The Price Scissors Theory

The Price Scissors theory will not change your day, but it may change what your day means. That is not nothing.

The theory's gift is vocabulary. Once you have the word, you can see the thing — in your office, in your family, in the news. Before the word, it was only a vague discomfort after dinner.

The idea is simple, and like most simple ideas it is easy to nod at and hard to use. The nod is free. The use costs attention, every day, in small change.

Ask the LIC agent at your door and the trader at his terminal — both will tell you the same thing in different clothes: money listens to discipline and laughs at moods.

Money is a good clerk and a terrible master; the arrangement is entirely up to us. A word is a lamp. This one is now yours to carry.