Economics 101 Read online

wage policies.

  I'd be willing to start shopping there again and pony up that extra buck for this cause.

  Let's do this, Wal-Mart.

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  Let's Keep The New Gas Tax Off Our Backs.

  This headline and excerpt is from CNN Money, February 1st, 2013:

  Exxon Mobil profit is just short of record

  Exxon Mobil just missed setting a company -- and world -- record for annual profit in 2012.

  "The No. 1 U.S. oil company posted full-year earnings of $44.9 billion. While that was up 9% from 2011, it was about $300 million below the all-time annual earnings record for any company, the $45.2 billion Exxon Mobil earned in 2008.

  Exxon Mobil earned nearly $10 billion in the last three months of the year, up 6% from a year earlier.

  The talk has been that politicians want to take advantage of the falling gasoline prices by slapping a new tax on each gallon of gas. The thinking is that some of that money would go towards repairing our roads and fixing our bridges.

  My question is why?

  Why should the tax go on the gallons we buy? Why should we have to carry the financial burden of maintaining our highways and bridges at a time when so many of us are living paycheck to paycheck?

  Why not tax Big Oil? After all, they wouldn't have half the windfall, record-breaking, most-profitable-quarters-in-the-history-of-the World if it weren't for us, driving on their roads each day.

  Don't let it happen, people.

  Let's keep that gas tax off our backs.

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  Words.

  "In regard to propaganda the early advocates of universal literacy and a free press envisaged only two possibilities: the propaganda might be true, or the propaganda might be false. They did not foresee what in fact has happened above all in our Western capitalist democracies - the development of a vast mass communications industry, concerned in the main neither with the true nor the false, but with the unreal, the more or less totally irrelevant. In a word, they failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions."

  ALDOUS HUXLEY,  Brave New World Revisited

  In a field, vast and threnchless, a wall towered before them, impenetrable, massive, singular and silent, stretching away in either direction for as far as the eye could see.

  Somehow, the wall had become fixed in their minds, and had come to represent the only obstacle that stood between them and their happiness; them and their grievences heard; them and the realization of what could be.

  Yet, nobody knew how long the wall had been there, nor could anyone be found who could speak with any authority about what, exactly, was on the other side of the wall, nor could anyone guess whom, if anyone, stood behind it, for, no sound had ever been heard from beyond the wall; no action originating from beyond the wall had ever been directly witnessed; no sign of life ever percieved.

  Nevertheless, to a man they stood there, throughout the seasons, vigilant, for they knew, beyond a doubt, that they were losing something.

  To compound the problem, a cold lethargy descended upon them, and before long, no man could say how long he had stood there, nor what they were waiting for, nor, exactly, why...

  Yet they remained.

  Still...

  Every man felt an an unshakeable, soul deep dissonace, a strange and disturbing feeling; a feeling foreign to them...

  Then one day a catapult was brought in by a man with a large imagination.

  He strode forth and surveilled the wall with a cocked brow.

  A rough and wild, large and dangerous looking man with a thick and moppy head of matted brown hair and a full beard, all flecked with silver, animated with a vim and vigour not seen in a generation; he spied the wall with a cool and animalike, naturally steady stare.

  His eyes were set in his thick skull like deep and liquid, deeply gelatinous blue buttons, sewn into a small dual field of dried and dirty threadbare and bleached but bloodshot white fabric, which all sat beneath a pair of bushy brows and an aged and weathered face topped by a wrinkled and sloping forehead so pronounced that no man could guess, with any accuracy, whether or not he was descended at all from the species  homo sapien.

  He had come with sacks filled with words, and meant to use them.

  "Load the catapult!"  he cried.

  "Load the catapult!" Shouted his second in command.

  "Load the catapult!"

  "What shall we load the catapult with?" Cried the second.

  "Bring in The Truth!" he answered.

  "Bring in The Truth!"  cried the second.

  "Bring in The Truth!" cried the others.

  Six burly wordsmiths brought up The Truth, and passed it along to the canoneers, who loaded it roughly onto the spoon of the medieval catapult.

  "The Truth has been loaded!" cried the lead canoneer.

  He stood upon the field, bent forward, with raised, gloved fist and gritting, grinding teeth, and stared at the immovable wall.

  "Release The Truth!"  he cried out.

  "Release The Truth!" cried the second.

  He swung his gloved fist towards the wall, and The Truth was released.

  The massive rope of the roller spun violently, and the giant spoon at the end of the huge and loglike catapult arm swung upwards with a roar. Wild cheers went up as The Truth soared up and away from the small band.

  It was a glorious sight and a fortunate moment, too, for there was a favourable wind that helped in carrying The Truth on that day.

  As they watched, the Truth, after a brief flight, succumbed to gravity, but not before disappearing beyond the wall.

  Wild cheers went up, but then died down.

  Immediately, complete silence swept in amongst the ragtag and motley bunch, and all heads leaned in to listen...

  Every ear strained to its utmost.

  They tried to hear anything at all; any sound; a hard landing; a crash; a boom! a soft landing; anything...

  They waited, but no sound came to their peeled and cupped ears.

  "Perhaps a different font should be employed!"  Suggested one bold wordsmith.

  Distracted from hope, and obliged to answer, he turned to the wordsmith."Fool! Nothing is more respectable than Times New Roman!"  he shouted.

  "But is Times New Roman bold enough, Sir?"

  "Aye!"  He gritted his imperfect teeth and took a quick and suspicious glance around.  "Bold enough for times such as these!"  he intoned. Then he strode away  to  pause,  and carefully considered his words. He cast a hard gaze upon the wordsmith.

  "Question not my judgements, wordsmith, and I'll not question thine own, nor shall I belittle thy suggestions before so great an audience. Yet,  'tis not thine own favourite, Comic Sans, laughed at throughout the land? Has not DejaVu Serf been declared disrespectable and a fool's font? Has not DejaVu Mono been declared too embarrassing to use in serious Blogging?"

  He ground his teeth grimly.

  "Nay! Such fonts have no place here, and I will have no font but Times New Roman, and that, sir, I shall have  plain!"

  "Sir?"

  "Sir! I shall have it plain!; No Italics!; No bold type!; No underlines."

  He strode over to his fridge in his chain mail and tunic, pulled open the door and grabbed a cold beer,  then picked up the  remote, turned on Comedy Central, wiped his mouth with his dirty sleeve, and his heart became glad, for he was just fortunate enough to catch a repeat of  Chaos On Bullshit Mountain.

  He stood there and drank his beer while the rest looked on with sober and clear eyes and clear minds, undoubtedly thinking that they, unlike him, were still focused on the problem, and had not been distracted in the least.

  But all they wondered about was why this story, which is supposed to be set in early 21st Century America, sounded more like BBC America.

    "Eh? What is this?"

  He strode over to his second.

  In the near distance, another ragtag group appeared. This new band strug
gled with a massive catapult of the same make and model. They pushed and pulled it into an advantageous position facing the wall

  "You there! What's your business!"  he cried.

  The leader of the other small band swept out his long sleeved arm imperiously at his men. They quieted down.

  "I am The Leader of the Blogger's Guild, and these are my Co-Bloggers! We intend to cast our words over yonder wall to great effect!" said the Leader of the Blogger's Guild. Gritting his own teeth, he spat with determination, then directed his small band to resume their struggle.

  The man with the large imagination and his second in command couldn't help but look on in mute admiration. He cocked a brow and wiped his mouth with his dirty sleeve.

  But even as the Blogger's Guild loaded their spoon, an inexplicable feeling of meaninglessness and a mild untreated depression swept over the Leader and his band, and also seemed to spread throughout the ranks of all who stood in the field that day.

  The Leader of The Blogger's Guild glanced over at the man with the large imagination. Almost apologetically, quietly, almost ashamedly, he inquired.

  "Hey there! You man! You, with the fine catapult! Can you tell me the Cause of this good meeting?"

  Just as surprised as his men, the man with the large imagination cocked a brow, which was really no more than a mere nervous twitch for which he had an appointment with the free clinic to get some help.

  "The Cause!" He thought for a moment. "Why, the Cause, sir, is beyond question... and beyond a doubt a justifyable thing... and most assuredly presents an indefensible problem in the minds of our common adversary, whomever they are and wherever we may may find them!"

  The Leader of the Blogger's Guild wasn't impressed.

  "Well! I didn't expect an American Exposition!" cried The Leader of