I was watching TV where a teacher held an informal experiment that I think has a lesson for society.

Her young students got one piece of candy a day. They could either eat the candy or study. If you decided to study you got two pieces of candy the next day, three the next, four the next, etc., as your reward.

Finally, once you saved 30 pieces of candy you had to give away all your candy.

You know, share the wealth.

Dealing with a group that was too young to understand the difference between liberal and conservative, here is what happened.

Only a few students did not eat the candy daily and ended up with quite a sizable amount of candy. Those enterprising students started using their candy wealth to barter for more portions of tater tots and pizza in the cafeteria.

They became philanthropic by giving their candy away to charitable causes of their choice, such as cute girls or teachers to gain brownie points.

They even started hiding the amount of candy they had accumulated. (In off-shore accounts like their lunch boxes)

They became employers of their classmates, paying them candy to carry their books.

Some of the students called them “greedy rich candy pants” who only cared about themselves.

Maybe the school officials (the government) started considering laws to make sure they treated the candy-poor more “fairly” because some have so much candy while others have so little.

Maybe they said all the candy-poor only have to pay 15 percent of their candy in taxes but the candy-wealthy had to pay 50 percent. (Keeping in mind that 15 percent of 10 is already more than 15 percent of one).

Maybe they decided they needed more swing sets for all the kids to enjoy and said, “Just let the candy-wealthy kids pay for it all.”

Maybe one of the children broke a tooth on the candy while carrying the books and filed a workman’s compensation claim as well as civil litigation for providing faulty candy.

Maybe the school officials (government again) did audits and found the candy wasn’t being kept at correct temperatures and humidity or there was no tooth warning label on the wrapper so they fined little Billy all his candy and left him bankrupt.

Soon enough, the candy wealthy kids would be left with a small amount of options.

1. Hire elementary students from another country who’s governments don’t provide all the “free candy” programs.

2. Purchase robots and machines to carry all his books as machines don’t litigate or participate in “free candy” programs.

3. Get out of the candy bartering business, stop studying so hard, stop using their talents to create jobs and simply eat that one piece of candy a day offered by the government with thousands of school-children jobs at stake.

Once we get that elementary candy economy to this “beaten down” point we can create a $700 billion stimulus package that costs more than buying all the candy in the world.

We can just make the candy-wealthy pay for it all. Then we can all scratch our heads and wonder where the elementary candy jobs have gone while we propose tougher restrictions on the candy-wealthy kids. Because they are so greedy, you know.

Excess through sacrifice is wisdom, not greed.

Joe Freeman

Crown City