Maryland Trip and Role Playing Games by Ruth Paget
One year after Thanksgiving, my husband Laurent and I set out for Fort Meade outside Baltimore, Maryland for one of his business trips.
I knew from American history class in high school that Baltimore, Maryland was important for the defense of Washington, D.C. Baltimore sits opposite Washington, D.C. over the Potomac River. If ships sail up the Potomac to attack D.C., cannons from the highlands of Baltimore could fire on invaders below.
Maryland is still a key player in the nation’s defense. The U.S. Naval Academy is in Annapolis. The National Security Agency is also located in Maryland, but is hard to find.
I had no plans to visit Washington, D.C., since I was a Close-Up program participant in high school and had studied government in a weekly club with a year-end trip to Washington, D.C. for a series of workshops and presentations devoted to governing the United States.
I still felt like a Close-Up participant despite being almost sixty. I had also worked for several years as a youth services librarian and felt as if I had reverted to eighteen years of age. Specifically, I wanted to see if I could come up with any ideas of how to get more money into the economy and banks with a role playing game.
I thought of ways to reduce the nation’s debt on the 5-hour trip to Baltimore from Los Angeles. The game and some of the solutions I thought of for the nation’s debt crisis follow:
Game: Reducing Nation’s Debt Background: For each $1 deposited in the bank, the bank only has .05 cents in the vaults to cover it due to bad loans.
Watch the film It’s a Wonderful Life starring Jimmy Stewart to know why this is a very bad situation.
Adults are deeply in debt with credit card companies stopping to raise credit limits despite credit scores.
Young people have money, but not too much.
Role: You are the Treasury Secretary whom the President has asked to get money into the economy and banks quickly before year-end.
Mission: Get money into the economy to make federal payroll every two weeks.
Possible Problem Solutions:
1 – Lower the percentage of money taken on coin counting machines to 5%, so coins in jars go back into the economy.
People accumulate coins in regions where tourism is a major industry. Getting outstanding coins into the economy avoids expenses related to minting new ones, especially expenses for mining ore.
2 – Set up Recycling Centers for Plastic, Aluminum, and glass
Make recycling a win-win situation with people who bring in these items being paid to do so in the form of refunded deposits. Money can be used for junior college tuition, bus fare, or car maintenance funds.
3 - Set up Christmas Savings Clubs at Banks
When I was growing up in Detroit, banks advertised these clubs and said you could deposit $50 a month to have $600 at Christmas for gifts or meals.
4 – Set up Layette Savings Funds to buy baby furniture and clothing for newborns
$2,000 can buy the basics. This fund can be used for emergency car repairs, too.
5 – Set up Car Maintenance Funds
$2,000 to $3,000 in the bank will make it easy to do transmission fluid changes and buy new tires.
6 – Set up an Emergency Rent or Mortgage Fund for two years
Multiply your monthly rent or mortgage by 24 months to set the amount you need to save to have a basic safety net.
7 – Set up a Trousseau Fund This is a fund for a layette plus wedding dress and/or tuxedo.
The amount will vary depending on what kind of dress or tuxedo you would like.
8 – Set up a Vacation Savings Fund
Find out what hotels, rental cars, and meals will cost you in advance of your vacation and save for the basic amount.
Divide that amount by 12 and make monthly deposits towards it. It is easier to buy souvenirs when you know the major expenses are covered.
9 – Buy relatively inexpensive print items for Christmas
These items include:
-paper cocktail napkins and regular napkins made from recycled paper with festive patterns
-art posters
-note cards
-stationery
-greeting cards
-lithographs -
wrapping paper
-art books of varying price levels
-origami paper
-origami guidebooks
10 – Set up a dream car down payment fund
11 – Sell Kitchen Items
-cookware
-placemats
-napkins
-tablecloths for kitchen and patio
-holiday decoration items
-cookbooks
Check bookbub.com for cookbook deals on e-readers. Many deals between .99 and 2.99.
12 – Sell Comic Books and Graphic Novels
13 – Sell Paper Products for the Home
-toilet paper
-tissues
-paper towels
14 - Promote Junior College Enrollment
15 -Buy clothes
You can usually enroll immediately into a junior college without waiting a year as you do for a university. Junior colleges might also want to think about offering online courses to expand the number of students who can enroll at a college locally and outside the state at non-resident fees.
I was trying to think of items to sell that were already in stock, so sales tax could be immediately collected. A perfect game I thought would have 20 items listed to get money in the economy fast, but the plane landed. I would get back to the game another day.
Laurent and I were headed out to a hotel near Ellicott City, Maryland. We went to Costco and got deli salads, cocktail shrimp, muffins, and cookies.
Costco was near a shopping center with a Pizza Due (managed by a UChicago graduate I found out), Carrabba’s (my favorite place for seafood pasta), and a Barnes and Noble bookstore.
We headed out to Pizza Due for dinner. We met the manager and ordered iceberg lettuce quarters with blue cheese – honey – and walnut dressing followed by an Italian sausage and cheese, deep-dish pizza. I loved this combination as a student at the University of Chicago as I endured icy winters and memorizing art history slides. We planned our weekend outings to travel and see friends over dinner.
Over the five weeks we were there, we also accumulated the following gifts for our daughter Florence Paget, who was working at an investment bank at the time:
-a Liberty Bell replica from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
-a Harry Potter Tic-Tac-Toe Game
-Three books by Charles Whelan that we bought at Barnes and Noble: Naked Statistics, Naked Economics, and Naked Money
I worked on creating war games that future presidents or military officers could use. I wanted to make games that you could work on individually or play around a card table or dining room table. The games I worked on include:
-Novgorod - about the battle on frozen Lake Peipus in Russia
-Tagalog - about restoring friendly diplomatic relations with the Philippines
-Hangul - about the problems involved in unifying the Korean Peninsula
-Bento - about the possible role of Japanese lunch in winning a war against Russia
When we flew home to Monterey, I felt I had done a good job playing defense in my own little way, too.
By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks (Japan) and Teen in China
Click for Laurent Paget's Book
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| Ruth Paget Photo |
