Object: A pencil

Good morning, boys and girls. A famous economist* made an interesting statement recently. "There isn't a single person in the world who can make a pencil," he said. The wood may have come from a forest in Washington, the graphite from a mine in South America, the eraser from a Malaysian rubber plantation. "Thousands of people," he concluded, "cooperate to make one pencil." That's fascinating to me. All those people to make this one little…