English silver coins from ca. 1700 (Wikimedia Commons). In the old days, I would have been paid my Big Apologetic Bucks with large bags of such coins. Today’s payments, though, are much neater and more convenient: Each week, a six-figure sum is transferred electronically to my bank account for each individual lie that I tell. And if, as I usually do, I can manage to insert some vicious personal nastiness into the lie, the payment increases to SEVEN figures.