The Most Expensive Price of All: Something for Nothing

The greatest economic lesson taught in the schools in Hawaii, is the desirability of getting something for nothing -- as in getting paid to do some work, and then once paid, the workers go home or goof, demanding more for them to actually do any work -- since why should they after they've gotten paid?

And nobody can fire them -- because nobody else is allowed to do that work, by their friends the lawmakers. And so of course, the price for everything, is exorbitantly high -- and there are no alternatives, no choices other than what the ruling party provides them -- or not, once they've already collected the money.

The lawmakers and public workers pride themselves on their ability to get something for nothing -- and so that defines the standard of value and exchange in the Island culture -- everybody hoping to get something for nothing, over the other guy, who they are convinced has unlimited money, and should as a public service, have as much of it taken away from them as possible.

The other guy is somebody nobody anyone has actually seen or met -- because they live in magnificent castles on the other side of town where they hire people who haven't learned to fight back -- and undermine the efforts of the "greedy" and "ambitious people." These people always seem to want to do something -- to change and improve things, rather than let the other guy do everything. Such people, they have concluded and been taught, don't know how it is done around here -- that no honest, self-respecting person would be caught dead doing anything -- because if they did, how could they create more high-paying jobs to do it? And so the work must NOT get done.

Such is life in paradise.