Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2010 February 23

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February 23

General of Volunteers

What is the distinction between a General of Volunteers and a general in the regular (U.S.) army? Clarityfiend (talk) 03:21, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

It seems one major difference it that it was a temporary rank only applicable during the American Civil War See List of major generals in the United States Regular Army before July 1, 1920#Civil_War --203.63.130.37 (talk) 03:34, 23 February 2010 (UTC)(aka 220.101.28.25)

Harry C. Egbert might disagree with you, seeing as he was promoted Brigadier General of U.S. Volunteers in 1898, long after the Civil War. (I was working on his article.) Clarityfiend (talk) 03:53, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Whoops! (correction above!) 220.101.28.25 (talk) 07:28, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

The United States Volunteers was how the federal government raised a large national army in the 19th century. The US usually kept a small regular, professional army during peacetime; in wartime, the states organized Volunteer regiments for national service to supplement the regular army. These Volunteer regiments provided an opportunity for regular army officers like colonels and majors to get a temporary promotion to general. When the war ended, they would go back down to their regular army rank. A professional soldier would prefer to get a promotion to general in the regular army, of course, but you take what you can get. Starting with World War I, the federal government stopped creating Volunteer regiments and instead enlisted newbies right into the national army. —Kevin Myers 17:03, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Interesting. But would say a Major General of Volunteers be considered to outrank a regular brigadier general? Clarityfiend (talk) 22:52, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

That's where it gets tricky. The short answer is yes. But a major general of volunteers still held a specific rank in the regular army. In the Civil War, for example, Winfield Scott Hancock held the rank of major in the regular army while serving as a major general of volunteers. He was eventually promoted to brigadier general in the regular army. He got paid as a major general and was a major general as far as his subordinates were concerned. But a brigadier general under him might still outrank him (on paper) in the regular army although Hancock was serving in a higher grade. (The terms rank and grade and now conflated through popular misuse; we often mean "grade" when we say "rank".) I'm no expert on the 19th century army, so if I've made any mistakes, someone is sure to point them out.

Questions of rank were very sensitive matters among army officers and caused endless amounts of controversy. It dates back to colonial times, of course. When George Washington was a Virginia provincial colonel (essentially the "volunteers" of the day), he threatened to resign rather than take commands from a captain with a royal commission (the "regulars" of the day).

P.S. None of this has anything to do with militia, which was a different type of service. —Kevin Myers 03:25, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I hereby promote you to third lieutenant of Wikipedia volunteers, with all the generous pay and privileges that lofty rank entails. Clarityfiend (talk) 04:49, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, I really needed the pay increase. It's hard to live on my Wikpedia paycheck. Now if I can only get a brevet promotion to captain so I can order around the other lieutenants.... —Kevin Myers 22:32, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

History of RAF Molesworth

I as at RAF Molesworth from Sept 1955 through June 1957.During that time we had B29s flying from there. At sometime in 1956 or early 1957 the last B29 in England left Molesworth and Princess Margaret was there as hostess for the retirement ceremony of the last B29. Does anybody have any information about this as I keep coming up against the brick wall on this item. Thank you very much. ^^^^ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.18.124.113 (talk) 05:05, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

These B29s would have belonged to the 582nd Air Resupply and Communications Wing. Perhaps a USAF historian or archivist would be able to help you find more information or records. FiggyBee (talk) 05:50, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Where is English Poetry Now ?

What is the position of Englsih poetry in contemporary times ? What does the reader who reads poetry expects to read ? If we see poetry in New Yorker etc we see it is not something that would appeal to the taste of Shelley, Byron or Tennyson would they be living today ? Why it is that no one writes like they did, or even like Eliot did write ? Is it so that even if today someone could write like Shelley did, no one would read it - the people having grown up too much for the kind of taste they had a hundred years ago ?  Jon Ascton  (talk) 14:49, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I am afraid that your questions may require a speculative answer, which is not the purpose of the RD.--ProteanEd (talk) 16:25, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Re the reader: You might be interested in the following public poetry programs: Poems on the Underground, Poetry in Motion, Poetry on the Way. Their selections, and the feedback, seem to indicate that the modern reader enjoys an eclectic range of styles from a range of time periods.

Re the writer: Our article Poetry suggests that, as with many arts, poetry styles and forms have followed certain trends in different times and places. See Fashion, Fads and trends and Memetics for a little bit about this social phenomenon. It's not a matter of growing up but of changing popularity. Best, WikiJedits (talk) 16:38, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Probably the tradition of written "literary" poetry is more of a tiny niche market and definite minority taste among English-language readers than was the case in many past historical periods (it's notorious that poetry journals are perpetual money-losers), but to compensate there has been the rise of poetry slams etc. AnonMoos (talk) 00:19, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps the lyrics in popular music are being overlooked as poetry. Sure, the delivery isn't the same, but I think people look at the meaning in the words the same way. Aaronite (talk) 04:09, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

What would happen if Byron or Shelley would come back today ? Would they be as popular as they were then ? Or what would net effect be if someone could write as good as they did ?  Jon Ascton  (talk) 04:42, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

As when this question is asked about Mozart, they'd be writing pop songs. Possibly indie rock. 86.177.121.239 (talk) 12:48, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Energy Suppression Conspiracy

In this article, what part of the economic system would break down and how they theorize it would? -

"Variations on the energy suppression conspiracy state that free energy cannot be allowed in a capitalist system because the economic system would break down if it were introduced." --Reticuli88 (talk) 15:01, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

And why do they state only capitalist systems? Wouldn't other systems be affected too? --Reticuli88 (talk) 15:02, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

They are apparently working from the notion that in a socialist or communist system, the government provides energy for free to the public. So, they already have free energy. However, it isn't the same as truly free energy. Truly free energy will allow any person to use as much energy as he or she likes with no charge. In a rationed system where the government provides free energy to the people, a user may only use the amount of energy rationed and no more (unless the user find a corrupt politician to provide more energy). So, truly free energy would collapse any economic system - either where the system exists by the funding of the users or it is rationed and funded by the government. This is really a very similar stance used for any "We need to socialize...." argument. -- kainaw™ 15:27, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

But why would the economic system collaspe? --Reticuli88 (talk) 15:30, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

The writer apparently believes that current capitalist economies are based entirely on energy. Remove energy and there is nothing to base the economies on anymore. You can decide how much you agree with the predicate for the writer's argument. Consider the United States economic history and see if disruption of a major part of the economy in the past has brought about complete collapse. Some examples to consider: loss of steel industry, loss of textile industry, unionizing labor, and loss of slavery in slave-based economies. -- kainaw™ 15:42, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

A system (any system) would not collapse in the presence of free energy. In fact, the opposite would occur: productivity would skyrocket. For an example, look at software (much of which is free). Linux, Flash, WinZip, and Wikipedia have not caused a collapse in any industry. In fact, each has contributed to the growth of both software and non-software industries. Wikiant (talk) 15:57, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

While I don't think that inventors of perpetual motion machines are being knocked off, I think you could fairly say that big oil and big coal are using their political and financial muscle to keep things business as usual for as long as possible, so in that sense they are suppressing "certain renewable technologies (such as solar cells and biofuels) and other efficient technologies (as electric vehicles)". New technologies don't cause breakdowns of the overall economy - quite the opposite in fact - but they can threaten the business models of existing companies. FiggyBee (talk) 17:14, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Free energy would not cause the complete collapse of the world economy, but it would cause a massive upheaval. A large number of businesses would suddenly become much smaller. There would still be scarce resources on which to base the economy, though. The most obvious one is man-hours. There are plenty of things which need a person to spend time on them, however much energy you have available. --Tango (talk) 17:54, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

If the government is providing something, it is not "free", it's coming from tax dollars. The more goods and services the government provides, the higher your taxes are. I wish I knew where anyone gets this idea that something coming from the government is "free". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:32, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

In this thread, "free" is being used in the context of the Free energy suppression article. Comet Tuttle (talk) 22:43, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I understand that. And it's a delusion. Everything has a cost. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:15, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Ok, If I were going to try to explain it to someone else, I would say that if Free Energy was available, it would/can cause the oil and coal industries to collaspe, put millions out of a job because of this and the demand for human labor would be de-valued and decrease. However, as with the free software, it can cause massive productivity in other areas of the economy(?) thus evening itself out eventually? Please correct my mistakes. --Reticuli88 (talk) 20:13, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Petroleum is an incredibly useful product, even beyond its use as a fuel. In fact, given the things that can be done with it (making plastics especially, as well as lubricants and tar) it's really pretty shameful that we burn most of it.

Well, that is why refineries take out the tar and lubricants from the raw oil. Those things don't burn so well anyways. Googlemeister (talk) 14:19, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

And even with free energy, it may not be of a type easily used to fly a plane, for example. This free energy machine would likely be used to make electricity to distribute over the grid. This would certainly deal a huge blow to coal, but oil isn't used much to generate electricity. It's mostly used as a fuel where it's not convenient to carry around a massive battery or nuclear reactor or steam engine or whatever. Buddy431 (talk) 04:47, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Go back through this entire thread and substitute "air" for "energy." The results are quite different. DOR (HK) (talk) 05:19, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

That's an interesting thought experiment, indeed! It's like holding banknotes under an ultraviolet light; you can see differences in the arguments that are not so easy to see normally. One argument even invites this replacement with the word "everything":

It's a delusion that air is free. Everything has a cost.

This is true; anyone who has heard about air pollution knows the cost. But it's quite a different thing, that's an external cost, which does not figure in the GDP, and not something industry lobbyists want to talk about. — Sebastian 07:22, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Dress code of wearing a veil

Can it - in some Muslim countries - be compared to the Western dress code of wearing a short skirt vs. long skirt? The article linked above do not provide detailed information. I know that in some countries, women are required to wear one. But what about more liberal Muslim countries like Jordan or Morocco? --Non Zero-sum Ed (talk) 18:39, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't have time to read through this, but we have an article on veils in Muslim culture: Niqāb. I would also like to remind you that there are far more liberal Muslim countries as well, like Bosnia and Albania where they practice an almost secular Islam. TomorrowTime (talk) 21:12, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Article List of types of sartorial hijab has problems, but provides a kind of overview. However, I'm not really sure what "Western dress code" you're referring to... AnonMoos (talk) 00:13, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

You may be interested in Hijab by country. From that article:

The hijab has different legal and cultural statuses in various countries. <...> Tunisia since 1981, and Turkey since 1997, are the only Muslim countries which have banned the hijab. In other Muslim states such as Morocco, there has been some restriction or discrimination against women who wear the hijab. The hijab in these cases is seen as a sign of political Islam or fundamentalism against secular government.

Islamic dress, notably the variety of headdresses worn by Muslim women, has become a prominent symbol of the presence of Islam in western Europe. In several countries this adherence to hijab has led to political controversies and proposals for a legal ban.<...> The issue has different names in different countries, and "the veil" or "hijab" may be used as general terms for the debate, representing more than just the veil itself, or the concept of modesty embodied in hijab.

In that there are, in some countries, legal restrictions and requirements regarding hijab, it is unlike the length of skirts. However, I'm not quite sure what you mean by comparing the latter to a dress code. Skirts are not mandated by law anywhere I can think of, so are you thinking of school uniforms or a corporate explicit or implicit dress codes? With regard to fashion or individual choice, yes of course there are connections between what an individual wears and what she wishes to express. In Iran, for example, women are required to cover their hair, but some push back their chador. You mention two other countries, and the article above gives brief information:

Jordan: There are no laws requiring the wearing of headscarves nor any banning such from any public institution. The use of the headscarf increased during the 1980s, however the use of the headscarf among the Jordanian population stands at 60%. Veils covering the face are rare. The chador is worn by members of the older generations but its popularity is declining. It is widely believed that the hijab is increasingly becoming more of a fashion statement in Jordan than a religious one with Jordanian women wearing colorful, stylish head scarves along with western style clothing.

Morocco: The headscarf is not encouraged by governmental institutions, and generally frowned upon by urban middle and higher classes but it is not forbidden by law. The headscarf is becoming gradually more frequent in the north, but as it is not traditional, to wear one is considered rather a religious or political decision. In 2005, a schoolbook for basic religious education was heavily criticized for picturing female children with headscarfs.

NB the niqāb referred to above is a veil that covers the face; worldwide, only a small minority of Muslim women do this. BrainyBabe (talk) 13:18, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Midrash available in translation, online

Particularly interested in Midrash Rabba and Midrash Samuel... anyone know if they're available? Thanks! ╟─TreasuryTag►constablewick─╢ 19:05, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Highly doubt it -- it may even be difficult to get such translations in print. DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 01:52, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, I've found some CD-Roms of it for sale (produced by the same people who created this and do this), but they're for hundreds of dollars... :( ╟─TreasuryTag►voice vote─╢ 06:59, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

School Project.

My godson is doing a project about currency at school.

He needs to know what the old Spanish Ducat is worth in todays English Pounds.

Please could you help. ?

Thanking you in anticipation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mrs J C Depp II (talk • contribs) 19:22, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

See Ducat. A ducat contained 0.1107 oz (troy) of gold, which today (Feb 23 2010) is worth £79.15. According to our article, a ducat was equivalent to 9/4 in 1913, which (depending on which measure of inflation you use) would equate to approx £38 today. Tevildo (talk) 19:53, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

...which would mean that the currency is/was worth less than the material it was made of? --KageTora - (影虎) (A word...?) 15:41, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, but only because the (relative) price of gold has increased a great deal over the past 97 years. According to [1] this site, 1 oz of gold was worth £3/17/10 in 1913, making the intrinsic value of a ducat only 5/3½ back then. Tevildo (talk) 20:52, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Arabic surnames

is there a website where it shows the Arabic names that identifies his/her nationality or religion for example a) Arabic surnames-pure Lebanese? b) Arabic surnames-pure Egyptian? c) Arabic surnames-pure Saudi Arabian? d) Arabic surnames-pure Emirati? e) Arabic surnames-pure Kuwaiti? f) Arabic surnames-pure Qatari? g) Arabic surnames-pure Omani? h) Arabic surnames-pure Yemeni? i) Arabic surnames-pure Syrian? j) Arabic surnames-pure Iraqi? k) Arabic surnames-pure Jordanian? l) Arabic surnames-pure Palestinian? m) Arabic surnames-pure Libyan? n) Arabic surnames-pure Moroccan? o) Arabic surnames-pure Algerian? p) Arabic surnames-pure Tunisian? q) Arabic surnames-pure Sudanese? r) Arabic surnames-pure Mauritanian? s) Arabic surnames-pure Bahraini? t) Arabic surnames-pure Comorian? u) Arabic surnames-pure Sunni Muslim? v) Arabic surnames-pure Shi'a Muslim? x) Arabic surnames-pure Christian? y) Arabic surnames-pure Druze? z) Arabic surnames-pure alawites? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.64.53.96 (talk) 19:22, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Some things to be aware of are that traditionally, and I'm no expert on this, what Europeans call surnames didn't really exist in exactly the same form in the Arabic-speaking world and many parts of the Islamic world; some surnames are shared across multiple countries; and there same underlying proper noun could be pronounced differently (hence transcribed into the Roman alphabet differently) even if written identically in the Arabic alphabet.--Dpr (talk) 23:43, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

The "purity" you seem to be looking for probably simply doesn't exist in the majority of cases. There are a lot of non-Egyptians named مصري etc. (though there may be few Muslims named صليبي). -- AnonMoos (talk) 00:10, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

possibly offensive question -- don't read if easily offended: Does slavery make business sense?

forgetting the ethical/legal aspect of it, insofar as it is possible for a company to get away with actual slavery and not be fined/not have the public find out and punish them, does it actually make sense, from a strictly business/financial/economic/monetary/fiscal perspective, to practice slavery? Or, on the contrary, did slave-owners in the past thereby show business ignorance, since it didn't actually make business sense for them to do that? (Obviously there is a third alternative: that it made business sense then, but not anymore. I'm open to this possibility as well).

Thank you for an economic wisdom you have. I apologize for anyone who might be offended by this question; obviously it is morally repugnant. I am asking purely from a business perspective. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.153.231.223 (talk) 20:24, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Going to Google Scholar and looking for slavery profitability yields many books on the subject. Most are unfortunately behind paywalls. It appears that the question was hotly debated in the US before the Civil War (and, apparently, ever since). Comet Tuttle (talk) 20:34, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Sure, of course it used to make loads of business sense for people with more avarice than compassion. Vranak (talk) 20:38, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Slavery still exists. Where it does exist, it is profitable (or it wouldn't exist). Even child slavery is profitable. If you toss out ethics and legality, you can make just about anything profitable. -- kainaw™ 20:41, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Incidentally, I should point out that, should you begin operating a slave system, the potential penaltes are way more severe than "being fined/have the public find out" – ╟─TreasuryTag►draftsman─╢ 20:43, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

It has been argued that slavery in Dixie would not have been profitable if the owners had to pay the full costs of enforcement; it was subsidized by taxes (I'm not aware of any tax on slaves to support enforcement) and by drafting poor whites into slave patrols (as militia duty). —Tamfang (talk) 20:57, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

It is not a priori obvious that slavery is more profitable than all other labor situations. For example, if you have to feed, clothe, and provide medical care to your slaves, that can be rather expensive. If buying slaves itself is expensive (as it was in the U.S. South once the trade had ended), then the individual slave becomes a target of high investment. Depending on the work, educating an individual slave to perform the required tasks is also resource intensive. Now take into account that once you have invested your resources into a slave, you can't actually just make arbitrary demands of them, and injuring or killing them is equivalent to attacking your farm machinery. Kenneth Stampp's The Peculiar Institution (1956) devotes a lot of time to this particular issue. Even if you do the bare minimum, and treat your slaves quite poorly (which Stampp argues was done, mind you), it is still a considerable economic investment, and would require a high output to be profitable. (That is, it is not "just profit" simply because you aren't paying wages.)

Contrast this sort of high-investment slavery with, say, low-investment Taylorism, where you have a large, unskilled labor force that you don't have to care for at all, and who require little to no training. (Or compare it to, say, the kinds of systems that exist with illegal farm labor—where you are not even paying into government programs, have labor that is basically expendable, and can pay well under the minimum wage.) There is a long debate about whether the economics of slavery in the South would have dictated its collapse within a few decades no matter what had happened in the Civil War, because it only really worked for the particular industry of cotton, and would not have been adaptable to mass-production or factory work. In many ways, a better way to think about this is, "under what economic conditions is slavery profitable?", which is a somewhat different question. --Mr.98 (talk) 21:45, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

the other issue to be considered is relative profitability. Even if a particular system of slavery is profitable, it is likely more profitable (for everyone) to educate the slaves and release them into the workforce as free agents. part of the rationale behind chattel slavery was that the slaves in question were mentally/morally incapable of establishing themselves as free/equal participants in society. Without that assertion, any rational business owner would recognize that it's more cost effective to hire willing participants in an enterprise than to force unwilling participants. --Ludwigs2 22:08, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I would think slavery is less profitable than animal husbandry. (i know the comparison is offensive but that's the closest. Domestication of animals for work, like the oxen and horse can be likened to slavery. For one, you cannot consume the slave as food (assuming we still consider cannabalism as immoral), and it's harder to breed human slaves (assuming they have the conscience to resist or sabotage breeding efforts). As you can see the main difference is that humans have conscience and will probably resist and cause all kinds of problems. --Kvasir (talk) 22:35, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Additionally humans have very long development cycles. It takes a lot more time, energy, and other resources to turn a baby into a working human. A cow, by contrast, is pretty much grown by the age of three. Humans are maybe the most difficult animal you could imagine trying to treat in this way, both for their long and difficult development periods and their general intelligence. --Mr.98 (talk) 01:52, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

It takes a lot more time, energy, and other resources to turn a baby into a working human - wow, Pablo Picasso had completely the opposite viewpoint: It takes a long time to become young. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 11:31, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I think the biggest problem with slavery is that you aren't paying your workers enough to buy the stuff you are making. In the long run all businesses benefit from a wealthy population who demand more and more goods as their real income rises203.214.82.99 (talk) 11:38, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Then why do businessmen fight minimum-wage laws? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:45, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, that's rubbish. How can a firm survive by selling mostly to its own employees? It has to buy supplies too. Put another way, if you pay your labor less, you pay your stockholders more; the total amount that the population can spend is the same. —Tamfang (talk) 22:08, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Looking only at the economies of a morally repugnant system: The slaves on an antebellum farm or plantation were often more valuable than the owner's house and all its furnishings, and likely more valuable than the entire property. A 19th century book on slavery economy (I do not have it handy) went through long analyses of the economies of slavery and compared the cost and productivity of slaves to that of hired hands doing the same work, and compare it to indentured servants. One problem with a hired hand or an indentured servant(after his term of service was up) is that he would likely try to go into competition, driving down profits. Much of slavery (as on cane plantations "down the river") was a wanton using up of the health and life of the slave, but in other situations the owners took the long view and sought to keep them productive and healthy. Incentive payment was common, wherein the slave got some money to keep, and had the possibility (in theory)of buying his own and his family's freedom eventually (more likely if he was a highly skilled worker rather than simply a laborer). This was a common but confusing practice, since slaves had no right to own any property, not even the money they were given. I expect that if an owner seized the money he had given the slave, he would be likely to get his house set on fire or his throat cut, if the slave was around to do it. The owner would be giving up some money (and a reduced period of forced labor, if freedom were eventually purchased) in exchange for higher productivity [2]. The OP noted that slave owners were subsidized by the public expense of enforcing the slavery (patrols, etc) and states that they did not pay property tax on the slaves. The part about not paying a tax on the slaves is plain wrong, since there were taxes when they were sold, licensing fees for skilled slaves, and ad valorem or poll taxes on slaves [3]. Now consider the free workers in California described in The Grapes of Wrath, which was largely based on problems actually seen in the 1930's. The owners of farms in California advertised and brought in more workers than were needed, so that they could drive down wages to less than a living wage, with no worries about having enough pickers if the picker or his children starved. Law enforcement was there for crowd control and to beat up strikers or organizers, apparently at public expense. Edison (talk) 15:26, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

There is strong circumstantial evidence that slavery is not profitable in the modern world. Not only is slavery illegal throughout the world, but it also is almost completely nonexistent, with two exceptions. First, sex slavery continues to exist. There apparently are special considerations here that do not apply to slavery more generally. Second, in a few countries, primarily in Africa, de facto traditional slavery persists. These, however, are countries that have relatively minimal participation in the modern economy. If slavery were profitable, one would expect it to be found more widely, even in the face of legal prohibitions.

De Tocqueville's discussion of slavery in Democracy in America suggests that slave states were at an economic disadvantage to free states. He contrasted the prosperity of Ohio with the relatively less prosperous state of Kentucky, just across the Ohio River. He implied that slaveowners supported slavery not for its economic benefits, but because they preferred a slave-owning society. John M Baker (talk) 17:16, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

"O come, let's sing Ohio's praise...". Nyttend (talk) 03:26, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

A fell 5% with respect to C, B fell 4% with respect to C, does it mean that B gained with respect to A?

today's wall street journal mentioned that the euro fell 5% with respect to the US dollar, then it mentioned that the pound sterling fell 4% with respect to the US dollar, then it mentioned that the pound, however, rose modestly with respect to the euro. My question is: doesn't this third thing follow?

I'm not quite seeing the relationships clearly, though, so maybe it could be that the euro falls 5% with respect to the dollar, the pound falls 4% with respect to the dollar, but that the pound also falls with respect to the euro. is this possible somehow? It's hard for me to actually picture the equations, since I don't know what "value" really means. can someone explain which alternative is correct in a way I can understand? thank you. 84.153.231.223 (talk) 21:24, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I think that if B falls less than A in percentage terms with respect to C, then B inevitably rises with respect to A. Probably the news report reported the latter change, even though it follows from the previous set of changes, just to spare readers the need to do mental algebra. Marco polo (talk) 21:40, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

... and just to put numbers to the logic, imagine one starts with $100 worth each of € and £. After the falls, the euros are worth $95 and the pounds are worth $96, so the pounds are worth 96/95 times as many euros as before. This is a rise of just over 1% (actually about 1.052631579%) (FWIW). If, for some technical reason, this balance is not quite achieved across the various markets, then someone like George Sorros will make a lot of money! Dbfirs 22:10, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

can you give me an example of how for technical reasons the balance could not be achieved? ie an hypothetical (albeit arbitrage inducing) situation where it would work in the other way? (the pound also falling with respect to the euro?) Or, do you just mean the caveat you adding starting with "if, for some technical reason..." as a way of saying that you haven't thought it out in full rigor either, but it couldn't happen anyway? Thanks. 84.153.231.223 (talk) 22:18, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

There is no example. It's mathematically impossible. The illusion of it occurring might result if the valuations were "fixed" at different points during the same day, so that someone could report, "Today the pound rose against the dollar by 2%, the euro rose against the dollar by 1%, and the euro rose against the pound by 3%." That is, the reporter might fix the values at 6 AM, 12 noon, and 6 PM local time, with this semantic result. But the values float constantly, so they are never truly "fixed." At any given moment, relative to a specific past moment, there's no example for wht you describe because it's impossible. 63.17.89.64 (talk) 01:09, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

As you say, it can't happen with floating currencies. It can happen with fixed currencies. Dbfirs was making a reference to Black Wednesday, when the British government attempted to keep the pound fixed at an unrealistic value creating what was essentially an arbitrage. Soros used that arbitrage to make an enormous amount of money at the British government's expense. (I am, of course, massively simplifying the situation, but you get the idea.) --Tango (talk) 01:15, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Sorry I didn't get back to give my own answer, and thanks to Tango for explaining. No, I didn't intend to imply that, with modern communication, a significant imbalance between currencies could exist for more than a few micro-seconds. In earlier (slower) times, I think there were people who made lots of money by watching discrepancies between currency conversions on different exchanges. These days it could only happen in a financial crisis with a breakdown of communications. Dbfirs 11:35, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Instinctively, we tend to think of exchange rates as being two sides of a traditional scale—two dishes on either side, and if one is heavier, the other rises. Now, think of the same model, but with three (or thirty) different dishes. When several are influenced at the same time, the results may be irregular. Hence, the dollar may rise against the euro, fall against the yen and remain stable vis-à-vis the renminbi.

Yes, that happens regularly, but for floating currencies with a free market, this implies a specific movement of the euro against the yen (and the yuan/renminbi), otherwise someone will make a fortune just by circular trading. Dbfirs 08:02, 25 February 2010 (UTC)