Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Of Shopping Carts and Global Macronomics

I told a friend that I would post this, so here it is:

How shopping carts can make a change in global economic outlooks.

Consider for a moment if you will, the humble shopping cart. It is a simple every day thing that you do not pay much attention to yet of a huge significance. You use it and put it back in its little coral and that is it.

Congratulations, you just caused a global economic downturn.

It works like this see; you put away your shopping cart. The direct effect of returning it to its little coral is that it takes fewer people fewer man hours* to pick up all the carts. So your local big box store cuts back hours since there is no need for them to have a fully staffed group of minions. This leads to a loss in the local area of income that can be spent. This causes prices to rise and companies to continue to cut hours and personnel to try to keep up their profit margin. Eventually people begin to move where there is more work and therefore change the point of the economic pressure from a local economic downturn to a regional one. Then as this begins to spread, city services begin to be cut due to a loss of tax revenue and therefore services begin to cause an upswing in residential fires due to a lack of fire protection and as follows an upswing in the crime rate due to a lower police presence. The area begins to suffer more and more and this has the regional ripple effect causing entire areas of the country to begin not only a population shift, but also an economic shift. This causes a drop in the purchase of durable goods and therefore begins to affect the overseas markets that are tied to the strength of the US dollar. Foreign currencies begin to madly fluctuate causing instability in the global stock markets and that can cause a run on the brokerages This in turn as consumers begin to loose confidence causes runs on the local banks that must be propped up by the Federal Reserve who then raises interest rates to slow the bank to bank borrowing of money. People start closing accounts and the federal banking system collapses, leaving the United States economy a smoking ruin with the global markets to follow in about 72 hours.

You just had to put that shopping cart away, didn't you?

But there is hope. Leave that shopping cart out in the parking lot. Better yet, take it to the opposite side of the shopping center. Think of it as job creation.


(*I don't use person-hours, sorry. That would be like saying "Gifted Macro Mammal Power" instead of horse power. Go pedal your politically correct crazy elsewhere, we are full up thanks.
We happen to be local producers. Go local - Go Crazy!)

Till next time,
Be mindful and awake.

Monday, March 5, 2007

Random thought

Ever have one of those days when freebaseing cornflakes sounds like a good idea?