Wednesday, March 18, 2009

The snack bubble

I have been listening to NPR's Planet Money podcast for help with my day job. It has to do with the financial crisis and usually is depressing and wordy. But I just listened to this episode which was neither. It described a story from one of Planet Money's hosts, Joshua Bearman, of his experiences at school in an environment where kids traded tasty snacks with one another everyday. Joshua's parents didn't let him bring stuff worth anything on that market and so he was an outcast. His solution: he invented a cake future based on a fictitious, soon to be backed, concoction that would be brought to school at a later date and traded those futures. Hijinks ensued. It is well worth the listen.