Background: Ultimately, if one looks deeply enough, the market value of an investment is a function of interest rates. Market value is a specific term, and neither price nor cost is a complete synonym. How often does someone buy a new car at full MSRP? And, technically, cost is what you buy something for minus…
Continued . . . In the mid 1600’s the Dutch Republic was beginning its climb to global power. The Dutch traders, having a monopoly of trade with Japan and the East Indies, had become the middlemen between European nations and the Far East. For a period, Amsterdam’s population was doubling every 20 years (an annual…
Continued from Part 1… The late 1500’s, following the Eighty Years War, and most of the 1600’s were Amsterdam’s apogee. It was then, no longer concerned with Spanish warships, that Dutch merchantmen sailed over most of the known world, alert for new sources of rare spices. They returned from Indonesia with pepper, cloves and nutmeg.…