M&D "He invested Precious Sleep...not a Farthing's Dividend"

[Jerome Park]

As Elisabeth and others have noted, Chapter 19 of M&D is saturated with the
language of money.

Mark's point that Pynchon's monetary phrases are Empsonian, invites us to
consider the ambiguous types and to read Pynchon the way we read
Shakespeare, Poe, the Poets.

The phrase of my Subject Heading intrigues me because it is so odd, so
ambiguous.

One does not Invest Precious Sleep.
Though Time is equated with Money and Time is said to be the currency of
the Scientists, and though Mason and his Fellows work at Night, whilst most
others in their Time Zone take their Precious Sleep, investing for
Dividends, INvesting Precious Sleep for Dividends is odd even for Nigh
Hawks at the Station, Night Owls, Astronomers.

Mason spends his night hours at work. It's a risky and dangerous business.
He is away from his children. His work is too arcane for most to
understand; his Father causes him to invest his precious sleep to discover
an explanation of his work, a reversal as Elisabeth noted,  return of
principal without interest.

Why does he endure so much? Would dividends make the risk and hardship
worth his while?

Veblen imagined that Men like Dixon and Mason, scientists and engineers,
would lead a Revolution in America.

How absurd. The most conservative men in America are the scientists and
engineers. Veblen could not, perhaps, imagine TRP at Boeing, sitting
through a talk on his compensation package. dividends in the company stock,
a major draw of talent from Cornell and the like. Pynchon keeps at this
theme, from V. to AGTD.

Has Mason taken on his Father's work, as Baker, he would invest in the
Night, nut he was adventurous and ambitious, and young, and not very
worldly. Easily exploited. Maybe Mason should ask his father a few more
questions.

What is a Dividend? What is their History?
Why are dividends so important? And better still, when did they become so
important?

The answer goes all the way back to the year 1602, to the invention of the
world's first true stock: theDutch East India Company (or rather, the
Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie). The company came into existence in that
year as a result of a merger of several established sea merchants, who were
collectively granted a geographic monopoly by the goverment of the
Netherlands for trading in Asia, as well as the exclusive right to
establish colonies there as well.

[...]

it was how the profits that were made would be divided that gave the Dutch
East India Company a longevity that would be unmatched by its
contemporaries and ultimately helped make it the world's richest company
for nearly two hundred years. That innovation was to divide the generated
profits periodically among all of the company's stock holders. Those
payments are called dividends.

http://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/2008/12/early-history-of-dividends.html#.VSKxA_nF88w
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