| --- |
| title: "House Oversight: Estate Documents (Nov 12) (HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_011074)" |
| source: "House Oversight: Estate Documents (Nov 12)" |
| sourceUrl: "https://www.justice.gov/epstein" |
| date: "2026-01-01" |
| category: "House Oversight" |
| eftaNumber: "HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_011074" |
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| parseTier: "external-legacy" |
| engine: "engine undisclosed (ep-nov-12.greg.technology mirror)" |
| externalSource: "greg-ep-nov-12" |
| externalLicense: "not granted" |
| externalCredit: "ep-nov-12.greg.technology" |
| externalUrl: "https://ep-nov-12.greg.technology" |
| --- |
| |
| Wherefore we must pitch upon some limited number, and that I apprehend |
| to be the number of years, which I conceive one man of fifty years old, |
| another of twenty eight, and another of seven years old, all being alive |
| together may be thought to live; that is to say, of a Grandfather, Father and |
| Childe; few men having reason to take care of more remote Posterity: for if a |
| man be a great Grandfather, he himself is so much nearer his end, so as there |
| are but three in a continual line of descent usually coexisting together; and as |
| some are Grandfathers at forty years, yet as many are not till above sixty, and |
| sic de eteteris. |
| 20. Wherefore I pitch the number of years purchase, that any Land is |
| naturally worth, to be the ordinary extent of three such person their lives. |
| Now in England we esteem three lives equal to one and twenty years, and |
| consequently the value of Land, to be about the same number of years |
| purchase. Possibly if they thought themselves mistaken....(as the observer |
| on the Bills of Mortality thinks they are...) |
| 21.... But in other Countreys Lands are worth nearer thirty years purchase, |
| by reason of the better titles, more people, and perhaps truer opinion of the |
| value and duration of three lives. |
| 23. One the other hand, Lands are worth fewer years purchase (as in |
| Ireland) ... by reason of the frequent rebellions..." |
| The "other Countreys" could include France and especially Holland, then models of |
| prosperity. Petty had made his fortune in Irish mortgages, and knew the years |
| purchase there. |
| But the argument is a puzzle. There is a focus on longevity and mortality, as if the |
| generations are providing for old age. But Petty's overlapping generations model |
| cannot be much like Paul Samuelson's of three centuries later, where a generation of |
| productives leaves a nest egg for retirement. Samuelson's productives are |
| replenished exogenously, with children left to the imagination. Why would Petty |
| have mentioned their ages? And retirement at age 50, as a norm, would have made |
| no sense to Petty or his readers. The grandfather will stay in harness. |
| Chapter 7 Petty's Idea |
| 2/3/16 |
| 15 |
| HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_011074 |
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