice during the month $2000. But his office and professional expenses amount to $500 and leave a balance of $1500. The class called “ete.” comprises all sources of income not other-

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