market-failure
Original: market-failure on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1:
A man in a suit (the customer, standing): "Wow, a quarter a cup. What a deal!"
(A small boy sits at a lemonade stand with a red pitcher.)
Panel 2:
Boy (cheerful, to himself / aside): "My parents think I'm learning to be entrepreneurial, so they're fronting the cost of production. Sales are 100% profit for me."
(A sign on the stand reads: "Lemonade 25¢")
Panel 3:
Boy: "By flooding the market with inexpensive lemonade, I will strangle every local supplier of refreshing drinks."
Panel 4:
Boy (grinning, pointing): "With the competition suffocated, every parched tongue will make its way to Billy's Lemonade Stand. Only to find the price has been JACKED UP twentyfold."
Panel 5:
Boy (laughing maniacally): "Everyone will be too thirsty to swallow, but they'll HAVE to swallow monopoly pricing."
The customer (skeptical): "The people will rise up! We'll just drink healthy refreshing water!"
Panel 6:
Boy (scornful): "You're gonna get through your workday without sugar or artificial flavoring? Stop blowing smoke up your own ass, you old fool."
Customer (resigned, eyes wide): "All right, give me the damn lemonade."
Panel 7:
(The boy hands over a cup of lemonade to the customer.)
Boy: "Have a blessed day, sir!"
Votey:
The customer, now drinking, looks down into the cup with a delighted/dazed expression: "Wow, fresh lemons!"
A man in a suit (the customer, standing): "Wow, a quarter a cup. What a deal!"
(A small boy sits at a lemonade stand with a red pitcher.)
Panel 2:
Boy (cheerful, to himself / aside): "My parents think I'm learning to be entrepreneurial, so they're fronting the cost of production. Sales are 100% profit for me."
(A sign on the stand reads: "Lemonade 25¢")
Panel 3:
Boy: "By flooding the market with inexpensive lemonade, I will strangle every local supplier of refreshing drinks."
Panel 4:
Boy (grinning, pointing): "With the competition suffocated, every parched tongue will make its way to Billy's Lemonade Stand. Only to find the price has been JACKED UP twentyfold."
Panel 5:
Boy (laughing maniacally): "Everyone will be too thirsty to swallow, but they'll HAVE to swallow monopoly pricing."
The customer (skeptical): "The people will rise up! We'll just drink healthy refreshing water!"
Panel 6:
Boy (scornful): "You're gonna get through your workday without sugar or artificial flavoring? Stop blowing smoke up your own ass, you old fool."
Customer (resigned, eyes wide): "All right, give me the damn lemonade."
Panel 7:
(The boy hands over a cup of lemonade to the customer.)
Boy: "Have a blessed day, sir!"
Votey:
The customer, now drinking, looks down into the cup with a delighted/dazed expression: "Wow, fresh lemons!"
Alt text
A seven-panel SMBC comic. A small boy runs a lemonade stand (sign: "Lemonade 25¢") with a red pitcher. A suited adult customer says, "Wow, a quarter a cup. What a deal!" The boy explains to himself that his parents fund production thinking it's an entrepreneurial lesson, so his sales are 100% profit. He then lays out an increasingly menacing monopolist scheme: flood the market with cheap lemonade to strangle every local supplier, then once the competition is suffocated, jack the price up twentyfold so every parched tongue must come to his stand. He cackles that people will be too thirsty to do anything but "swallow monopoly pricing." The customer protests they'll just drink water; the boy sneers that nobody gets through a workday without sugar and calls him an old fool. Defeated, the customer says, "All right, give me the damn lemonade," and the boy cheerfully hands him a cup: "Have a blessed day, sir!" Votey (bonus panel): the customer peers into his cup, delighted, exclaiming, "Wow, fresh lemons!" — charmed by the product despite the predatory pricing.
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.