For evidence that the inclination to barter and truck is in our genes, one need venture no farther than the nearest schoolyard. Lurking within school walls is a thriving economy, which begins with swaps of one lunch item for another and progresses to the flogging of assorted sweets picked up on a weekend run down the candy aisle. Yet the informal economic education goes beyond the mechanics of supply and demand. Often enough it runs to finance: it is on the playground that many children get their first real taste of the temptation of speculation.
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