The Power of Ten Bucks

Whatever happened to the power of ten bucks? Remember when ten bucks in your pocket meant something? You'd reach into the right front pocket of your Levis and you'd feel the bills all wrinkled and folded, and you'd remember, "Oh, yeah. I still got that ten bucks." And you'd just smile, just a little.
A little feeling of empowerment. A spring in your step. And somehow that meant you had possibilities that moments before were not on your horizon. You could maybe go see a movie, or buy a couple of beers, or take a cab downtown, or pick up a pizza, or whatever.

That's a good feeling, the Power of Ten Bucks. I'd like my kids to have that. To them, ten bucks is nothing. Nothing! Ten bucks can't get them in anywhere, can't provide them with that same sense of power and potential that it did for us. They need that. Hell, I need that. That daily dose of power. A lot of people could really use that now, I think. That Power of Ten Bucks. Too many of us, too often, go too many days in a row without that special little feeling of empowerment, and I think maybe we end up feeling just a degree less potent, less important, less jazzed about the day's possibilities.

Ain't that sad?

I say, let's get it back. Let's make ten bucks mean something again. "Wake up, Grampa," you say. "Those days are long gone, Scotty-boy. You're living in the past."

And to that I gently reply, "Stuff that noise."

I still say ten bucks is a good little chunk of change. And I feel quite strongly that ten bucks should be enough money to buy three people some fast food. And something other than a freekin' fillet o'fish, too. I'm talking about a good size burger, some fries, and a nice size soda. Ten bucks should get two people into a movie, (and the movie should be WORTH ten bucks...can I get a "Hell, yes!"), and the dude should still have some money left over to buy his date some popcorn.

Am I talking crazy here? I think not. Have we forgotten who's in charge around here? Is that how impotent the world has made the majority of us feel? Like we're just faceless automotons, cogs in a wheel too great for us to understand or impose our own identity upon?

Well, let us not forget how important we are as individuals in this country. We are cogs, yes, I'll agree. But cogs make the machine run, baby. Without us, it's all smoke and noise. We decide the price of EVERYTHING on sale in America. Ev-Er-EE-Thing. The price of a cup of coffee is NOT set by the supply but by the DEMAND. You get enough people in this country to say "No" to Starbucks' $3.00 cup of coffee; you watch that price drop like an anvil out of a Warner Brothers sky. You really believe a new car in this country should cost $30,000? That a 2,000 square foot house should cost $350,000 and you should pay for it for 30 years and still owe $200,000 on it? That you should pay cable television services for 100 channels you don't watch (I don't need six Korean language stations, do I?)? That a Hershey Bar should cost ten times what it did thirty years ago, and be smaller in size? That gasoline needs to be $3.00 a gallon? "Scott, there's nothing we can do. You're being stupid."

Really. Well, a wiser man than I once said, "Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large numbers!" CASE IN POINT: If every American citizen uses just one gallon of gas each day (according to recent studies, this is the case.), and this includes babies who don't drive, I know, but it also includes truckers and bus drivers and construction personnel who drive for a living, so hear me out. So take that as a standard, one gallon of gasoline per person in the U.S. each day. Ok. So. What if we all, every person, just did not drive for one whole day. One 24 hour period. That's it. Just do not use the car for anything. (Ok, we'd make exceptions for emergency vehicles. Yeesh.) That means that 350 million gallons of gas would not get used on that day. And, if each gallon cost an average of, let's be conservative here, $3.00 a gallon, then that would be more than ONE BILLION DOLLARS in ONE DAY that the oil companies would lose out on, and that the American public would gain.

Ok, ok. I understand. Not everybody can do that. Police. Hospitals. Whatever. I know. But if only ONE PERCENT of the public did it, that would still be $10 Million Dollars lost to the oil companies in one day. And what if we repeated that just once a month for a whole year? We could set both the precedent and the price. And we would remember that we do have control, that we are important, that we do not live in a world that we have little or no say in, and that we cannot or do not control.

And we could make ten bucks in your pocket mean something again.

I await your two cents. I'll be here, sitting in my counting house eating bread with honey.