Thursday, July 17, 2008

The Entrepreneur

Grace has become quite the student of the free market system. For example, she decided that people that work at McDonald's make way more than engineers. Her reasoning is that there are always cars lined up outside McDonald's to buy stuff from them, but Daddy never has any customers at his work.

She has decided that she definitely wants to be a store keeper when she grows up because that's where people go to spend their money. And she is so interested in making money, that she decided to get a head start.

I found her out of bed well after her bedtime last night making all kinds of things to sell out of paper, aluminum foil, and various random items around her room. She was sure that someone would pay twelve dollars and seven cents for a flip phone made from aluminum foil, or four dollars and three cents for a marker lid ("It has a little lipstick in it," she explained). She recited the names of several neighbor kids who she was sure would pay seven dollars for a penny which included instructions for playing a game with it.

Not wanting to insult the quality of her products or her business sense, Phil and I thought it best not to say anything about how inflated her prices were. We felt that she would learn this naturally when she couldn't find anyone to pay eight dollars for a paper car.

We were wrong.

The shrewd little business woman knew exactly where to find a customer willing to pay her prices. I woke up to the sound of coins clinking and I walked in her room to find her little brother the proud owner of the paper car and Grace eagerly emptying his piggy bank.

"Are you sure you want to buy this?" I asked him.

"Oh, yes!" he replied and held up a square of aluminum foil. "She even gave me a parking lot to go with it for FREE!"

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