The Adventures of Echo the Economics Dude (Part 1)

For this blog I am going to try something new, and as whoever has read the title has probably guessed, this involves a new character called Echo the Economics Dude. This blog-post will cover chapter 9 in a different style then the previous blogs. This is a storytelling blog, so I shall try to incorporate a little storytelling of my own into it. Feel free to post and give me your opinions. Alright then let's begin.

Echo was a young boy, not all that tall but not all that short either. He had a younger sister named Andi and enjoyed playing games with her. She was at that age where she was old enough to not use diapers any more, but not so old that she had started to think that her brother was anything less than amazing. Today was a Friday, and Echo and Andi were being babysat by Ellen, their librarian neighbor, while their parents went out to dinner. It had been a busy day and Echo and Andi were tired out. Ellen had turned on the TV and adds were playing for oncoming shows. Andi had gotten up and was waddling/walking (as so 3-year olds do) towards Ellen's big stack of books and as she reached out to grab her favorite book about princesses and ponies. Yet as she was reaching towards her favorite book, another book fell down and landed at Andi's feet. She picked it up and looked at Echo with that cute little face that so many toddlers possessed. "Echo," she said "can you wead me this book?"

Echo looked over at his little sister. She was carrying a huge blue textbook. "Not right now Andi, I'd just like to relax for a few minutes."

She looked back up at him. "Pwease Echo". Echo couldn't refuse. He sat down, heaved the book onto the couch and opened it up to its first page. "Once Upon a time.." He began and then looked down at the book. "I mean, umm.." He put on his best business voice. "There are more than 25 million businesses in the United States including car companies, bookstores.." He looked down at Andi, she looked asleep, maybe he could stop reading. Gosh he thought looking down at the book, Economics sure must be boring. But then he felt a little hand hit him in the face. "More story," came the hands reply.

"Alright. Economists talk about the various types of economic structure...." Echo continued on with the TV blaring in the background until he felt sleepy. Suddenly the room started spinning and the TV was pulling him closer and closer...And then everything went black.

When Echo woke up, he was in a very frightening situation. No, it wasn't the comfy chair or the hot spotlight which was blinding him, it was the crowd of an audience who was staring at him and the man who stepped out from that crowd, Mr. Aroune, his mother's favorite television star! He was addressing the audience:

"Good Evening Olipopolis! And welcome to your favorite game show, The Wage Rate is Right, where our three contestants battle to find the correct wage rate, or price of labor, to win a brand new snorkomobile from Blonda." What little Echo understood did not comfort him. Apparently he was on a game show, about economics! Echo knew nothing about economics! "Now let's meet our contestants." Mr. Aroune moved towards Echo, "Our first contestant comes from the planet of earth and enjoys skateboarding and daydreaming in school. Let's give it up for Echo!" Mr. Aroune motioned for Echo to move over to one of the metal chairs sitting in the hot stage lights, by a desk. Echo wasn't sure if it was because he was dreaming, or because all of his nerve cells got fried on impact, that the chair didn't shock him with pain.

"Our second contestant comes from Mercury, a hot destination spot, and enjoys studying intergalactic economics when he's not running his multigazillion dollar industry." Mr. Aroune moved onto what Echo had thought was a giant pile of pudding with horns, "Please welcome Aroplasm." The Audience went wild with applause.

"Finally our third contestant also is here from earth," Mr. Aroune moved towards a contestant who was hidden by the table. "She enjoys playing princess and jumping into leaf piles, please put your hands together for Miss Andi!"

Echo was shocked. Andi was here?! She was waving at the audience who was applauding her, and smiling at Echo. "Hello Echo." she said.

Mr. Aroune then moved to the center of the stage. "Alright let the games begin. Our first question goes to Mr. Echo." All of the stage lights were suddenly turned to him and his chair started to heat up. "When the quantity of supplied labor is greater then the quantity demanded of labor there is a *blank* of labor?"

"Well umm," Echo was sweating due to the heat "it is, ummm, a lot of labor?"

"I'm sorry, Echo, the correct answer is surplus of labor. Moving on to contestant number two, Mr. Aroplasm. What happens to the wage rate if there is a surplus of labor?" The giant pudding pile was silent (note: calling Aroplasm a pudding pile is not an insult, it is an observation. And on mercury it is considered a complement since being pudding-like instead of pure-liquid -like is a sign that the being can afford snair conditioning, but anyway, back to the story).

"Correct! With a surplus of labor wage rate does fall! That puts you in the lead with 200 points. Now Andi, when there is a shortage of labor what happens to the wage rate?"

Andi really wasn't paying attention, she was too busy waving at the audience. She then turned to Echo and raised her hands. "Echo, up!" she said, which was her way of telling him that she wanted to be picked up, "Echo up!" she said again. When Echo refused to go over and pick her upon, she turned to Mr. Aroune, "Up!" she demanded.

"Correct Andi! The wage rate does go up, that's 200 points." He then motioned at a big screen which was descending behind them. "Now its time for your first The Wage Rate is Right challenge. John works in the United States, Earth. He works for 46 hours and makes $460 dollars that week. What you three need to do is each write down his wage rate on your helio-pads which will then display your answer on the screen behind you."

This is easy, Echo thought, 460 divided by 46 is 10. The only thing Echo had trouble with was trying to use the helio pad which kept moving away from him whenever he tried to write anything down. He finally was able to grab it and scramble down "10" before the time was up.

"Alright let's look at the answers. Echo had 10 which when converted on the helio-pad's ultra malculator is 4, so I'm sorry, you're wrong. Aroplasm had Quashgillion which is converted to 10 on the helio-pad. And here's an interesting turn of events. Earth-girl Andi wrote in Neptunian which is unconvertible by the helio-pad and automatically equals 10! Well with a 600-600 tie Aroplasm and Andi take the lead. Now for a word from our sponsors.

While some commercial on platopaste was playing, Echo stood up and tried to cool off his well.... After the commercials were done Echo sat back down on the burning chair as Mr. Aroune stepped back onstage.

"We're back. And now its time for round two. Our First Question goes to Andi. Now Andi, the benefits of a job include money benefits and what?"

Echo could see that Andi was getting tired out and getting sick of the game show so it didn't surprise him when she answered. "No money!" What really surprised Echo was Mr. Aroune's response to her blatant attack of his show.

"Correct, and with 800 points Andi takes the lead. Now lets move on to Echo who is in the hot-chair with 0 points. Now Echo what are money benefits also known as?"

Echo actually knew this one. His father had lectured him on it the night before. "Income"

"Correct, and with 200 points you have no chance of winning now!" Then with the same happy look on his face, he replied "Did I just say that out loud, whoops! Moving on to our other contestant who still has a chance at winning, Aroplasm. A derived demand is a change in demand that results from some other demand, give an example."

Aroplasm was silent once again.

"Correct! If the demand shnoozeball decreases then the demand for shnoozeball players will also decrease. Now with a 200-800-800 scoring round we move onto Guess that wage, a portion of our show where our contestants must guess the lowest wage rate by which the minimum wage rate law for an area allows. Aroplasm, you will go first. What is the minimum wage for Pluto?"

As usual aroplasm was silent.

"Correct, 2 rocks! Now Echo since you are a harffle of a snorzak behind everyone else we'll give you an easy question. What is the minimum wage in the United States of America on Earth?"

Echo had done a report on this earlier. It looked like things were finally going his way. "Five dollars and fifteen cents."

"Correct! Now our final question goes to Andi. What is the minimum wage on Quashtrash."

"Andi doesn't want to answer," Andi replied.

"Once more, correct. The minimum wage is impossible to calculate, what a prodigy!" Mr. Aroune then motioned for Andi and Aroplasm to step forward. "Now for the final question and a chance to win a snorkomobile from Blonda we have Andi and Aroplasm! Now on Earth the real wage is computed by dividing the money wage by the consumer price index. The percentage found by this formula represents to percentage of a composite good that can be bought. What is a composite good composed of?"

Before Aroplasm could speak up (or go silent depending on what language you speak), Andi shouted out all of her troubles. "I'm hungry, I wasn't to go home and I want Echo to read me my princess book."

"Correct Andi! You are the winner. A composite good is composed of a little bit of food, housing an entertainment. Now if you'll just come this way your snorkomobile..."

But just as Andi was about to step forward the world started spinning again, transporting Echo to the 6 o'clock news...