"Some Common Sense"

I never imagined the amount of e-mail I would receive when I wrote my microeconomics article entitled "Pigs is Pigs". One man e-mailed saying his brother had sent him a copy and added at the bottom that after he had read the article he now knew more about economics than 90% of the people in the United States. A Florida man asked for permission to reprint the article for his local city counsel, chamber of commerce and local newspaper. The e-mails have gone on for days and days even after being dropped from the main page at bartcop.com. I think it’s amazing how a little basic information can cause such a stir. I really appreciate all the attention I received from the article, I hope this article will stir as much intelligent thought as my biggest literary accomplishment to date "Pigs is Pigs".

As I’ve alluded to before, the recent Enron scandal will make ripples throughout our economy and in the end will in some way affect each and every one of us. The “winner” of the last Presidential election most certainly had an immediate effect on our economy. Just look at what happened to the stock market the day after President to be Gorge Mush announced that we should be careful we might have a recession. The disastrous effect of the World Trade Center terrorist attacks have already and most certainly will continue to make ripples throughout our economy for quite some time. We’ve all been affected by these events somehow. It’s an un-expected result of the fast pace global lifestyles that many of us demand today.

One thing I’ve noticed since moving back to the country is the pace of life. Even the wild animals are slower moving. In the city if you do happen to see some form of wildlife it is usually so busy trying to avoid oncoming traffic that it doesn’t have much time to show the laid back lifestyle it normally leads. We could all learn a lot from watching wildlife in its natural state.

Of course the "fight for survival" can be just as difficult in the country as in the city. If my truck breaks down it’s 15 miles to the nearest parts store. Not quite walking distance. So you have to slow down because you’re not going to get that part by running to the corner parts store located a block away and you also have to have enough smarts about you to know when to mess with fixing something and when not to. I’ve learned that the combination of these two little bits of information that we acquire as we grow older is an amazing phenomenon know in the English language as "Common Sense".

I have a friend that I haven’t seen in years. We were all members of the same Boy Scout troop. We used the Boy Scouts as an excuse to spend as many days as possible hiking in the woods around our community of about 2000 people.

One day four of us had been to one of the local flood control lakes that are VERY plentiful in southeast Oklahoma. These little jewels of clear cool water are not just a great way to cool off on hot summer days. They are also some of the best fishing holes anywhere. Because they are surrounded by private land you have to get permission from the landowner to be able to access them. As kids we didn’t really think that rule applied to us.

One particular day we came upon an electric fence. Now I have to give a little history before I can tell the rest of this. One of the guys with us that day would later on score a perfect score on the math portion of his ACT test. Overall he would score a 132. Back then it was a big deal. He got several scholarships for this accomplishment. I assume that it still is a big deal but I know a lot of kids take SAT test these days.

On this day my "intelligent friend" decided he would show us how to short out an electric fence. He had been raised in town his whole life and wasn’t quite as country savvy as the rest of us. The method he proposed to use was to urinate on the electric fence. We all knew what would happen but for some reason we didn’t get around to mentioning it.

As soon as the "stream" of water hit that electric fence there was a loud yell. The yell was followed by dance moves that would have made Michael Jackson and James Brown jealous, envious and....well you get the picture.

After the dance of urination death our "intelligent friend" decided he would go to plan "B" for shorting out the electric fence. We honestly tried to convince him to stop. I’d just about laughed myself to death and wasn’t sure I could take anymore jock-u-larity of the electric kind from our "intelligent friend". So with tears of hilarity in my eyes I honestly was begging him to quit.

That wasn’t enough for Mr. Electricity and plan "B" turned out to be that he was going to try spitting on the fence. I’m not trying to be disgusting and soon I’ll make a point with all this but I’ve got to tell the story first.

You know how you’ve seen old men spit and a little of the spittle would hang on their lip and cause it to drip down instead of being launched in one watery projectile? Well, we’d been hiking for about an hour before encountering the fence and I for one had kind of a dry mouth. Apparently so did our "intelligent friend". When he spit on the fence it hung from his lip all the way until the other end hit the electric fence. Once again he became lord of the dance and we were presented with a re-enactment of a genuine Native-American war dance complete with lots of loud screaming. While one hand hit his mouth he continued to hold his crotch with the other. Kind of looked like he thought his lip and his pants were both on fire. The memory still haunts me. I know I’ve freaked out more than one person when I woke up from a deep sleep laughing hysterically. The scary part is that now this “intelligent friend” has a high paying job with a branch of the US government.

What this "intelligent friend" lacked that day is something that you won’t find in any economics books. It’s a couple of words we don’t hear much as it relates to our elected officials, corporate executives, most consumers and even many small business owners. I’m talking of course about "Common Sense". Common Sense would dictate that you don’t urinate or spit on an electric fence. If you were actually successful in opening a business without "common sense" you would find that your doors would rapidly be closed for any number of reasons. Common Sense also comes into play in other ways. I had some acquaintances that after watching me open a new venture some years ago decided “if Cliff can do it then so can we”. What they lacked was common sense when they opened their Pizza Parlor. These people spent all their money redecorating the place and ordering enough "pizza stuff" for their first month. They then spent everything they made selling pizza paying their bills and employees. What they failed to remember was they had to replace the pizza makings so in their second month with no way to reorder pizza supplies their small business closed. Hey, the pizza was awesome, they just lacked a LOT of common sense.

In this day and age we are creatures of convenience. The local fast food restaurant and the quickie mart gas station are some of the most profitable businesses in America. If we as consumers will use a little common sense and not just run out and buy an item based on its convenience or the fact that it is the cheapest we can buy of an item or service then the people that supply these items or services are going to have to take notice. The poor quality of many of the items we see in the market place today are our own fault. We support this attitude of reduced expectations every time we settle for something based only on convenience or price. As consumers it is becoming not only a necessity but also a responsibility to show a little common sense in our day to day purchasing and spend a little time actually looking at the products or services we’re spending our hard earned money on. Besides, if we show a little of this strange commodity called common sense then the people that sell or manufacture or advertise the items we buy or provide the services we purchase would ultimately have to take notice and the effect would benefit everyone.

Can you imagine how great a world it would be if more of our elected officials actually had common sense?

If you have some time I have a little homework for some of you. Please visit this link www.ussliberty.org/
then e-mail your thoughts or any information you have regarding the website to downingc@swbell.net .
I don’t want to influence you in anyway so I’m going to leave any comments till later.
 

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