You are the type of person who could have been the inspiration for the phrase "salt of the earth". Family and friends realize that you carefully consider every expenditure that you make. Today, you are likely to spend a great deal of time at a crowded estate auction wanting to buy either galvanized steel storage shelves or a large green chalkboard shaped like the state of Maine. Be on the lookout for infected paper cuts. You should consider shopping at stores or businesses beginning with the letter L, but do not buy any products with a serial number or product code containing the number 441890. 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 time lag that occurs after a government policy designed to correct an economic problem has been selected and the actual execution of the policy. The implementation lag is based the time it takes for government agencies, which can be slow and methodical, to carry out the designated policy. This "inside lag" is one of four policy lags associated with monetary and fiscal policy. The other two "inside lags" are recognition lag and decision lag, and one "outside lag" is implementation lag. All four policy lags can reduce the effectiveness of business-cycle stabilization policies and can even destabilize the economy.

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Our pedestrian's jaunt through the economy is not, unfortunately, an unrestrained shopping spree for confectioneries, spark plug tools, and Houston, Texas. We have other important errands to run. At the moment we need to hike over to Shady Valley's exclusive provider of cable television services, the Merciless Monolithic Media Masters Cable Television Company, Inc., to inquire about a mysterious fee that appeared last month's bill.

The good news is that the Merciless Monolithic Media Masters (the 4M people) Cable office is a mere 2 miles (3 kilometers for the metrically inclined) from the Shady Valley Central Town Sprawling Hills Shopping Mall. A hop, skip, and a moderately long jump later, our excursion through the economy takes us to the front door of the 4M Cable Television Company where I hope to discover why last month's cable bill included a $3,569 charge for something called "The Vacation Channel." I didn't even know I had a vacation channel. (But, I'm sure it's a great channel, and if I don't have it, then I will certainly subscribe. Please don't disconnect me.)

Of course, because this an afternoon workday, the doors of the 4M office are locked. I can almost make out, through the expensive stained glass windows, what appears to be several Merciless Monolithic Media Masters Cable Television employees, with champaign bottles in hand, dancing on expensive mahogany desks. Let's not disturb them. As they say in the cable business, an upset worker is a disconnected customer.
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