The Best of Creative Computing Volume 1 (published 1976)
You Are A Businessman (classroom activity, solving social problems with technological advances)
YOU ARE A BUSINESSMAN...
by Ron Jones
A COMPUTER expert/economist has come to you with a
mathematical model of a means of so stimulating the
economies of urban ghettos that they would cease to be a problem
to the nation or themselves in a decade. The most conserfative
estimates are that the money saved in local and federal
governmental costs as well as by ghetto dwellers would
equal the savings of 25% of the gasoline used in the country.
A very large sum of money is needed to perfect the economic
and mathematical relationships to enable the computer
to be used to direct the program, as well as to act as seed
money for the enterprises, provide funds for education and
training, inventory, refurbishing of the areas, and a sales
and marketing effort.
It's more money than you and your associates have; it is
essential that government interference be avoided; you cannot
supply the enormous collateral the banks would demand
for a loan. You're going to have to sell stock in it, millions
of shares of stock at a low price to raise the millions of
dollars needed. The idea is a necessary one, and will
ultimately save taxpayers millions, maybe billions of dollars
each year, as well as providing ghetto dwellers the equality
of opportunity we worship as one of our value-beliefs.
PREPARE a statement inviting people to invest in buying stock -- a few shares or
a lot of shares. Point
out the need, the potential in the action, the possibility that the ultimate
return will be in tax savings and
satisfaction of seeing the disadvantaged help themselves, the dangers and bad
experience of leaving such
a task to government -- everything you can to induce someone to see the gain to
himself, if not in dollars
in something else, OI such an investment.
WHEN you have made up your sales pitch for the prospective corporation, try it
out on your parents and
some of their friends. Ask them if they would invest in such a company, and why.
WHAT WERE THE RESULTS OF YOUR SURVEY?
WHAT DO THESE RESULTS INDICATE AS FAR AS A MESHING OF ADVANCES IN TECHNOLOGY AND
OUR INSTITUTIONS?
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