-Economics

+a study of mankind in the ordinary business of life

+it examines that part of individual and social action which is most closely connected
with the attainment and with the use of the material requisites of wellbeing
+it is on one side a study of wealth
+a part of the study of man
+study of exchange and production
+Economics is the social science that examines how people choose to use limited or
scarce resources in attempting to satisfy their unlimited wants

-Utopias
+they have no room for economics and they do not work in the real world
+eliminate scarcity by assuming abundance
+There is so much poverty in the world today that visions of abundance seem far-fetched
+want needs to be eliminated

Schenk, Robert: Introduction to Economics: Copyright Robert Schenk: November 23,

2008: http://ingrimayne.com/econ/Introduction/Overview1.html

-Victorian Industries
+industrial dominance was such in the middle of the nineteenth century that the phrase is
legitimate
+produced perhaps two thirds of the world's coal, perhaps half its iron, five sevenths of
its small supply of steel, about half of such cotton cloth

- Bank of England
+ competed with other private banks, both in the capital and in the provinces, and
sometimes speculated as irresponsibly as any other investor
+it led to a stock market panic and financial crash in 1847
+the bank withdrew from the speculative market, fixing instead a minimum discount rate
that, along with a statutory level of gold reserves for currency issues, controlled to some
extent the expansion and contraction of credit

-Poverty
+gradual, uneven, but measurable improvement in the standard of living, especially
towards the end of the century
+very weighty economic and social hardship concerning the day to day lives of Victorian
laborers, who constituted the bulk of the population
+Wages are always referenced in historical material in shillings and pence, usually per
week
Wheat Bread
Weekly Bread Multiple of
Price Purchasing
Year Wage Earner Wages Price Speenhamland
s/d per   Power
s/d d/lb Allowance
quarter lb/day/person
1450 Agricultural Laborer 2/0 5/11.75 0.15 22.94 6.17 Rogers (32
 1450 Carpenter, Mason 3/0 5.11.75 0.15 34.41 9.25 Rogers (32
1795 Speenhamland Allowance 3/0 -- 1.38 3.72 1.00 Hammond
1798 Handloom Weaver 30/0 74/0 1.85 27.80 7.47 Gaskell (37
1831 Handloom Weaver 5/6 83/0 2.08 4.53 1.22 Gaskell (37
1833 Factory Worker (Textile) 33/8 -- 1.93 29.90 8.04 Baines (44
1843 Factory Worker (Pottery) 39/0 -- 1.80 37.14 9.98 Pike (196)
1865 Town Laborer 3/9 -- 1.80 3.57 0.96 Porter (176
1865 Carpenter, Mason 6/6 -- 1.80 6.19 1.66 Porter (176
1865 Engineer 7/6 -- 1.80 7.14 1.92 Porter (176
1899 Rowntree Subsistence 3/3 -- 1.32 4.22 1.13 Rowntree (
1912 Carriage Washer 19/6 -- 1.30 25.71 6.91 Reeves (13
1912 Delivery Courier 26/0 -- 1.30 34.29 9.22 Reeves (13

+By 1865 the purchasing power of even a skilled town laborer working his trade had
fallen

Victorian Economics: An Overview: Last modified May 7 2006: The Victorian Web:
http://www.victorianweb.org/economics/index.html