In 7th-8th grade in a decent sized middle school in the midwest I started an illicit Bawls energy drink market by carting around ~4 at a time in my enormous cargo shorts. I'd buy a case of 30 from thinkgeek at around $1 or $1.50 a unit and resell them for $3.

My friend got in on the hustle shortly after; he had discovered the drink the same way I did and was thus up to speed on the economics and supply chain. It's hard to nail down exactly what drove the market in our middle school — it may have been that the blue glass bottles with the tactile beaded pattern looked cool, or it may have been that an energy drink (before they were all the rage) that marketed itself on dangerous levels of caffeine was edgy and certainly not parent-approved.

In any case, my friend and I found ourselves positioned as capitalist competitors. After a brief stint of undercutting one another and finding ways to add value to the bargain (my friend, cunningly, determined that carbonated beverages are best enjoyed cold; he started dealing out of a cooler in his locker), we individually determined that there must be a better way to proceed.

Slowly and surely realizing our position in the market as an effective oligopoly, and with no background in economics or history, we drew our plans against our peers. Two full grades before the US-mandated civics class that may have steered us otherwise, we agreed that it was mutually beneficial to set a price floor and nix the value-adds that caused us mild inconvenience.

I will never forget the horrified reaction from my grandmother as I regaled my family with our enterprising market manipulation. Price fixing was turpitudinous, reprehensible, and the cause of so many tears rolling down Uncle Sam's cheek.

My friend and I pressed onward, addicted to the $20-$30 return per case, addicted to the velcro wallets overflowing with $1 bills. Unfortunately it was not to last: our belligerent market had become ungainly, and an investigation into the source of all of this blue broken glass around the schoolgrounds eventually lead back to one of us.

I'll never forget the clarity we felt when we made our deal to manipulate the market together.

I think about it often when I'm paying my internet bill. It may be at a much larger scale, but I'm convinced a not insignificant portion of the world is run by the slick businessman version of a kid hustling uncomfortably warm Bawls in his cargo shorts in PE for $3 a pop, damned be the consumer.