{"id":15966,"date":"2016-01-04T20:39:51","date_gmt":"2016-01-05T01:39:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=15966"},"modified":"2016-01-04T20:40:04","modified_gmt":"2016-01-05T01:40:04","slug":"are-governments-running-out-of-candy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=15966","title":{"rendered":"Are Governments Running Out of Candy?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 class=\"title\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.internationalman.com\/articles\/are-governments-running-out-of-candy\" target=\"_blank\">Are Governments Running Out of Candy?<\/a><\/h3>\n<div class=\"node\">\n<div class=\"js-links\">By now, many readers will have seen the popular American YouTube video by Mark Dice in which he stands on a city sidewalk and offers passers-by a free gift.<strong>They may choose between a 10-ounce silver bar or a large Hershey\u2019s candy bar.<\/strong><\/div>\n<div class=\"content\">\n<p>Each taker chooses the candy &#8211; most of them with no deliberation. The only\u00a0<strong>taker\u00a0<\/strong>who seems to hesitate\u00a0<em>at all<\/em>\u00a0soon decides on the candy, as \u201cI don\u2019t have any way to do anything with the silver.\u201d (Behind them is a coin shop. Mister Dice offers to take the silver bar inside if she wishes, but she\u2019s uninterested and takes the candy.)<\/p>\n<p><strong>A 10-ounce silver bar is presently valued at about $140, the Hershey\u2019s bar at about $2.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/bYhTFz_SGw0\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<div id=\"tt-wrappere62fa31\" class=\"tt-wrapper inread \">Mister Dice doesn\u2019t comment in the video as to what lesson might be learned from this, but\u00a0<strong>an obvious one would be that Americans (or at least those who reside in his home town of San Diego, California) are prone to prefer instant gratification over something of substantially greater, but delayed value.<\/strong><\/div>\n<p>If this is his intent, he\u2019s succeeded well in his light-hearted, but instructive video.<\/p>\n<p><u><strong>Since the 1950\u2019s, much of the world has perceived Americans as being on \u201cEasy Street,\u201d and in recent decades, the U.S. government has fuelled American complacency through a consciousness of easy money and entitlement.<\/strong><\/u><\/p>\n<p>And so, Americans are often perceived by those outside the U.S. as being somewhat insulated, spoiled, na\u00efve, and short-sighted. But, if this is true, Americans certainly aren\u2019t alone. Much the same exists in Europe, Canada, and quite a few other countries that have, over recent decades, followed the American socio-economic model.<\/p>\n<p><u><em><strong>Trouble is, all that easy money and entitlement exists only as long as a source for the \u201cfreebies\u201d exists. Unfortunately, the idea that freebies are free is inaccurate. Freebies of any description must be paid for by someone.<\/strong><\/em><\/u><\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Are Governments Running Out of Candy? By now, many readers will have seen the popular American YouTube video by Mark Dice in which he stands on a city sidewalk and offers passers-by a free gift.They may choose between a 10-ounce silver bar or a large Hershey\u2019s candy bar. Each taker chooses the candy &#8211; most [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[10697,11436,11438,379,6228,11437,843],"class_list":["post-15966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberty","tag-bread-and-circuses","tag-candy","tag-freebies","tag-government","tag-international-man","tag-mark-dice","tag-us-government"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15966"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15966\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15968,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15966\/revisions\/15968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}