Abstract At the outset of the 2012 presidential race, Republican candidate Mitt Romney touted his private sector leadership of the private equity firm Bain Capital. As this election unfolded, Romney’s Bain Capital story became less of a narrative he could run on and more of a narrative he had to run from. Why did this Bain Capital story, a story about someone’s success in the free marketplace in a society that seemingly values such success, become so troubling for the Romney campaign? This question constitutes the centerpiece of the present essay. In addressing this question, we argue that the Bain Capital narrative’s role in the 2012 presidential race divulges a great deal about the fundamental nature of economic discourse in American democracy. Specifically, we contend that the economic narratives circulating in American democracy actually construct a tale of two economies—a tangible economy and a speculative economy. Unfortunately for Romney, his Bain Capital narrative situated him on the wrong side of this economic divide.

Important goals for interface designers are to determine when it is beneficial to use iconic or command-based menus and how these traditional menu systems can be enhanced by the use of sound. To investigate this topic, 28 subjects were asked to maneuver through one of four different implementations of an interactive software package in order to execute a target command using either an iconic or command-based menu with or without the use of sound. The sounds descended in pitch as the depth of the menu increased, and were used as an auditory cue to code the location of a particular menu item. The results indicate that icons were more easily remembered than commands, but that commands were easier to locate under the highest level branch of the menu. The results also indicate a trend toward faster performance times with the use of command-based menus in comparison to iconic-based menus designed with the same structure. However, there was no difference in performance within iconic or command-based menus when sound was included in the user interface. Implications for user interface design are discussed.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>