A stock market bubble, played out in a school cafeteria

I’m kind of a sucker for the kid-with-a-criminal-streak-earns-brief-notoriety-then-comeuppance tales. There was a good one in Infinite Jest, where secondary character Tiny Ewell is revealed to have been the brief mastermind of, then the embezzeler from, a gang of youthful toughs.

But I also got a kick out of one that was printed today in the New York Times.

Writer Joshua Bearman had, in some ways, a similar childhood to mine. He was forced to take *shudder* nutritious lunches to school, while all his classmates had delicious candy.

Bearman, though, found a loophole that I never did — “selling” his classmates on the promise of future treats in return for snacks now.

Give it a read: “My half-baked bubble“