{this runs after 2/11 IH, as a preview}
RICHARD:
Next week on Issues at Hand...
{dissolve up into Promos. IH logo in upper right corner throughout}
You know my Aunt Betty ... wonderful Aunt Betty ... who always had vinegar with her waffles for breakfast.{He was doing this bit on Laugh Laff, so we have the rights. If you've heard of a better one, let me know.}
I've told you about her-- the one who insisted that I keep my trash neatly stacked in the wastebasket?{laughter}
Well, she's finally taking a cotton to the Window. Took awhile ... She's the kind that still isn't too sure about those newfangled ballpoint pens.{laughter}
But what I think she's figured--the thing that turned the corner for her--was the E-mail. She keeps talking about E-mail. I'm thinking that she's thinking that E-mail means that she can tell three hundred million more people what to do!{laughter}
{laughter}
{dissolve to:}
Yeh man I go cruisin flying down the Highway. Kinda night rider, kinda sleek. Meet up with other cruisers, shoot setshot out, meet up, man it's the best. I love it. Stay with it all day long. Some of these guys have VRs to take me in to meet them, and that trip is the way, it's the way of the next, the tomorrow....{this guy is a 10. Mirrorshades, stripshaved eyebrows, every bit of clothing black, and he sits in front of his screen with music just blaring. He turns it down, and says these words while never turning his mirrored eyes from his screen, or slowing his fingers.}
{dissolve to:}
In the last two years, energy use, measured in total BTUs, has decreased fifty-three percent. Personal gasoline use has decreased seventy-two percent since 1990. Sure, the price has gone up, but per capita expenditure on gasoline has nonetheless decreased by 32%. That's money in the bank, literally. When our balance of trade is influenced by such drastic reductions in oil use, that again is money in the bank, literally. While taxes overall are up 9%, gross national product is up a staggering 18%.{he's dry, but we have to have hard facts in this promo to offset the folkiness}
Traditionally, that would be an unmanageable level of growth. But the Information Agenda's legislation has successfully turned most standard economic indicators on their ears. Capital flow is different. Taxes perform additional functions, that modify the economy. Outputs are declining, but value is increasing. Most standard measures no longer mean what they used to mean.
So it's hard to say whether it's dangerous or not. Most of the extra capital is being used to pay off the past's stupidity. And we'll be doing that for at least another decade, even at this rate of growth.
{cut to:}
But I seen the changes these last two years made. I mean, my apartment's not any different, really. And I guess I don't even make any more money, really. But I seem to have more.{another 10. She speaks with a light accent that is absolutely sincere. She means everything she says, and we believe her. The right note to end this sequence on.}
And I can see a way out. Maybe things are still stacked against me, but I feel like I got a lot more chips now.
And my kids have it. That's what really matters.
They're learning. And they like it. They won't live what I been living, the way I been living. And I'll always be thankful to Williams for that.
{Same close as short form (Promo I). MUSIC swells. IMAGES flying from far to near past screen. TAPE #GA9613125-116}
The Issue: The Information Agenda--Three years older, how much wiser?
Sunday, 9:00 Eastern/8:00 Central
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