Monday, June 1, 2009

Economics 101 with Nico

I know I've written about Nico a ton lately, but this kid just has so much going on in his life right now. The latest is his Lemonade stand. I bought this cute lemonade stand at a garage sale a couple of saturdays ago and Nico had been dying to try it out. Finally, I let him go at it one day. The kid made 4.25 in almost 1 hour selling lemonade at 25 cents. One lady just gave him money for being so cute and drove away. Everyone else gave more than 25 cents. (I'm beginning to think he should charge 50) Anyway, at the end of the day Nico and I had this conversation:

Caro: Nico, I think I'm going to charge you taxes for selling your lemonade. I'll take half your money.

Nico: What?!! No way, it's my money

Caro: Well, I have to pay taxes, so you should too, don't you think?

Nico: But mom, it's my money

Caro: Alright, I'll settle for tithing at 10 percent. That will only be 40 cents.

Nico: Okay, I can totally do that (he says this with a smile-fills out a tithing slip and I swear the kid couldn't be prouder).

After the incident, Jamie and I began brainstorming on ideas to teach Nico about some basic economics. So we did, this is what we came up with:

Caro: Nico, you were very successful with your lemonade stand and made some good money, but the other 2 lemonade stands in the neighborhood didn't do as well as you did. They didn't make as much money, so we're going to take some of your money and give it to them. This way they can be happy because they also have money.

Nico: Ummm, okay, they can have 1 dollar. (at this point I'm thinking, maybe if we were all like little children we could live in a utopian society, but the conversation continues....)

Caro: Okay, go get your money, I'll take 2 dollars.

Nico: Wait, no, not my money. That's my money, I don't want to GIVE AWAY my money!!! (aaah, basic economics understood by a five year old....so simple, yet so hard for so many politicians, darn)

Jamie and I also thought of scenarios like forcing Nico to hire Christian to work for him at $7 an hour, while Cesar down the street would do it for only $1. Or how about just giving Christian some money because he didn't work, he was too busy playing video games so Nico (who now has money) is forced to give money to Christian who sat around all day playing video games. I would say Nico would quickly quit working and join his brother at video games if he knew that other lemonade stands would subsidize his income for him. Aaaah, so many possibilities. Jamie and I had fun with this one.

5 comments:

Brett - Rachel B said...

ha! i love it!

Stacy Pincock said...

That is sooooo funny! How cute is he!!!

Hugh Family said...

i think it's great that you guys are trying to teach nico these concepts at such a young age.

MK said...

Aaahh! you are breeding republicans...so nice to know! Great job! And seriously, if children get it, how come the dems don't?

Heather Widdison said...

Hey! Can you have Jamie call me? I want to give him some potential business. (970)690-9822. Thanks! -Heather