No happy ending on oil fairy tale

Let’s say you’re planting a tree in your back yard and strike the world’s mother lode of pure, sweet marshmallow fluff. Since the world runs on the stuff, you know you can sell every ounce you spoon from the ground.

You harvest about a ton of white gold each day, and sell it for $1 a pound to your brother. Your brother purifies it and puts it in a jar and sells it to ravenous children and their parents for $2. Everyone makes a nice living.

Then Chinese and Indian kids develop a taste for the sticky stuff. Their nations don’t have any marshmallow mines, but they do have doting parents willing to pay whatever it takes to satisfy their kids’ sweet teeth.

There’s a run on your fluff.

You start charging $2 for every pound, and your brother starts charging $3, basically because that’s what people will pay. Since your costs haven’t changed, the price hike represents nothing but pure, sweet profit.

The Virginian-Pilot