{"id":65587,"date":"2018-01-02T07:32:06","date_gmt":"2018-01-02T13:32:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=65587"},"modified":"2018-01-02T07:32:06","modified_gmt":"2018-01-02T13:32:06","slug":"in-the-money","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=65587","title":{"rendered":"In The Money!"},"content":{"rendered":"

SCENE:\u00a0 Mitch BERG steps out onto his porch to bring in his mail – and is startled to see Avery LIBRELLE looking over the envelopes.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

BERG:\u00a0 Um, Avery?\u00a0 What the…<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE: Merg!\u00a0 Venezuela is raising its minimum wage<\/a>! If they can do it, why can’t we?<\/p>\n

BERG:\u00a0 The “increase” is meaningless.\u00a0 Just like the ones in the US.<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE:\u00a0 They benefit those who need it most!\u00a0 The poorest and most vulnerable!<\/p>\n

BERG:\u00a0 \u00a0Let me ask you this, Avery.\u00a0 Let’s say that I give you coupons, in payment for waving a sign around at a rally.\u00a0 Those coupons can be used for one thing – to get mint tea at Whole Foods.<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE:\u00a0 Mmm. . Whole Foods.<\/p>\n

BERG:\u00a0 Right.\u00a0 Now, I give you two coupons.\u00a0 \u00a0One for every four hours of sign waving.<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE:\u00a0 OK.<\/p>\n

BERG: But Alida Messinger gives you four\u00a0<\/em>coupons.\u00a0 \u00a0That’s a coupon every two hours.<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE:\u00a0 I’ll work for Alida.<\/p>\n

BERG: Right.\u00a0 But Whole Foods only has one bag of mint tea left in the store.\u00a0 At all.\u00a0 How many coupons is it going to cost?<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE:\u00a0 I don’t get it.<\/p>\n

BERG:\u00a0 \u00a0You have coupons good for tea.\u00a0 But there is no tea.\u00a0 So all your coupons are are pieces of paper given to you in exchange for a day of waving signs.<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE:\u00a0 The correct answer, then, is that my labor – sign-waving – is of intrinsic value, and should be rewarded with tea.<\/p>\n

BERG:\u00a0 Not to Whole Foods, it’s not.\u00a0 \u00a0 The coupons are just pieces of paper exchangaed for slices of time you spent, er, working.\u00a0 The sign didn’t get waved twice as much, or twice as hard, or… (looks at LIBRELLE<\/em>) twice as effectively.\u00a0 You just got more slips of paper.\u00a0 But the tea is all gone.<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE:\u00a0 Right, but I still have three more coupons!<\/p>\n

BERG:\u00a0 Which are of no value.\u00a0 Like the 40% “pay raise” in worthless money that the Venezuelan “poor” will get out of this “raise”.<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE: But when they throw off the shackles of the international capistalists, they’ll all be rich!<\/p>\n

BERG: Right.\u00a0 Just like you’ll have three bags of tea when the truck finally arrives at Whole Foods.\u00a0 Hey – why\u00a0are\u00a0<\/em>you on my porch.<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE:\u00a0 Just checking for thoughtcrime.<\/p>\n

(And SCENE<\/em>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SCENE:\u00a0 Mitch BERG steps out onto his porch to bring in his mail – and is startled to see Avery LIBRELLE looking over the envelopes.\u00a0 BERG:\u00a0 Um, Avery?\u00a0 What the… LIBRELLE: Merg!\u00a0 Venezuela is raising its minimum wage! If they can do it, why can’t we? BERG:\u00a0 The “increase” is meaningless.\u00a0 Just like the ones […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68,1,11],"tags":[236],"class_list":["post-65587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-capitalism-v-socialism","category-uncategorized","category-world","tag-dramatization"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=65587"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65587\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65590,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65587\/revisions\/65590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=65587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=65587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=65587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}