I can’t figure out why stores pay people to hold signs advertising sales. Especially when a store is going out of business, you’re likely to see someone at the nearest intersection holding one of these large signs in the hopes of pulling in more business. I’m sure these signs help, but why pay someone to hold it? Can’t they just stick it in the ground and achieve the same results? The only thing I can come up with is that these stores aren’t allowed to put up signs at certain intersections, but having someone hold it allows them to maneuver through a loophole in the law. Still, I wonder if the cost offsets the gains. If a store pays minimum wage (~$6.55?) cash to each of two people to hold signs for 8 hours, that’s a cost of $105. Assuming the store makes 40% profit on whatever they sell, they’d be hoping to augment their sales by $262 just to break even. However the numbers work out, there must be some benefit to this because lots of stores do it.

And what about all these Statue-of-Liberty-dressed people standing outside of tax offices? In the past you would just see them every now and then, but this year it’s gotten out of hand. They’re everywhere! I've never seen so much patriotism!