Tea at Trianon: The Mouse That Roared

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Monday, July 23, 2018

The Mouse That Roared

From Return to Order:

The name of this tiny victorious model is a kirana.And the vibrant market is India’s 1.3 billion people with their rising incomes. Kiranas are small family-run shops and vendors found on every city street in India. They are usually the size of a one-car garage and their walls are lined from top to bottom with an amazing variety of goods. These mom-and-pop wonders control 90 percent of the nation’s retail market. Despite repeated attempts to break their hold, giant retailers have hardly put a dent in their market share.

The secret to the kirana’s success is scale. They cannot compete with the huge economy of scale enjoyed by giant retailers that buy massive amounts of goods cheaply. However, they save money on their smallness. They have little overhead. They employ family members and pay lower wages for other help. Usually there is little or no rent involved since the shopkeepers may own their small properties. Their volume of sales insures they have little or no inventory expenses. Thus, their overhead costs are half that of major supermarkets. With these advantages, kiranas will often undercut the prices of the giant retailers. (Read more.)