Here’s the economic theory for us ordinary folk,” a dad said to daughter
about the way of the world before Tariffs got in the way.
How Things Work
Today it’s going to cost us $20
To live. Five for softball. Four for a book,
A handful of ones for coffee and two sweet rolls,
Bus fare, Rosin for your mother’s violin.
We’re completing our task. The tip I left
For the waitress filters down
Like rain, wetting the new roots of a child
Perhaps, a belligerent cat that won’t let go
Of a balled sock until there is chicken to eat.
As far as I can tell, daughter, it works like this:
You buy bread from a grocery, a bag of apples
From a fruit stand, and what coins
Are passed on helps others buy pencils, glue,
Tickets to a movie in which laughter
is thrown into their faces.
If we buy a goldfish, someone tries on a hat.
If we buy crayons, someone walks home with a broom.
A tip, a small purchase here and there,
And things just keep going. I guess.
Postscript: This is almost unbearably sweet in this crazy time.
Well, almost any sanity is now poignant because of its general loss.
It would probably cost a hundred bucks today “to live.” Maybe more.
But this is a human way in which we take care of each other. Isn’t
that what economics is really about? not spoon-feeding billionaires
at the cost of food for the hungry? —Nils Peterson
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