A spent force. Money seems to evaporate, rising up as taxation to the rare air where government resides. Or perhaps it's better defined as evaporation through heat resulting from the friction of being handled -- every time money moves, it slows down and a bit of it rubs off.
I earn a dollar; the gov't gets a piece of it. I spend what's left; the gov't gets a part of that. The merchant who gets what's left of that dollar has to pay taxes on revenue. What's left of that is spent, or paid, or invested, and the gov't reaps taxes from that.
Wherever that dollar travels, a fraction of its impulse is removed; like infintesimally dividing something in half, it never quite ceases to exist, yet for all practical intents and purposes is as good as Zero. I'm beginning to think that's what really ought to be meant by "a dollar doesn't go very far."
Posted by edgar at November 18, 2002 04:32 PM