Cost of living in German towns

The nature of capital and income

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 866449027

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-93831

Document type:: Monograph

Title:: Cost of living in German towns

Place of publication:: London

Publisher:: Stat. Off.

Year of publication:: 1908

Scope:: 1 Online-Ressource (LXI, 548 Seiten)

Collection:: Economics Books

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

Skc. 2] INCOME SUMMATION 143 DistrisuTioN LEDGER No. 2 Net Income for 1900 Tron IAnA cites vin ene on wikia ore $ 2:000,000,000 “ buildings De wat elite heise 2,000,000,000 “ yailwaysandtramways. . . . +. . + . 1,000,000,000 lactoTIBE Caf ee et Re Te i 1,000,000,000 HE SPOISOMB. iv vo ol miiwiine welts Sw iw siwedinsiw 13,000,000,000 Obl Le ein ie mie eae ee 1,000,000,000 $20,000,000,000 § 2 Both these ledgers would be constructed by combining a number of separate net incomes, each one of which was the balance remaining after deducting the outgo from the gross income of the particular group of capital considered. In other words, both ledgers would be constructed — to adopt the phrase which was employed under capital accounts — by the “method of balances.” But there is also a second method of summing incomes, — the “method of couples.” Just as the same item in capital accounts is both asset and liability, according to the point of view, and is, therefore, self-canceling, so the same item in income accounts is both service and disservice, and is, there- fore, also self-canceling. The reader may, in fact, have felt that, in many of the examples cited, what we called dis- services seemed to him to be services. He may have asked himself, Why should we call rebuilding a house a disservice ? When a carpenter and his tools repair it, do we not credit him and them with services? Is not any production a service? Are not, then, repairs placed on the wrong side of the ledger? In answer it may be said that when a car- penter with his plane, hammer, and saw helps to rebuild a house, we have to consider two groups of capital. One group, the carpenter and tools, is acting on the other group, the house. The carpenter and tools used in the process certainly perform a service, but the house does not. Con- sidered as occasioned by the house, the repairs are dis- services. The house absorbs or soaks up these costs,

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