The Man With The Big Red Balloon [Paperback]

In this fictional narrative, the new rural town of Apple Valley finds that building an economy is not as easy as it seems when greed, unfairness, dishonesty, corruption, and disloyalty are rife among its leaders. Founded with a single apple pie bakery, entrepreneurs flocked to the new market eager to build new lives for themselves. Trying to escape an overbearing king known for creating outlandish laws, the townspeople enjoyed the free market they created and had plentiful lives on their farms and orchards. Their town grows until it is clear that it needs product guidelines, inspections, and regulations. They created councils to oversee their trade, and they wrote laws to ensure fairness, but there was still exploitation. A leader saw inequality in the free market and decided to bring fairness to the town by creating an even playing field for each person. A stranger came to town bringing news of an air shortage, demanding that each farmer should be taxed in order to save the town's air. Taxation soon hurt business. In the name of fairness, all orchards were created the same size. Taxes increased, and the town's economy plummeted. Soon the town's business owners had no more land, no more workers, and no more money. The political leaders had taxed and regulated their economy to death and destroyed the free market that had worked so well.