Economy On the Rise???

...........Tesla013's leading economic indicator points to an improving economy..............

   I have a unique way of judging the nation's current level of economic prosperity; Money. Specifically, money I find as I make my many trips about town. I have discovered that when times are tough folks will risk some back pain to bend over and pick up that nickel they dropped. They will race like starving wolves after a squirrel, for that wind blown dollar. And put on a search that would make any federal prosecutor beam with pride for a missing twenty. In short pennies seem to gain weight when times are hard.

   In April of 2010 I moved from Florida to Indiana for love. I had resided for the last 15 or so years in and around Tallahassee Florida. Tallahassee has two major colleges, FAMU and FSU. Nine months a year we have an additional 30 to 40 thousand transients to augment our population of 100,000+. And that, friends and neighbors, is a bonanza for a guy like me. I watch the ground constantly for things folks have dropped. And you would be surprised at some of the things folks drop and walk away from. I was asked once why I always walked with my head down; "Life ain't that bad", folks would holler. And I would holler back; "You ever see money floating in the air?"

   In Tallahassee I made an average of five to ten dollars a month on money I found, in addition to my day labor earnings. Now for a homeless guy with a strong love of beer and herb, five or ten bucks can turn a whole weekend around if work has been slow. Looking for money has been a life long compulsion for me. However, money is not the only thing one finds when you keep your eyes in the dirt so to speak. ID's, drivers licenses, ATM cards, credit cards, car keys, cell phones, the occasional bag o' weed, found a switchblade next to a twenty dollar bill at a Wendy's once, and, don't ask me why, guitar picks, for some reason known only to the Gods. One also finds plenty of sex related material, panties bras and such. And sometimes you find stuff that is just perplexing. I have two simple rules when hunting; If you drop a cell phone, keys, bank card or something like that, I find a cop and turn it in. I remember one Sunday morning at the end of a particularly short week I had about $1.63 to my name and was looking at a long 18 hours before I could go to my crash site. I found a brand new top of the line and most importantly still activated I-Phone. I could have made a single call and sold that baby for $150.00, but no, I went and found a cop and turned it in. Used to get some strange looks from the police. My second rule is you drop your money, you lost your money. Thank you for the donation. But because of the students propensity for getting drunk and dropping @!$%# it was hard to accurately forecast the current economic conditions.

   Now, however, I live in a much smaller town with no colleges,Gas City. Population maybe six seven thousand tops. In my first few weeks here in '10, I could scarcelyfind a damn penny on the ground. Quite a change from Tallahassee. I thought at first, that it was my unfamiliarity with the area. But as the weeks turned into months and I became more familiar with the town and my roaming became more wide spread, thanks to the gift of a bike, I still wasn't finding a damned thing. I am good at finding money, I know where to go looking for it. Car washes, parking lots, area surrounding banks and ATM's. Nothing. But I did begin to notice the people. And I saw that when folks here dropped, even so much as a penny, they usually bent over and picked that baby up. I began to combine this observation with the piss poor economic news i was hearing every where. I got to thinking what a great way to determine the economic status of America.

   To make a long, short story, short again, my total haul for 2010 Gas City was $7.13, five of which I found at the local supermarket lying under the checkout counter. Seven stinkin dollars in a whole year? I was almost ready to move back home, damn the love thing. Going into 2011 things were not looking much better. Someone had stolen my bike late in the summer of '10(another sign of a poor economy, that bike was not much to look at) and I was back on foot. The pickens was slim to say the least. The suddenly in May, two dollars on the sidewalk in front of the Dollar general store, and by the second week in July my total was already at $23.41!! WaaaHooo!! I was finding change ever where, I even found a dollar winner scratch off on the ground in my apartment complexes parking lot. I love finding money.

   What has caused the economic turn around? Well I must make adjustments for it being summer and people tend to be a little more care free now. Also there is a lot less snow on the ground, making it easier to find money. But I reall y do not care to speculate. I still cannot spot the trend at the grocery store, where prices resemble Europes. @!$%#ing 12pk of Diet Dr.Pepper is $4.64 now and no, they are not putting liquor in it. They have taken to selling half a loaf of bread for the same price as the whole loaf. But according to my leading economic indicator the economy may be coming back. Or..........................

  Folks have just decided; "@!$%# it can't take it with ya anyway!"