Jutland, or ‘Jylland’ in Danish, is the bit of the country which thrusts phallically from Northern Germany towards the Oslofjord. To its west is the North Sea; making it Northumbria’s nearest neighbour to the east (something Northumbrians had cause to regret when Danish Vikings sailed on Lindisfarne in 793 AD).

Jutland occupies a strange place in the Danish psyche. It is part soul-of-the-nation, part embarrassing relative. For the 2.2 million Jutlanders who call it home, it is, well, home. For the 3.7 million other Danes, it is myriad things, but not least a place most are glad not to call home.

In a sense, Jutland is where Denmark began. The so-called ‘birth certificate’ of the nation, the Jelling Stone, still stands in the south-eastern Jutland town after which it is named, and is a pilgrimage destination for every Danish schoolchild (handily, Legoland is 25 minutes away). The 10th-century stone’s red-painted runic inscription proclaims Harald Bluetooth to be king of all the Danes. Bluetooth (after whom the wireless technology is named) was the first monarch to unite the nation and the first christian king of Denmark.

Despite being ground zero for the Danish monarchy, Jutland was never as dominated by a feudal ruling elite as Zealand (Sjælland). Instead, the monarchy and aristocracy gravitated to the largest Danish island to the east where, first Roskilde, and then Copenhagen became the capitals. And, so, relatively free of meddling kings, Jutland’s farmers tended to own their own land, or leased it from a distant monarch.

Tall fish tales follow every angling method and species of fish, but they may be a bit weightier with noodling since the practice didn’t see statewide legalization until 2011. For most of its modern history, it’s been practiced in the shadows, hidden from the watchful eyes of the law. Noodlers fished primarily at night, wading through dark waters, quietly coming up for air like Martin Sheen in Apocalypse Now. Many homeowners were happy to turn them in. More than a few noodlers were arrested, ticketed, or socially scorned for their troubles.

One such instance is legendary within the East Texas noodling community. I kept hearing the story of the “East Texas Toe-Biter” from the 1980s, when a man at Lake Tyler got into some legal trouble for supposedly throwing a 122-pound flathead out of the water because it bit him in the foot. The kicker, though, was that the fish was still alive and well, just lounging around the aquarium at the Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center in Athens. The second part of the story is not only false but also caused a bit of confusion when I called the Fisheries Center to ask about it. Turns out the world-record blue catfish, caught on a rod and reel, was actually the fish held in their aquarium for a time. All that said, the 122-pound flathead did exist, as did the legal troubles that followed the man who caught it.

Because of all this, many modern-day noodlers are former outlaws of the waterways who have broad-shouldered themselves into polite fishing society. You won’t find these outdoorspeople donning waders and fishing fedoras, then fiddling with custom-made flies between picturesque back casts. You certainly won’t catch them bedding down at places called The Moose Elk Lodge, unwinding with a bottle of Chablis. Noodlers are more likely to sleep in their boats, rally with Red Bulls and honey buns, then barrel into the water to scavenge under boat docks. One of the biggest of these former outlaws is Jimmy Millsap, a longtime Lake Tawakoni noodler who is, according to some, “the Godfather of Texas Noodling.”

“I had paved the game warden’s driveway one day and got caught by him the next,” Millsap recalls. “I told him when he caught us, ‘I guess you’re tryin’ to get your driveway money back.’”

By far, the market imperfection believed, at least by economists, to be most common is that of externalities. An externality, as defined by the Nobel-laureate economist George Stigler, “is an effect, whether beneficial or harmful, upon a person who was not a party to the decision.” Consult almost any economics textbook and you discover a similar definition of externality. Because harmful effects of this sort (“negative externalities”) generally get more attention than do beneficial effects (“positive externalities”), the discussion in this Explainer will be confined to negative externalities, although most of the points I make apply also to positive externalities.

A classic example of a negative externality is a railroad that builds a line next to farmland and, when it runs its trains, throws sparks onto the farmland, occasionally burning the farmer’s crops. The farmer suffers damage that he did not bargain for. If the railroad doesn’t pay for this damage, it does not cover all of its operating costs, which include doing damage to crops. Because incurring costs restrains the actions that generate the costs, not having to pay all of its costs leads the railroad to run too many trains. And when the railroad runs too many trains, the farmer winds up supplying too few crops.

To induce the railroad to produce the optimal amount of railroad services, it must somehow be obliged to pay not just for some of its costs of doing business—to pay not just wages to compensate its workers, and prices to compensate its suppliers of fuel—but to pay for all of its costs, including whatever damage it causes to farmers and other parties who suffer incidental losses as a result of the railroad’s operation.

A.C. Pigou and Ronald Coase

The government can “correct” this market imperfection by imposing on the railroad a tax equal to the value of the crops damaged by its trains. This tax—called by economists a “Pigouvian tax” (after the British economist A.C. Pigou)—“internalizes” on the railroad the cost that it once imposed on the farmer. A cost that was previously external to the railroad’s decision-making processes is now internal to it given that the railroad must pay the tax. With this cost “internalized” on the railroad, it will now produce the economically optimal amount of railroad services, and allow the farmer to supply the optimal amount of crops.

At its core, The Office is a masterclass in relationships—and not the glossy, Hallmark-movie kind. It’s the unfiltered, frequently cringe-inducing reality of human interaction. Grace and forgiveness weave their way through the fabric of this show, often hidden beneath layers of awkward pauses, office pranks and absurd team-building exercises led by Prison Mike.

Think about it: How many times does Michael completely mess up—offending, embarrassing or downright traumatizing his employees—and yet, they stick around? Whether it’s Pam forgiving Michael for outing her pregnancy at a company meeting or Jim patiently enduring Dwight’s endless shenanigans, The Office is a celebration of second chances. It’s about extending forgiveness not because it’s deserved, but because community only works when grace abounds.

Biblically speaking, isn’t that the whole deal? “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us,” says Romans 5:8, a verse Michael probably would have butchered during a motivational speech.

The characters on The Office mess up in spectacular fashion, yet time and time again, they’re welcomed back into the fold—reminding us of the gospel’s radical, all-encompassing grace.