Transcript - Izzit.org

WOMAN: Yet, the surprising thing was: That the price of salt still made it worth our while to go through
the trouble of fetching it from the caves.
MAN: And another interesting thing was- that now we’d stopped weaving, there were fewer shawls
about, and their price had got higher and higher. Things continued like that for a few days. Then, the
market seemed to have settled down.
WOMAN: Prices didn’t go up much.
MAN: And they didn’t go down much.
WOMAN: The price of salt stayed at 15 cents a bowl.
MAN: Stayed at 15 cents, that is, until our salt bubble burst.
WOMAN: Yes, it was that trader again.
MAN: They’d re-excavated their salt mine and what’s more, they’d found a rich new seam. Now he was
offering it cheaper than ever.
WOMAN: You want 5 cents a bowl
MAN: And there’s plenty more where that came from.
WOMAN: Oh, so there was only one thing left for us to do.
MAN: Reduce the price yet again. Again, salted fish
WOMAN: Yes, salted fish again.
MAN: Who wants to struggle five miles to a salt cave, to dig for salt which scarcely brings in enough
money to keep the children fed
WOMAN: Well, was there any alternative
MAN: Was there any alternative
BOTH: And there it was!
WOMAN: The price of shawls had made it worthwhile thinking about starting weaving again. So, I sat
down at me loom and I began to work hard. Oh, I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed this! What happened
on that occasion was this: When the supply of salt ran short the prices rose, and that encouraged more and
more people to produce it. This increased the supply- and as more and more salt appeared on the market,
its price dropped but soon it reached a stable level.
MAN: Then when the supply rose yet again, the salt miners found that it wasn’t worth the effort and they
stopped mining, and went back to their previous job- because it brought in more money than mining.
WOMAN: Ah, I’ll soon have this one’s finished. We saw in the last program how the market was full of
messages for the customer about the present state of supply. These are scarce here today, but those are
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