This is a couple-of-chapters story on the consequences of weird economical and moral precepts taken to some extreme. Story happens in Mexico.

A couple of facts first.

Mexico is 110 million people living on something like 4 Frances or 6 Germanies or half the EU. It's HDI (human development index) places it between the Bahamas and Costa Rica, or between Latvia and Bulgaria if we stick to European countries. Way above Russia, Brazil or Turkey, if you're more familiar with those.

There is a space on earth where borders are virtually removed between a cluster of countries. It's called the European Union, a space 3,000 km wide in which 500 million people live. More than anyone would need. Within that space, a citizen of one country can leave his village, travel many kilometers, cross many borders and settle down wherever he thinks the grass is green enough. He can get a job if he feels like it, claim government support, mingle with the local society or keep to himself... his status of immigrant will barely hinder his possibilities.

I'm an avid user of the web and, on my own terminals, I have set up ad blockers. They efficiently filter out most of the advertising that websites throw at me.

But it happens that I have to surf through a terminal belonging to some recreational computer user that makes use of Microsoft or Apple products and that has no ad filter set up. Surfing through an ad-sensitive terminal affects my productivity and pisses me off significantly.

With all the kindlery and iPadism in the air, eBooks are (finally) getting some attention. Good.

Good? When I see what Amazon wants to charge me for something they don't need to print, and that they don't need to ship, I see a LOT of room for improvement. And given the price of one digital copy of a book, I almost understand that it will be crippled with DRM.

Saying that "money is the root of all our problems" is just as stupid as saying "No woman no cry". Money is the root of everything, sort of. So obviously it is the root of a lot of problems.

That said, with last year's financial crisis, and the many questions it sparked, I noticed one thing: Nobody I know was able to explain me how it works. Money, finance... all that stuff. Either because they were as clueless as me, either because I didn't understand their explanation. I'm actually pretty sure they were clueless too and were just trying to sound cool with four-letter words like "edge fund" and "dead loan".