“Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.

This is known as "bad luck.”

― Robert Heinlein //

California has created a government that depends on one percent of its citizens for 50 percent of its revenue. It is in the process of creating a situation where it has half the revenue and 99 percent of the people. That is not sustainable.

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Greenwood's monologue begins after he says "When life gives you lemons" prompting another character to say "You make lemonade." Greenwood pauses for a moment, bemused, before launching into what you do when life gives you lemons...you sell the lemons, and you do so at a severely hiked-up price. How?

You launch a massive media campaign that turns the simple lemon into a high-value object desired by everyone, including the rich and famous, by infecting the populace with the idea that lemons are actually worth a king's ransom.

This monologue is delivered so well by Greenwood that it's hard not to get sucked into it, but it's all the better that you do because despite it being an actor acting out lines, it reveals a brutal truth about just how controlled we are today. //

The manipulation of markets isn't anything new. Decades of research have gone into figuring out how to make the mundane seem like a high-tier item you must spend high-dollar amounts on.

One of the most successful campaigns to do this in history involves the diamond. It's one of the most common gemstones in the world and yet, thanks to a very successful marketing campaign that got people willing to shell out absurd amounts of money for them.

Thanks to the De Beers Corporation controlling the supply and demand of diamonds, they were able to create a marketing campaign through the ad agency N.W. Ayer in 1938.