If everyone gave me a penny...

The population of the United States is 300 million people. If everyone took a moment to send me just a penny, then I'd have $3 million. And that's enough to retire and live in comfort and not do anything useful for the rest of my life, and with enough to contribute generously to my favorite charities.

And would anyone really miss the penny? I doubt it. When we drop them, we don't even pick them up anymore. Clerks sneer when you ask for them in change. We regard them as orphans, tossing them into ubiquitous "Give Penny Take A Penny" cups, even as our nation professes to scorn socialism.

So send them to me.

I thought of this while pondering Kool-Aid, which was created in Hastings, Neb., not far from where I am right now. A fortune was created by little packets of powder that cost 10 cents each starting in 1927, later reduced to five cents a packet in the depths of the Great Depression. Tiny packet, tiny profit. But then comes the magic of volume. In business, Kool-Aid shows the power of high volume, even on a small price item. Starting in 1927, everyone really did give Edwin Perkins a penny, sometimes over and over again.

And in the realm of ideas, it shows how a notion, however small, can easily take hold and circulate and become powerful and widespread without really much effort at all. Something to think about.