Meanwhile, Here at Smuggler House

The other day, JT had a friend over to play.  At one point, I overheard them planning out the game of the hour, plotting to be smugglers. Later on, curious to see what he knew, I asked JT about smuggling.   But my questions quickly yielded to his and I found myself explaining the economics of smuggling.  Namely, that a smuggler typically deals in restricted or rare goods and extracts profits from the price of the goods as well as the risk that the smuggler undertakes when he delivers the forbidden goods to the buyer.  Note to the folks: see, I do use my education.

He found this all rather interesting and began to plan a smugglers game for the afternoon.  His play is often a merger of his 10 year-old imagination and what he understands of the real-world, and this game was no different. There are a load of pirates, Vikings, Romans, and assorted other dangerous dude living in his playroom and he devised a game involving these folks.  Guns were to be the smugglers' product of choice.

The next thing I knew, he'd come downstairs to ask more questions.  He wanted a real-world smuggling game.  So I said the guns would have to come from a weak state; a place where the goods were available but where the government's ability to enforce the rules is limited.  Some calculations followed and then he announced that Russia would be source of the guns.  But to whom should the bad guy smugglers sell?  A place where guns were desirable and perhaps rare.  A place with another weak or perhaps corrupt government; one that might let his smuggler dudes trade in their illicit goods with less risk of being caught.  Pakistan, he decided.  He returned upstairs to set up the game.

Secretary Clinton, if you're reading, the boy's services are available.  My advice is to get him on our side now, while he's still amenable to our message.