The Pink Cotton Blouse

A pink cotton blouse hangs in a lady’s closet. It is a simple little blouse, sleeveless, with buttons down the front and narrow lace edging on the collar. She paid $19.99 for it. How did the blouse get there? What are the processes by which it materialized in her closet?

· The lady bought the blouse from a sales associate in a department store in the mall.
The store owners pay rent, lighting, advertising, insurance of many kinds, security, and taxes. They pay staff in accounting, sales, purchasing, and maintenance. The staff uses display racks, chairs, desks, and other furniture.
The landlord, electric company, advertising company, insurance broker, insurance company, governments, outside accounting firm, stationer, security firm, and every other person or firm who does business with the store have similar expenses.

· A seamstress constructed the blouse. Another worker cut the fabric into pieces – fronts, back, and facings. Another person cut the lace into lengths. Another person brought the thread, buttons, etc. to the workroom.
These people do their work in a factory building, which is heated, lighted, cleaned, repaired, plumbed, insured, secured, and taxed. The staff uses benches, chairs, desks, tables, hand tools, and machines of various kinds. The seamstress and other workers are supported by other departments: executive, accounting, design, buying, supply, sales, shipping, and maintenance.

· A lacemaker manufactured the polyester lace. Polyester is made from oil. The oil is pumped from the earth, trucked, stored, trucked again, and processed into polyester thread. The lace manufacturer, the oil company and refiner, the trucking companies, and the thread manufacturer all have similar expenses to those of the store and clothing manufacturer.

· The buttons are made of oyster shell, which is a by-product of the oyster-fishing industry. The oyster fisher must use a boat with all its accoutrements and equipment to harvest the oysters. He sells the oysters to a cannery. The cannery shucks the oysters and sells the shells to the button manufacturer, who trucks the shells to a factory, turns them into buttons, and trucks them to the clothing manufacturer. The fisher, the cannery, and the button manufacturer all have expenses similar to the other companies.

· A weaver made the fabric to specifications of the fabric designer, using thread from the ginning, spinning, and dyeing departments. These people also require a factory building and support from various departments, similar to all the other companies.

· The fabric mill acquired the cotton from a brokerage firm which requires buildings for offices and storage. The broker has expenses similar to all the other companies.

· A farmer grew the cotton. The farmer’s requirements included: ground, seed, fertilizer, insecticide, irrigation water, pumps and pipes, machines for planting, cultivating, and harvesting the cotton bolls. There are costs for labor, accounting, taxes, machine repair and maintenance, energy for operating all the machinery. Each of the companies that supply the farmer’s needs has expenses similar to all the other companies.

· Each of the people involved in the production of the pink cotton blouse has personal expenses that must be met: housing, food, clothing, transportation, retirement fund, medical and dental care, insurance of various kinds, utilities, and taxes. If there are children in his or her family, there are all the expenses associated with raising and educating them. If there are elderly relatives in the family, there are all the expenses associated with maintaining their comfort and safety.

How many blouses does it take to cover all these expenses and make it profitable for each of these people, including the share-holders of the various business entities, to continue in business?

My conclusion is that, just as scientists have declared it impossible for the bumblebee to fly, it is impossible for this pink cotton blouse to generate enough money to make it worthwhile to produce.

Andy Jackson: North Carolinian or South Carolinian?

Historians have never reached consensus on the question of where Andy Jackson was born. Andrew and Betty Jackson immigrated with two young sons from Ireland. They bought two hundred acres of North Carolina in the Waxhaw district that straddled the border of the Carolinas. Andrew died unexpectedly in the ninth month of Betty's pregnancy. She could not operate the farm by herself so she took refuge with her sister, Jane Crawford, who lived in South Carolina. Another sister, Peggy McCamie, lived about a mile from the Crawfords, across the border in North Carolina.

Jane Crawford was an invalid and Betty was able to do housework and cooking to pay room and board for her two boys and herself. However, as her due date drew near, she betook herself to the home of Peggy McCamie. On March 15, 1767, Andy Jackson was born in North Carolina.

Historians have always known that Andy was born at either the Crawford or the McCamie home but the record does not explicitly state which. It doesn't need to. No sane woman would choose the home of an invalid over the home of an able-bodied woman as the birthplace of her baby. Andy Jackson was born in North Carolina.