When you start thinking about it, it comes of the Fed's printing press because that is about as much as it is worth these days:
"Hasbro picks 5 ‘house rules’ for new Monopoly set" by Leanne Italie | Associated Press
NEW YORK — No rent collection while in jail, double the dough for landing on Go, and clean out Free Parking if your luck takes you there are among five made-up Monopoly rules Facebook fans voted in for future editions of the board game.
I never thought about it, but now I realize how that game embedded the values of corporate capitali$m and the natural law of wealth inequality into our heads.
Several thousand people weighed in on ‘‘house rules’’ over 10 days of recent debate and a year after Hasbro Inc. added a cat token and retired the iron in a similar online stunt aimed at keeping the 79-year-old game fresh.
‘‘Our goal is to stay current and deliver Monopoly in a way that they want to engage with it and that means sometimes being new and having modern takes on the brand,’’ said Jonathan Berkowitz, vice president of marketing at Pawtucket, R.I.-based Hasbro.
I'm not even going to type it.
Related: Happy Holidays From Hasbro
Was a di$appointing season for them.
UPDATE: Hasbro turns a profit for the quarter
Did you know some people play that moms get out of jail for free? Always. No questions asked. That one didn’t make the cut. Nor did buying houses for a property without an actual monopoly, or starting the game by placing half of all the money on the game board for a cash-grabbing free-for-all on the count of three.
Cash grab somehow seems current to me, and bankers always get out of jail free.
Hasbro’s house rules debate came after the company received results of a survey showing nearly 70 percent of 1,000 respondents reported never having read all Monopoly rules and 34 percent said they had made up rules more than once.
Is anyone even playing board games these days?
The winning rule for landing on Go means players get 400 Monopoly dollars instead of the official 200. As for Free Parking, official rules call for absolutely nothing to happen when a player lands there. Under the house rule, any taxes and fees collected are thrown into the middle for a lucky someone who lands on that corner square.
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I'm going to move my piece, thank you:
"Is this the year the US economy finally takes off?
Despite a slow start in 2014, many economists say, “Yes.” Of course, they’ve said that before, in 2011, 2012, and 2013, but this time, they say, is different.
I'm going to stop playing now. I don't like being insulted when playing a game.
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By the end of the article things don't look so good, even to the guy who said this:
“The story for the Massachusetts economy, if you ignore high levels of unemployment and inequality, is the economy has been performing very well.”
Your turn to roll the dice:
Home buyers face tight inventories, rising prices this spring
Having a little trouble getting there?
Of course, the economy has been rolling along for that top 5 percent!
Meanwhile, the wealthiest philanthropists did not give as much in 2013 as they gave before the Great Recession, even as a strong stock market and better business climate have continued to concentrate American wealth in the top 1 percent of earners.
It's actually the top five percent, and it's enough to make a recovery.
Thought I would throw this out there, too:
"The labor market continues to strengthen as more Americans left the workforce."
Paging George Orwell, stat! You have to draw a Community Chest Card.
The globe has some ideas on how to solve the problem, but they get on some people's nerves.
