You are the type of person who is the poster child for the word "frugal," and you might even buy the poster if it cost less. Family and friends never, never, never ask your advice about the latest fashions, and rightly so. Today, you are likely to spend a great deal of time waiting for visits from door-to-door solicitors wanting to buy either storage boxes for your summer clothes or 500 feet of coaxial cable. Be on the lookout for the happiest person in the room. You should consider shopping at stores or businesses beginning with the letter I, but do not buy any products with a serial number or product code containing the number 085398. Your preferred shopping venue is thrift stores. Your special symbol is the comma (,).

As a Brown Pragmatox, you are down-to-earth and practical. You are hard working and industrious. You are frugal to the point that you might even refrain from making a purchase that you really, really need. Doing so often causes problems down the road. You definitely go with function over form and substance over style.

The inclination of everyone who is alive and breathing to get as much extra income, wealth, profit, or satisfaction as they can. Rent, while technically considered the factor payment for the use of land resources, is also commonly used as a synonym for economic profit, for the acquisition of benefits above opportunity cost. Rent seeking is the entirely rational process of obtain as much "extra" as possible. In effect, rent seeking is nothing more than utility maximization. Efficiency problems can arise, however, when rent seeking is enhanced and enabled through market control, political influence, or actions of special interest groups.

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Across the interstate from the Mega-Mart Discount Warehouse Super Center resides the Shady Valley Central Town Sprawling Hills Shopping Mall -- a prime example of our economy's climate-controlled, suburban shopping phenomenon. Our pedestrian's ramble through the economy would be totally inadequate if we did not spend at least one day strolling past the endless rows of stores with their displays of clothes, shoes, electronics, clothes, luggage, clothes, cheese pretzels, and of course clothes. Our pedestrian trip, however, is not concerned with the products exhibited beyond the stylish glass windows. No, our jumping off point is the gadzillions of people who pass us by, bump into us, get in our way, and generally make our shopping experience comparable to a commuter train during the rush hour.

Those who comprise the shopping crowd are short, tall, young, old, fat, thin, black, white, happy, and sad. More importantly for our present discussion, however, is that some are rich and some are not-so-rich. A few of the wealthier shoppers actually buy the products framed by the picturesque windows that line the air-conditioned quaint mid-way of Shady Valley Central Town Sprawling Hills Shopping Mall. Others must be content to ogle the prominently displayed products or perhaps buy an occasional cheese pretzel.
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-- Jane Ellis Hopkins, writer

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