Author Archives: F. E. Guerra-Pujol

In other news, my streak of consecutive days blogging hit 1776 days while I was in Philadelphia this weekend! See here. P.S.: I also overheard this beautiful ballad for the first time — fittingly enough — somewhere in the City … Continue reading →

In my previous two posts (see here and here), we have seen why government overborrowing poses such a grave danger to the wealth of a nation. Today, we will take a look at Smith’s surprising and radical solution to this … Continue reading →

In the middle part of Book V, Chapter 3 of The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith restates and rebuts two contemporary arguments in defense of government borrowing. The first argument is a proto-Keynesian one: “The public funds of the different … Continue reading →

“The ordinary expence of the greater part of modern governments in time of peace being equal or nearly equal to their ordinary revenue, when war comes [governments] are both unwilling and unable to increase their revenue in proportion to the … Continue reading →

Adam Smith surveys several methods in Book V, Chapter 3 of The Wealth of Nations by which a government can borrow money. He begin his comprehensive survey with two types of public debt: “unfunded debts” (V.iii.11) and “mortaged debts” (V.iii.12), … Continue reading →

I began this series of daily Adam Smith blog posts (excluding Sundays) way back on January 2nd (see here), starting with Book I, Chapter 1 on The Wealth of Nations — the deservedly-famous “division of labour” chapter. Now, almost four … Continue reading →

Happy Easter Monday! Before we jump into the last chapter of The Wealth of Nations, I have to confess that Adam Smith’s 900-plus-page masterpiece has taken up a lot of my time these past few months. But that is not … Continue reading →

My translation of the title of this beautiful Spanish hymn: Everlasting Saviour

“The French system of taxation seems, in every respect, inferior to the British.” (WN, V.ii.k.78) For part 1, see here. Adam Smith concludes his lengthy survey of “Taxes upon consumable Commodities” in Chapter 2 of Book V of The Wealth … Continue reading →

Today is Good Friday or “Viernes Santo” in Spanish, the most solemn day in the Catholic liturgical year. As we saw in my previous post (see here), Adam Smith’s comprehensive survey of “Taxes upon Consumable Commodities” in Book V, Chapter … Continue reading →