Performing public credit at the eighteenth-century Bank of England

Much is known about the negotiation of personal credit relationships during the eighteenth century. It has been noted how direct contact and observation allowed individuals to assess the creditworthiness of those with whom they had financial connections and to whom they might lend money. Much less is known about one of the most important credit relationships of the long eighteenth century: that between the state and its creditors. This article shows that investors could experience the performance of public credit at the Bank of England. By 1760 the Bank was the manager of nearly three-quarters of the state's debt and housed the main secondary market in that debt. Thus, it provided a place for public creditors, both current and potential, to attend and scrutinize the performance of the state's promises. The article demonstrates how the Bank acted to embody public credit through its architecture, internal structures, and imagery and through the very visible actions of its clerks and the technologies that they used to record ownership and transfer of the national debt. The Bank of England, by those means, allowed creditors to interrogate the financial stability and reputation of the state in the same ways that they could interrogate the integrity of a private debtor.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

Providence Rally Speech

Speech for a campaign rally at Providence, RI, September 29, 1984.https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/vice_presidential_campaign_speeches_1984/1148/thumbnail.jp

The Magic Mirror - The Fashionista's world-view (and the rest of humanity's)

In this lecture, LCF Visiting Professor Peter York, author, journalist and broadcaster, looks at the contrasting attitudes to fashion amongst: 'fashionistas' (i.e. fashion professionals - but particularly high-end fashion journalists), and the rest of humankind. He argues that 'fashionistas' are - most of them - "quite astonishingly different" from the rest of humankind. This is a function of: * their 'expert' role * their place in the fashion market process * their milieu * their 'wardrobe opportunities' * their aesthetic education. 'Fashionistas', quite literally, see the world differently and talk about clothes differently. This means their reporting of fashion brings different criteria to bear, most of which are unacknowledged. Key differences are: * (at least while they're working) fashionistas develop the tastes of extremely rich women, and are enabled to satisfy them * fashionista language develops its own codes, distorting the meanings of familiar words (e.g. 'sexy') and introducing others (e.g. 'directional'), which only work in fashionland. * a total inability to acknowledge the role of age, class, the workplace or any other real world factors in real women's fashion options. The rest of humanity (broadly women readers of fashion coverage) have lives. These lives, situations and finances shape their views of fashion and their choices. Their concerns and language are wonderfully different from those of most 'fashionistas'. The misunderstandings between these contrasting world-views are richly comic and deeply sad

'Exclusive' Brethren: an Educational Dilemma.

An article from 1990 on the Exclusive Brethren and Education, particularly focusing on the ICT National Curriculum regulations that came out at that time, since Exclusive Brethren parents wished to withdraw their children from ICT on conscientious grounds. The paper follows their arguments. An update from 2007 has been added

What Does the Public Know about Economic Policy, and How Does It Know It?

opinion, policy, influence, politicians

What Does the Public Know about Economic Policy, and How Does It Know It?

A long tradition in economic theory models economic policy decisions as solutions to optimization problems solved by rational and well-informed agents: A single policymaker minimizes a loss function subject to some constraints. Another body of literature models policy decisions as if they were made by well-informed voters in elections of some sort.

What Does the Public Know about Economic Policy, and How Does It Know It?

Public opinion influences politicians, and therefore influences public policy decisions. What are the roles of self-interest, knowledge, and ideology in public opinion formation? And how do people learn about economic issues? Using a new, specially-designed survey, we find that most respondents express a strong desire to be well informed on economic policy issues, and that television is their dominant source of information. On a variety of major policy issues (e.g., taxes, social security, health insurance), ideology is the most important determinant of public opinion, while measures of self-interest are the least important. Knowledge about the economy ranks somewhere in between.