The Great Sacrifice

Original source here, from Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal and “Never Forget” version here.

Thanks to Unlearning Economics for flagging this funny and moving poster. When I asked him the source, he tweeted: 

@mileskimball it’s actually a joke comment but I prefer the never forget version, bleeding heart that I am: http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=1535#comic…

By that measure, I may be not just a supply-side liberal, but a bleeding-heart supply-side liberal.

My Proudest Moment as a Student in Ph.D. Classes

Is it a watermelon or is it an ellipsoid?

Ellipsoids, which are more or less a watermelon shape, are important in econometrics. In my Ph.D. Econometrics class at Harvard, Dale Jorgenson explained the effect of linear constraints by saying that slicing a plane through an ellipsoid would be like slicing a watermelon. Slices of a 3-dimensional ellipse–a watermelon–are in the shape of a 2-dimensional ellipse–a watermelon slice. Dale’s analogy of watermelons and watermelon slices inspired me to exclaim that slicing a 4-dimensional ellipsoid with a hyperplane would get you a whole watermelon!

The True Story of How Economics Got Its Nickname "The Dismal Science" →

Comments to my post “Dismal Science Humor: 8/3/12” corrected me in my claim that the nickname “the dismal science” was a response to Malthus. It turns out that only the word “dismal” was a response to Malthus.  

David Levy and Sandra Peart tell a more interesting story about Thomas Carlyle’s motives in coining the phrase “the dismal science” in “The True Story of the Dismal Science. Part I: Economics, Religion and Race in the 19th Century.” Carlyle called economics “the dismal science” in response to John Stuart Mill’s arguments against slavery. So the true history of the phrase “the dismal science” means that all economists can answer to the nickname “dismal scientist” with pride.  

Dismal Science Humor: 8/3/12

“Fear the Boom and Bust” a Hayek vs. Keynes Rap Anthem.“

Thomas Robert Malthus and John Stuart Mill inspired Thomas Carlyle to coin the sobriquet "the dismal science” for economics. This nickname has stuck, in part because economists often seem overly serious.  But dismal scientists and others interested in the dismal science have created some economic humor. Unlearning Economics tweeted today a link to this wonderful cartoon about the fact that a large enough Keynesian multiplier would mean that make-work tasks could be a good thing if the economy was in a bad recession and there was no better way to stimulate the economy. 

Kevin McDonald replies to the tweet by recommending the video “Fear the Boom and Bust” a Hayek vs. Keynes Rap Anthem.“  This is a very funny video about two very famous, but unfortunately very dead economists, Friedrich Hayek and John Maynard Keynes (the economist Keynesian economics is named after–there is a debate about whether Keynesian economics accurately represents his thinking). There is also a very funny sequel to this video: "Fight of the Century: Keynes vs. Hayek Round Two.”

I have put a date in this post’s title hoping that more economic humor worth sharing will come my way in the future. Please let me know about any economic humor that tackles your funny bone in the comments.

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal →

First frame of one of my favorites

First frame of one of my favorites

Smartest cartoons I have ever seen. I think many of my loyal readers will like them, and end up smarter while rolling on the floor laughing.  Here is one (illustrated above) that touches on a theme I am working on: how to harness the motives people have other than pure self-interest to reduce the size of tax distortions. Of course, anything we do to make a wonderful world could all be destroyed by a supernova’s gamma ray burst, or by Winnie the Pooh.