Special Blog Post:
Economics Marginalia
Okay, enough of that. The point is made: economics is generally boring material handled by boring people. But sometimes, economics has interesting, if somewhat offbeat, information to offer, or it has a funny joke about its practitioners, or it has something important to say should anyone care to listen.
Jokes
Question: How many Harvard economists does it take to screw in a light bulb?
Answer: Just one; he holds it up to the light socket and waits for the world to revolve around him.
Question: ...And does it?
Answer: Yes, of course. We're talking Harvard faculty. Duh!
Two economists were walking down the sidewalk when they came upon two neighbors arguing violently over their common fence. The one economist says to the other, "They'll never come to an agreement, you know."
The other economist says, "How can you be so certain?"
The first economist replies, "Well, it's obvious: they're arguing from different premises!"
The master economist is training his two young apprentice economists in archery. He brings them to an audience and directs the first young economist to fire an arrow at a target. The young archer misses by 20 feet to the left, killing a wealthy bystander.
The master economist then directs his second young economist to fire an arrow at the target, and this time, the arrow misses 20 feet to the right, killing a peasant bystander.
The master economist exclaims, "Perfect!" upon which shout of praise the crowd hollers, "Whaddaya mean, 'Perfect'?"
The master economist responds, "One of the economists missed by 20 feet to the left, and the other missed by 20 feet to the right. That means, on average, their results were exactly on target!"
It seems that an economist was walking along an Arabian beach when he stumbled upon an ancient lamp. He kicked it a little, then he picked it up. First looking around to make sure no one would see him doing something totally stupid, he rubbed the lamp vigorously. Much to his shock, a billowing cloud issued forth from the lamp, and out came a giant genie.
"Sahib!" bellowed the enormous being of legend and lore. "You have freed me from my prison, so I shall grant you one wish!"
The economist looked a little perturbed and mumbled, "Whatever happened to the traditional three wishes?"
The genie replied, "The central genie wishing bank recently restricted the supply of wishes because of wish inflation, so be happy with the one you're getting; and make it now, before I get upset."
The economist thought for just a brief moment, and then he said, "I wish for an end to all scarcity: an end to scarcity of food and water, an end to scarcity of adequate medical treatment, an end to scarcity of jobs, an end to scarcity of factors of production... an end to all scarcity."
The genie roared, "Are you NUTS?! You're an economist! You should know that scarcity is the entire point of economic reality. It is scarcity that creates prices, and the prices then allocate the goods and services to their most efficient end uses. Scarcity is what causes creatures and societies to try different ways of organizing themselves in their efforts to deal with the relative scarcities of material and emotional wants and needs. Without scarcity, the entire biology of life would be fundamentally altered, perhaps even catastrophically!" The genie folded his arms defiantly and concluded, "No. No, no, no. I have the right to deny the first proposed wish of any master; and since I am duty bound to deny any such wish that would so fundamentally change the order of the universe, I hereby refuse you."
The economist looked a little taken aback at the adamance of his wish granter. He said, "I am truly sorry. I think I understand now that wishes should be for small and personal matters that don't disrupt the wider cosmos." So he thought for another moment, then he said, "I know what I want. Since I'm an economist, I want to make an economic forecast just once in my life that turns out to be exactly right. Yes! That's what I want."
The genie didn't say a word; he merely turned away from his master and walked down to the edge of the beach and stared out at the sun that was setting over the ocean. There in silence he stood for what seemed like an eternity before he let out an almost mournful sigh, turned to the economist, and said, "Okay. End all scarcity it is, then."
It seems that, when Albert Einstein passed away, he was taken to the line of souls awaiting entry into Heaven. Being an affable sort of fellow, he turned to the woman right behind him and said, "Hello. May I be so bold as to ask you what your IQ is?"
The lady replied, "My IQ is 190."
Einstein's eyes lit up, and he exclaimed, "Oh, that's marvelous! You and I can spend all of eternity discussing the merits of the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics. That's just wonderful."
Feeling quite happy about knowing this person, Einstein looked around her to the next person and asked, "What's your IQ, my friend?"
The man replied, "It's about 170, I think."
Einstein looked pleased and said, "Oh, good, good, good. You and I can spend all of eternity discussing issues of politics and nuclear disarmament and other such matters. Wonderful."
Finally, Einstein looked to the next man in line and inquired, "Excuse me, sir, but what is your IQ?"
The guy looked very ill at ease and muttered, "About 80, I suppose."
Einstein looked down, and after a moment's thought, said, "So... what do you think the economy's going to do?'
Did You Know
The last Republican President who balanced a federal budget was Dwight Eisenhower; the last Democrat was Bill Clinton.
University of Chicago economist Stephen Levitt has found that there was a statistically significant relationship between the lower crime rates in the early 1990s and the Roe v. Wade decision of the United States Supreme Court in the early 1970s.
The federal budget deficit for 2004 was more than $1,400 for each U.S. citizen.
As of 2004, according to the International Database of the U.S. Census Bureau, there were 6.6 deaths of infants per thousand live births in the U.S. Below are the associated infant mortality figures for a selection of other developed countries:
Australia: 4.8
Austria: 4.7
Canada: 4.8
Denmark: 4.6
Finland: 3.6
France: 4.3
Germany: 4.2
Greece: 5.6
Ireland: 5.5
Italy: 6.1
Japan: 3.3
New Zealand: 6.0
Norway: 3.7
Portugal: 5.1
Spain: 4.5
Sweden: 2.8
Switzerland: 4.4
United Kingdom: 5.2
The Dark Wraith wonders how many Americans know the difference between a bad economics joke and a bad joke of an economy.
Published 5/28/2005 12:42:00 AM
<< 19 Comments Total
You left out my favorite joke..
Question: How many Classical economists does it take to change a light bulb?
Answer: None. The Invisible Hand does it.
Good evening, LindiBee.
I left that one out on purpose. That one's so old that the first time I heard it, I laughed so hard I kicked the slats out of my crib.
Besides, I've learned over the years that not many people have heard of the so-called "invisible hand" of which Adam Smith was so enamoured.
And for those of you here who haven't heard of it, Adam Smith talked about a force in a market economy that is continuously and rightly allocating scarce resources to the most efficient (the "best," if you will) end uses.
It is a favorite question of mine on microeconomics exams: What precisely is the 'invisible hand' of which Adam Smith wrote so extensively and glowingly?
I get all kinds of interesting (and wrong) answers to this question.
The Dark Wraith wonders if anyone here would like to take a stab at the answer.
the 'invisible hand'?
The threat of starvation?
Good morning, Peter of Lone Tree.
Naw, the threat of starvation is an economic motivator that exists whether or not the "invisible hand" is in full and open play.
In terms of Maslow's so-called "hierarchy of needs," food and sex are the very fundamental needs upon which decision making is based; all else must wait until these are more or less secured, or at least until substantial effort has been put forth toward their satisfaction.
Interestingly, Marxist philosophy adds to the base layer of needs another: work. It takes a little time to think of work as a "good" rather than something undesirable, but once the notion sinks in, it really puts complex economic issues into a whole new light.
Setting all of this into the frame of what you said, we can think of food, sex, and work as the desirable goods for which economic activity is organized at the individual level, which then articulates—arguably with one degree or another of undesirable consequences in aggregation—to the level of social organization. The constant threat of these basic needs being absent powerfully motivates each economic agent, who then relies (voluntarily or otherwise) upon some interaction with economic and civil society for fulfillment of the needs.
The "invisible hand" is a means by which this can be accomplished; but it is at once both completely responsive to individual motive and entirely unrepentent in denying the fulfillment to many.
The Dark Wraith has spoken obtusely and opaquely.
"The Dark Wraith has spoken obtusely and opaquely". -- Dark Wraith
"What ELSE is new"? -- PoLT
Ooof.
Awright, the blog is back in business. Those of you who tried to visit within the past hour saw that The Dark Wraith Forums had, for the second time in about two weeks, blown its bandwidth limit.
This time, I've taken it to five gigabytes. There is no way that can be exceeded. No way.
The Dark Wraith can now breath a little more easily.
The Dark Wraith wonders if anyone here would like to take a stab at the answer.
When I first read this earlier I was going to make a flippant comment that it was the big hand that was going to smite the assclowns in the WH in the name of rapture. Then I cheated and looked it up, and immediately started laughing.
Hi Dark Wraith -
Those were jokes? I didn't get them....
nah, just kidding there. They were pretty amusing:)
Good evening, Old White Lady.
Yeah, it's pretty grim when an academic discipline is so obtuse that even its humor gets a roomfull of silence.
Some of you might have noticed that the cross-posting of this article over at Big Brass Blog didn't get one comment. Not one!
Sheesh. Talk about a rough audience.
I guess that just goes to show that I'd better not give up the day job.
The Dark Wraith exits, stage left.
[EGADS! Here come the rotten tomatoes! DUCK!]
Good evening, Mr. Goat.
I am hopeful that the great big hand that finally ass-smacks the assclowns will be entirely and painfully visible to them as it delivers the full measure of justice upon the backsides of the neo-cons.
I, for one, shall be more than happy to offer some pointers on proper discipline procedures, the kind delivered with a firm but fair hand applied with the unwavering commitment to rectitude that is in all matters of corporal punishment my ultimate concern.
I shall, of course, provide references upon request.
The Dark Wraith prepares the sound-proof room and A1 Sauce.
The Dark Wraith exits, stage left.
[EGADS! Here come the rotten tomatoes! DUCK!]
Just so you know, I wouldn't throw rotten tomatoes at you, even if the jokes weren't funny. I just wouldn't laugh.
The jokes you typed above, were funny! I did laugh, even after the crappy day I had!
How does Cuba come out in the Census stats for infant deaths /K?
Good evening, Anonymous.
It's interesting that you should ask about Cuba. The database for the infant mortality rates in the post did not include Cuba, something I find terribly troubling considering that database included such places as the Pitcairne Islands and other tiny sovereignties that hardly anyone would have considered worth noting.
Also troubling is that the information on infant mortality rates varies depending upon the information distributor. In the past, I have tended to trust some, but not all, databases of the United Nations. Long ago, I would have trusted the massive CIA databases almost completely, but I cannot trust any of them now.
All of that having been said, the infant mortality rate in Cuba, as of late last year or early this year appears to be around 7.3 deaths per thousand live births. That's about the average of the CIA's estimate, a UN estimate, and one private organization's assessment. What's troubling to me is that I am certain that I saw another estimate awhile back that put it below the infant mortality rate for the U.S., but I'll be hanged if I can remember, much less find, that database right now.
One way or the other, Cuba is one of the very few second- or third-world countries with an infant mortality rate even in the ballpark of the developed nations'. If I am looking at my data properly, it looks like Cuba is even just a little better than Israel.
Although a number of studies are out there that correlate infant mortality rate with per capita expenditures on national health care, I am interested in other factors that might be entering the equation. Specifically, measures of political and social freedom of women would be an interesting set of independent variables. So too would availability of abortion and other family planning services. I am sure that studies have already been done along these lines, but I would want to see the databases used for the statistical analyses before I'd get too excited about any results.
I do appreciate you posing the question about Cuba.
The Dark Wraith hopes many people will come to know about the rank of the United States in infant mortality rate.
Hi Dark Wraith -
I stopped by because I had real deep thought about the subject of your post. Unfortunately, my attention was caught by the link (on the side) for Orisinal. I clicked on it and found some fun little games. The spider game is a a lot of fun.
Oh no, now I'm going to spend all my time playing that game. I blame YOU, Dark Wraith!
Good afternoon, Old White Lady.
Aren't those games wonderful? That entire series was created on the premise that computer games don't need to be violent to be delightful and entertaining for hours at a time.
I've shown those games to many of my students, and even the kids who were into appallingly monstrous games really enjoyed them.
My favorite is the one about catching falling stars, but I've had a great time over the past couple of years trying out all manner of the Orisinal games.
I have been toying with the idea of putting a couple of proprietary games here on The Dark Wraith Forums, but that could be a problem: if I have people start hanging out here all night, I'll never get a chance to straighten the lounge furniture and mop the floors.
Oh, well, at least the place wouldn't get spooky like it does after everyone's gone.
The Dark Wraith gets spooked pretty easily, y'know.
I also thought I had seen a source that claimed that Cuba had a lower infant mortality rate than America. Damned if I know where though...
You had to up the bandwidth again? This place is getting VERY popular.
Ok, the CIA 2005 estimated infant mortality rate shows Cuba ranking better than the US.
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/rankorder/2091rank.html
Bingo, Auntie Roo! Thank you.
That's the one I saw in passing that didn't stick in my mind as to where I saw it. As I said, I've stopped using the CIA world database.
It's kind of interesting that the database I was using, which comes from the U.S. Census Bureau, didn't have a listing for Cuba, but the CIA database did. That means the two agencies are using different data aggregators, or the Census Bureau is cleaning the data that it gets from the same resource pool that the CIA uses. My suspicion is that it's the former case: the two agencies are using different collectors and possibly different collection methods.
By the way, as an amusing little side note, I always spend a couple of days in lecture talking about measures of economic prosperity, and it is in this context that I bring up the figures about infant mortality since year-over-year changes in this figure are one of many non-monetary indicators of changes in the prosperity of a nation. Invariably—and I mean every last time—I show the infant mortality figures, some pro-lifer in the class asks, "Does that include abortions??"
In my continuing role as the ever-patient teacher, I point to the definition of infant mortality as infant deaths per thousand live births.
Of course, sometimes a pro-lifer presses forward with, "What about partial-birth abortions??"
It is at this point that my patience gets tested. Within me, I say, "You stupid butt-fer-brains, those are so rare compared to the number of babies dying that it's not even worth my time to address your knee-jerk, head-up-yer-ass question."
However, I keep my calm and explain that infant mortality rates are all about babies born alive, completely out of the womb, the vaginal canal, umbelically disconnected, who then die.
Gawd! Every last blesséd time, I get something or other about this.
At least folks these days know so little about Communism that I can bring up that whole subject without a firestorm of protest from the Right-wingers.
The Dark Wraith sort of longs for the Cold War; it was so much clearer than the Evangelical War.