Seeking History
This rich and sometimes hilarious subculture rewards peculiar interests and outright obsessions-one dealer specializes in shrunken heads; another wants all the postal memorabilia he can get. So Avery must be a guerrilla historian and use his hard-earned knowledge of America's past to live by and off his wits.
Only the smartest survive in one of America's most ruthless meritocracies. Killer Stuff and Tons of Money is many things: Read more Read less. Kindle Cloud Reader Read instantly in your browser. Customers who bought this item also bought. Page 1 of 1 Start over Page 1 of 1. Pick Your Way to a Fortune: How to Pick Antiques Like the Pros. For Dealers and Dabblers.
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Enjoy it, then hop in the station wagon and see if you strike gold. Not since Larry McMurtry's fictitious rogue 'Cadillac Jack' has there been such a charming emissary from the world of the previously owned. Stanton captures the lower and middle echelons of the business with great skill, and her diverting and wholly unpretentious book makes a fine companion for a day at the beaach--or a weekend spent treasure hunting.
They may not make a penny from this book, but it's a wise investment. I found this book hard to put down. It is a nonfiction book that is so full of unbelievable stories you will think you are reading a novel. For anybody whotreasures suberp writing, this book will please page after page.
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Louis Post Dispatch "[D]ynamite Stanton's a great writer and [she's] agreat guide. An engaging read filled with tips and tricks of the trade. Stanton interweaves historical information with her narrative of her experiences with Curt makes this book a page turner. See all Editorial Reviews. Product details File Size: Penguin Books June 9, Publication Date: June 9, Sold by: Share your thoughts with other customers.
Write a customer review. Read reviews that mention curt avery killer stuff flea markets flea market maureen stanton tons of money stuff and tons great read antiques dealer antique dealer antique shows hidden gems behind the scenes highly recommend yard sale world of antiques well written make a living estate sales flea-market america.
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Rent-seeking
This book was a walk with my kind of people through my kind of world doing my kind of thing , so if you are not into being the first dog at the door at 3 am or 5 am practically drooling at the idea of finding that next amazing antique, this book may not be as wonderful a read to you as it has been for me. The author, who is not a crazy picker, antique hunter, or seller of the rare and real, follows a man who has done his homework, and knows the ins, outs, up and downs of the business. Her purpose is to study this world and write about it in such a manner that the reader can feel the excitement of a buyer as they are feeling the wet dew on their shoes, still dark outside, coffee cup in one hand, flashlight in other hand, working , looking for the next item that will be part of their bread and butter.
This is part of the world of us crazy people who sell and buy at flea markets, antique shows. The author brings to light the endless hours of research it takes to hopefully educate ourselves so we don't buy a reproduction, or miss a flaw that makes a piece worthless and, how to tell the real from the fake, , keeping up with what is selling for top dollar today, because tomorrow it may plummet in value and you are left holding an item until its value swings up again, and praying all the while, that the value on the item goes up again in your lifetime.
Many of those who love this business and would rather do this than anything else are true lovers of the artistry that goes in to these old pieces. You will not find the kind of quality of material and craftsmanship in todays furniture, lamps, books , or anything else. We will by a piece of finely crafted 19th century silver for an amount we may or may not recover rather than see it go to the buyer who melts down these one of a kind pieces for the value of the silver content.
If you have that knowing ,gnawing, feeling inside that once these pieces are gone our world has lost a piece of history, and it is an insult to the craftsmen who labored over making these things with patience, pride and love of their craft, and hours, weeks, months of dedication , you are a born collector, you have the disease, and you will have so much pleasure finding, saving, selling, or keeping these treasures.
And that means you will love this book. Instead, what I got was even better! This book is a treasure trove wrapped in a fascinating life story.
Beyond the optimal level of arousal. As the title suggests, Zuckerman advocated going beyond the striving for an optimal level of cortical arousal meaning looking for a different motivational base for the trait, rather than the one suggested by the search for an optimal level—this base would be the striving for new experiences—see Zuckerman Behavioral expressions and biosocial bases of sensation seeking. In this update to Zuckerman , Zuckerman now suggests that sensation seeking seems to be limited to sensation and does not include a need for cognitive experience i.
He relates sensation seeking to hyperactivity ADHD , and also to both hypoarousal and arousability. Sensation seeking and risky behavior. This is an update to Zuckerman , emphasizing risky behavior. Zuckerman writes that the sensation-seeking need to achieve an optimal level of cortical arousal was rejected in Zuckerman , and that he now regards arousal as being epiphenomenal that is, this increase in arousal is a side effect of the search for, and experience of, novel sensations.
Sensation seekers are open to new experiences and sensations, and also to divergent ideas.
Personality and sensation seeking. This is a current update on the field, covering similar sections to those of the present overview. Sensation seeking is both a personality trait and a motive, and it has a strong genetic component. Zuckerman suggests that the sensation seeker is an explorer in either outer space or inner space.
This book is about collecting and the world of antiques, but even if you think you aren't particularly interested in these topics, you will find yourself immersed in the world of the antique dealer and engaged with the fascinating characters in this book. For Browning, cyber-picking is thrilling. This rich and sometimes hilarious subculture rewards peculiar interests and outright obsessions-one dealer specializes in shrunken heads; another wants all the postal memorabilia he can get. Often a further distinction is drawn between rents obtained legally through political power and the proceeds of private common-law crimes such as fraud, embezzlement and theft. Write a customer review. Learn more about Amazon Giveaway.
Five or three robust questionnaire scale factors of personality without culture. Personality and Individual Differences Analyses were controlled for gender. The authors conclude that while three- or five-factor models are equally robust, the five-factor model is preferable, because it provides maximal specificity at no loss in reproducibility across gender. Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content on this page. Please subscribe or login. Oxford Bibliographies Online is available by subscription and perpetual access to institutions.
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In this case there are very high levels of rent-seeking with very low levels of output. Ultimately, public rent-seeking hurts the economy the most because innovation drives economic growth. Government agents may initiate rent-seeking — such agents soliciting bribes or other favors from the individuals or firms that stand to gain from having special economic privileges, which opens up the possibility of exploitation of the consumer. As a country becomes increasingly dominated by organized interest groups, it loses economic vitality and falls into decline.
Olson argued that countries that have a collapse of the political regime and the interest groups that have coalesced around it can radically improve productivity and increase national income because they start with a clean slate in the aftermath of the collapse. An example of this is Japan after World War Two.
But new coalitions form over time, once again shackling society in order to redistribute wealth and income to themselves. However, social and technological changes have allowed new enterprises and groups to emerge. A study by Laband and John Sophocleus in [28] estimated that rent-seeking had decreased total income in the USA by 45 percent.
Both Dougan and Tullock affirm the difficulty of finding the cost of rent-seeking. Rent-seekers of government-provided benefits will in turn spend up to that amount of benefit in order to gain those benefits, in the absence of, for example, the collective-action constraints highlighted by Olson. Similarly, taxpayers lobby for loopholes and will spend the value of those loopholes, again, to obtain those loopholes again absent collective-action constraints.
The total of wastes from rent-seeking is then the total amount from the government-provided benefits and instances of tax avoidance valuing benefits and avoided taxes at zero. Dougan says that the "total rent-seeking costs equal the sum of aggregate current income plus the net deficit of the public sector". Mark Gradstein writes about rent-seeking in relation to public goods provision, and says that public goods are determined by rent seeking or lobbying activities. But the question is whether private provision with free-riding incentives or public provision with rent-seeking incentives is more inefficient in its allocation.
The economist Joseph Stiglitz has argued that rent-seeking contributes significantly to income inequality in the United States through lobbying for government policies that let the wealthy and powerful get income, not as a reward for creating wealth, but by grabbing a larger share of the wealth that would otherwise have been produced without their effort. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved 30 April Retrieved 27 October The Best, Brightest and Least Productive?
Archived from the original on 3 January Retrieved 11 February Corrupt Bureaucracy and Privatization of Tax Enforcement. Worth Publishers, New York. The Political Economy of Rent-Seeking. The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology. Retrieved 10 January The Review of Austrian Economics. State, class, and development.