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Calculating the Distance to California
Something like 90% of the nations fruit and vegetables are grown in California’s Central Valley. Here is a simple calculator to determine how far you are from this fertile land:
- Buy a 1/2 pint of raspberries from your local supermarket
- Count how many raspberries are moldy
- Multiply the number of moldy raspberries by 250. This is your distance in miles from California.
For example, I am in Northern Michigan this week. I counted at least 9 moldy raspberries in the pack. 9 x 250 = 2,500. This is the approximate distance from my location to California’s Central Valley.
Q.E.D.
What is the purpose of an economy anyway?
I heard a reporter on a recent Economist podcast say that, in light of the growing UK economy, creating jobs is a good thing.
It seems to me that creating jobs is not only a good thing, creating jobs is the thing. What other purpose is there for an economy?
Here’s what I mean. An ‘economy’ is kind of a meta-thing that emerges whenever two or more people get together and decide that working together to meet everybody’s needs is more efficient than everyone trying to each meet 100% of their own needs (like, say, some kind of off-the-grid survivalist). Economies emerge in all kinds of places: prison economies, school-yard economies, national economies, global economies.
