My Fellow Compassionate Capitalists:
In Mr. Olson‘s third grade class I was one of the star students.
In order to incentivize the other students to get good grades Mr. Olson introduced an economic system based on “schnickles“.
As students turned in their homework and grades were handed out, we would each get schnickles.
Obviously the better the grade, the more the schnickles.
We could then turn these schnickles in and get something out of the pirate chest – anything from Bubble Yum bubblegum to pencils, erasers, mini staplers, bite sized candy etc.
Schnickles were simply pinto beans painted neon orange.
Neon orange spray paint was not accessible to third graders and so Mr. Olson thought he had a counterfeit proof system.
To his dismay he did not realize my dad was a logger and that same color of neon paint was what loggers used to mark the trees that were going to be cut down.
The social economics at recess in the third grade were tough!
I was an excellent baseball, basketball and football player but I was also a nerd. I did not achieve my playground prowess based on natural talent… I achieved it by mathematically figuring out the angles of which I needed to hit or throw or shoot the ball in order to achieve my goal.
I “did the numbers and the numbers told me what to do“.
My “nerdiness“ prevented me from getting picked on the team first… however my skills meant I would never be picked last!
I knew that I could not win a popularity contest so I devised a plan to buy the popular kids. I needed to counterfeit some schnickles.
It wasn’t long before I had taken some pinto beans out of the year supply storage and made off with a can of my dad’s neon orange spray paint and hid behind the rabbit pen. 30 minutes later all of my rabbits were high as a kite… but I had my bag of schnickles!
I had the power to buy popularity!
I took my new found fortune and bought teams that went undefeated! Mr. Olson knew that someone had infused more schnickles into the “economy” but he did not know who. Instead of eliminating the incentive program… he simply raised the prices of everything. People complained but I had an unlimited supply of “money“. When they came to me I simply bought their silence and they were able to get goodies out of the pirate chest.
Fast forward to today and it seems like no one in the government has an education past the third grade.
Money is being printed “because it can“ and is being used to buy the silence of those who are complaining….. but actually don’t want to play the game of life.
In the meantime there are “rogue” entrepreneurs and capitalists who are using fiat money to create a market for those who do want to be on a “team” and play in the game of life.
The same fiat money is being used as an incentive to work as well as an incentive to do nothing at all.
The battle is not between the “creator” and the “counterfeiter“.
The battle is between the ideology of what we as a people want to spend our lives in pursuit of. What we as a people will accept as an incentive. The incentive is important because one way will create opportunity and the progression of life. The other will stop progress dead in its tracks!
My Fellow Compassionate Capitalists…… let’s be smarter than a third grader!
We don’t have to agree with the game…we just have to know the rules and understand how to play and win!!! We have to accept what is in play. We must do our best to show others that our ideas are better and that progress should be the incentive for all of us to work together!
We need both winners and losers in order to make recess fun.
We need players as well as an audience.
We need each other.
We need the ability to “NEVER awake from the American Dream”.
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