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Inflation's like a dragon, difficult to control  Although cargo
cults existed prior to World War II, the classic form in most
people's minds involves Pacific Island natives building
airstrips and airplane mock-ups made of straw and palm fronds.
The purpose of this activity was to attract airplanes that might
fly over so that they would land and distribute candy and other
goods just as the GIs had done before. There is a kind of logic
to it, especially when combined with the often-difficult
identification of cause and effect when economics and human
behavior are involved. That has been enough to sustain the
appeal of the idea into modern times, where it shows up mostly
in the "build it and they will come" theory of economic, and
professional sports, development. They are not building straw
airplanes anywhere in Washington, D.C. as far as we know, but
there is more than a trace of cargo cult thinkin