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Uncle Mort's Money
Jody loved Uncle Mort. When Mort
died, she missed him. It was only five years ago that Uncle Mort had
bought a home two blocks away from her home. She visited him every day
just to enjoy his company and to help him remember where things were.
He was forgetful about everything except Jody. He forgot where he left
his car keys, his eyeglasses, or the TV remote, but forgetting about money
was the really big problem. He always left cash around the house.
Jody would find dollar bills scattered around the house and give them back
to Uncle Mort. "You should put this money in a safe place, Uncle
Mort," she would say. Uncle Mort would reply, "Jody, there is no safe
place for money."
Uncle Mort could not travel much.
His lungs were bad. Jody asked her father why Uncle Mort had such
health problems and why he was so forgetful. "It's probably a result
of the blow to the head he received in the Honduras demonstrations," Jody's
father explained. "Your Uncle Mort has lived an interesting life.
He was a brilliant student who dropped out of college to write educational
software for schools. His specialty was economic fables and
myths which became classics both in the computer software field and in
children's literature. He retired early - a wealthy man determined to
help people in poor countries. For 20 years he worked in Latin
America, helping farmers in Honduras and Colombia switch to profitable crops
other than bananas and cocaine. Later he helped Brazilian Indian
tribes sell Rain Forest products, before moving on the encourage Chinese
government workers to set up their own businesses. In each country he
got into trouble with authorities who didn't like the changes. This
trouble resulted in an occasional beating or prison stay, but he avoided
even more trouble because he always carried cash, U.S. dollars. He
used the money to pay people not to harm the poor people he worked with.
He always carried U.S. dollars, and he never used banks.
After Uncle Mort's death, Jody helped her
father clean up Uncle Mort's home and prepare it for sale. It was at
that time she found out about Uncle Mort's will. According to Dad,
Uncle Mort left all his belongings to his brother, Jody's father, except for
the money in the house. Any money found in the house was Jody's to use
as she wished. In his will, Uncle Mort asked her to find a safe place
for the money.
It took Jody and her father two days to
clean Mort's house completely. As they cleaned, they kept finding
money in different places - $100 in the cupboard, $10 in the cookie jar, a
bag of coins in the toilet tank. But the real discovery came when they
took the mattress off the bed. Money fell out of a slit in the bottom
of the mattress. When they gathered it all up, and added it together
with the other money found earlier, the total came to $100,000.
"Well, Jody," her father asked, "what is
the safe place where you are going to put the money?"
As a group, decide what you think Jody
should do with the money. You can choose among the following
alternatives. Discuss the potential costs and benefits of each.
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Buy five expensive Ford Mustangs, one
for each school day of the week.
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Put the money in a bank savings
account.
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Invest the money in IBM stock.
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Put the money in Jody's mattress.
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Other ideas?
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