Random Thoughts as I Wait for the Simpsons to Come On.

Randomness first. Two phrases I uttered today that now strike me as somewhat ludicrous:

1. "He's the greatest rake ever." (Really only amusing because no one but an English grad student would ever put these words together in this order. Referring to Major Sanford from The Coquette.)

2. "Oh, it's only -6 below. That's not so bad." (When it's -16 with a -30 windchill as you leave in the morning, -6 seems like summertime. Until your eyes start to freeze. But hey, we got above 0 today! Take that, arctic wind!)

And the weirdness: In my apartment building, we have no mail drop box. We just leave mail on top of the row of boxes, and the mail-person takes it. I left a Netflix envelope there on Saturday, and I'm fairly certain one of my neighbors took it, ripped it open, watched the dvd, then resealed it and returned it this morning. The perfect crime! (It was The Descent, by the way, which is really awesome and worth seeing.)

And now, a brief post regarding economics. When my parents visited me last, while walking down State Street, we were accosted by men trying to sell the Socialist newspaper. My parents, being goodly God-fearing Republicans from the midwest, assumed these men were Communists, believed my entire city to be nothing but a hotbed of radical activism (partially true), and bemoaned that their innocent child shouldst be so corrupted by these influences. I didn't have the heart to mention to them that Marxism is one of the foundational ideologies of the field in which I study. I think my mother might have fainted.

But it occurred to me recently that the indoctrination against market capitalism began much earlier in my life. Indeed, one of the foundational texts of my youth presented perhaps the polar opposite of Marxist Socialism, while still inspiring children to imitate one of the greatest enemies of the Free Market. Ladies and gentlemen, how many of you are familiar with this figure?



You may know him as Scrooge McDuck, or Uncle Scrooge. But what few of us realized in our impressionable youths is that this Scottish feathered fiend, were he an actual person, would singlehandedly do more to cripple the economy of any nation-state than Marx or Lenin could dream of. Picture it: He lives in his palatial estate, hoarding riches away from the common man. This is all well and good, until you consider the fact that he does not, in turn, invest his vast wealth back into the market. Instead, he keeps it in a self-styled "money bin," a repository for his riches that serves as nothing more than a swimming pool. Those zillions of coins, rather than supporting new businesses, fostering loans and greater investment capital, or even earning basic interest, are instead stagnating atop a hill in the metropolis of Duckburg.

How dare you, Mr. McDuck. A successful free market hinges upon investment, the free exchange of capital, and so forth. And instead of allowing your money to circulate, you stash it away, withdrawing it from the market for your own private amusement, probably causing the economic collapse of several banks and perhaps even a small country or two. And we, as children, were asked to accept this economic criminality with a smile and a laugh, hoping and dreaming that some day we too could have enough money stashed away to swim in.

There you have it, folks. Indoctrination from youth. The Disney corporation teaching us to ignore the fundamental laws of Adam Smith Economics and help contribute to failing markets, depression, and economic chaos.

Next time, we shall turn to the much maligned adversaries of Mr. McDuck. Champions of the market and the redistribution of wealth.


You may know them as the Beagle Boys (and Mom). Criminals, yes. Inept, certainly. Proletariat economic warriors? Mayhaps.