What is a Market Economy?

That's the title of a paperback book the US Embassy handed me as part of their American resource donation to my school library, a donation that many other volunteers make use of-- other Embassy Greatest Hits include American Literature of the 19th Century, An Outline of American Sports, and American Teenagers. There's a few people I'd really like to give the market economy book to, but I can't name them here, since somehow they will find out. Information travels fast in Georgia, and there's no doubt in my mind that my thoughtless gripes would somehow jump out of the internet and into the memory of our cousin's neighbor's teacher or something, soon to be related to the subject herself.

But maybe if you suggest that the Georgian government should pay for central heating for every home, you deserve to be outed on the internet... perhaps not.

There is hope. My host cousin, who holds a master's degree in Business & Tourism from the Tbilisi College of Subtropical Agriculture is very market-minded. When not shouldering his Kalishnikov and protecting President Saakashvili from harm, he is planning a grand business scheme. He wants to take out a loan and send the money to me in the US, where I will buy secondhand clothes and send it to Georgia, where he will sell it thirdhand, and we will split the profits. The business will be in both of our names because he says that'll keep the mafia away.

Now, I've been hard on myself recently with the belated realization that my degree in international relations is a useless piece of paper that does nothing more than record that my lack of practical skills has been insitutionally certified, so naturally I have little faith in my ability to analyze business or law matters, but there's still something iffy about this plan that I can't put my finger on. It gets even iffier when we get to stage 2 of the plan, wherein I use the money to buy new brand name jeans which he resells in Georgia at four times the price, knowing that fashion-minded Tbilisians will gladly pay the premium, mostly because they won't be aware of it.

I studied liberal arts. I don't know if this plan is legal or not. My loyal and oft-disappointed readers, please analyze this for me. Is this my sustainable presence in Georgia, or an illegal smuggling scheme?