Word: moses
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...much as I enjoyed your reference to my favorite comic, Li'l Abner, your shallow interpretation of Old Man Mose's warning distressed me. [The warning: "Shmoos, mah boy, is th' greatest menace to hoomanity th' world has ever known...
Obviously, Old Man Mose was referring to the fact that without the challenge of environment there would be no growth of our civilization (see Arnold Toynbee). But after the progressive increase in H.C.L. . . . my household civilization seems arrested anyway, so, going along with Li'l Abner, bring on the shmoos...
...stupid," answered Mose, hurling one of life's profoundest paradoxes at Li'l Abner. "It's because they're so good...
...Shmoo-Plus Theory. Old Man Mose was afraid that a sudden oversupply of consumer goods would produce serious economic dislocations. Typical was the plight of Softhearted John, the shark-mouthed grocer, whose goods no one would buy as long as they could have shmoos instead. "Ah'll be ruined ef ev'ry-body has everything they need!" he moaned. "Ah cain't make any money...
...capitalism, then, doomed to go down before the shmoo? Not at all. Old Man Mose totally misunderstood the nature of the capitalist system and of the economic animal. A striking illustrative example came from a point due east of Shmoo Valley-San Francisco-where a man named Ott Straub recently opened a new eating place. It was a drive-in, with its own radio station which broadcast any desired tune to the customers eating below; it had a dining room, a cocktail lounge, an open-air patio, and 85 carhops...