11-24-2010, 10:41 AM | #1 (permalink) |
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Location: Nth. Qld.Australia
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Stimulus
It is a slow day in the small Saskatchewan town of Pumphandle and streets are deserted.
Times are tough, everybody is in debt and everybody is living on credit. A tourist visiting the area drives through town, stops at the motel, and lays a $100 bill on the desk saying he wants to inspect the rooms upstairs to pick one for the night. As soon as he walks upstairs, the motel owner grabs the bill and runs next door to pay his debt to the butcher. The butcher takes the $100 and runs down the street to retire his debt to the pig farmer. The pig farmer takes the $100 and heads off to pay his bill to his supplier, the Co-op. The guy at the Co-op takes the $100 and runs to pay his debt to the local prostitute, who has also been facing hard times and has had to offer her "services" on credit. The hooker rushes to the hotel and pays off her room bill with the motel owner. The motel proprietor then places the $100 back on the counter so the traveller will not suspect anything. At that moment the traveller comes down the stairs, states that the rooms are not satisfactory, picks up the $100 bill and leaves. No one produced anything. No one earned anything... However, the whole town is now out of debt and can look to the future with a lot more optimism. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how a "stimulus package" works. |
11-24-2010, 11:06 AM | #2 (permalink) |
warrior bodhisattva
Super Moderator
Location: East-central Canada
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Nice.
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Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing? —Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön Humankind cannot bear very much reality. —From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot |
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