Three people are stranded on a small island. One is a physicist, one is a circus strongman, and one is an economist. After a few days of surviving on fruit, they discover a cache of canned food, and they have to decide how to open it. The physicist says to the strongman "Why don't you climb that tree, and smash the cans down on the rocks, and burst them open?"

The strongman says, "No, that would spatter the stuff all over. I can open the cans with my teeth!"

The economist says "First, we must assume that we have a can opener."





A man takes a balloon ride at a local country fair. A fierce wind suddenly kicks up, causing the balloon to violently leave the fair and carry its occupant out into the countryside. The man has no idea where he is, so he goes down to five meters above ground and asks a passing wanderer: "Excuse me, sir, can you tell me where I am?" Eyeing the man in the balloon the passer-by says: "You are in a downed red balloon, five meters above ground." The balloon's unhappy resident replied, "You must be an economist." an engineer." an accountant." a consultant." a mathematician." a Microsoft tutorial writer." an IBM sales representative." "How could you possible know that?" asked the passer-by.

"Because your answer is technically correct but absolutely useless, and the fact is I am still lost". "How could you possible know that?" asked the passer-by."Because your answer is technically correct but absolutely useless, and the fact is I am still lost". "Then you must be in management", said the passer-by.

"Thats right! How did you know?"

"You have such a good view from where you are, and yet you don't know where you are and you don't know where you are going. The fact is you are in the exact same position you were in before we met, but now your problem is somehow my fault!"



The accountant checks his budget and figures out he's better off eating it, so he does and collects money. An economist and an accountant are walking along a large puddle. They get across a frog jumping on the mud. The economist says: "If you eat the frog I'll give you $20,000!"The accountant checks his budget and figures out he's better off eating it, so he does and collects money. Continuing along the same puddle they almost step into yet another frog. The accountant says: "Now, if you eat this frog I'll give you $20,000."

After evaluating the proposal the economist eats the frog and gets the money. They go on. The accountant starts thinking: "Listen, we both have the same amount of money we had before, but we both ate frogs. I don't see us being better off."

The economist: "Well, that's true, but you overlooked the fact that we've been just involved in $40,000 of trade."

Why has astrology been invented? So that economy could be an accurate science. An economist returns to visit his old school. He's interested in the current exam questions and asks his old professor to show some. To his surprise they are exactly the same ones to which he had answered 10 years ago! When he asks about this the professor answers: "the questions are always the same - only the answers change!" An economic forecaster was known to have an horseshoe prominently displayed above the doorframe of his office. Asked what it was for, he replied "it is a good luck charm that helps my forecasts".

"But do you believe in that superstition?" he was asked.

"Of course not!" he said, "but it works whether you believe in it or not."





An economist was leaving his office building and saw a little boy sitting on the curb with a dog. The boy yelled at the economist, "Hey, how would you like to buy a dog."The man was intrigued by this sales approach and asked the boy, "How much do you want for your dog."The boy told him, "Fifty thousand dollars.""Fifty thousand dollars!" the man repeated in astonishment. "What special tricks does this dog do that he can earn enough money to be worth fifty thousand dollars?" the man asked the boy.The boy replied, "Mister, this dog never made a nickel in his life. Matter of fact, count what he eats I guess you could say you lose money on him every year."

The economist felt this was a good time to explain economics to the young man and expounded on how an item had to produce more income than it consumed to equal a purchase price ending with he might get five dollars from someone who just wanted a companion. Feeling he had imparted a very valuable lesson to the young man, the economist went on his way.

A few weeks later, the economist came out of his office building and the small boy was again sitting on the curb minus the dog. The man said to him, "I see you took my advise and sold the dog for five dollars."

The boy said, "No, I got fifty thousand dollars for him."

The business man was completely flabbergasted. "How did you ever get fifty thousand dollars for that dog" he asked.

"It was easy," said the boy. "I traded him for two twenty five thousand dollar cats."





There are two types of economists:

- those who cannot forecast interest rates, and

- those who do not know that they cannot forecast interest rates.





George T. Milkovich and Jerry M. Newman, "Compensation"

Ronald Reagan

Feudalism:

Socialism:

Communism:

Bureaucratic Communism:

Bureaucracy:

Fascism:

Nazism:

Liberalism:

Capitalism:

How economists do it... Economists do it cyclically.

Economists do it on demand.

Economists do it with models.

Economists do it with crystal balls.

How many economists does it take to change a light bulb?

An economics professor and a student were strolling through the campus."Look," the student cried, "there's a $100 bill on the path!""No, you are mistaken," the wiser head replied. "That cannot be. If there were actually a $100 bill, someone would have picked it up." Inflation allows you to live in a more expensive neigbourhood without moving. Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidise it.You have two cows. Your lord takes some of the milk.You have two cows. State takes one and gives it to someone else.You have two cows. State takes both of them and gives you as much milk as you need.You have two cows. State takes both of them and gives you as much milk as the regulations say you should need.You have two cows. State regulates what you can feed them and when you can milk them. Then it pays you not to milk them. After that it takes both cows, shoots one, milks the other and pours the milk down the drain. Then it requires you to fill out forms accounting for the missing cows.You have two cows. State takes both of them and sells you milk.You have two cows. State takes both of them and shoots you.You have two cows. State doesn't care whether you exist, let alone your cows.You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.None. If it really needed changing, market forces would have caused it to happen.None. If the government would just leave it alone, it would screw itself in.None. The invisible hand does it.Two. One to assume the existence of ladder and one to change the bulb.Eight. One to change it and seven to hold everything else constant.One to prepare the proposal, an econometrician to run the model, one each MS and PhD students to write the theses and dissertations, two more to prepare the journal article (senior authorship not assigned), four to review it, and at least as many to refine the model and replicate the results.

Senior management had collected a lot of operations data but did not know what to do with it. They knew they needed a numbers person and decided to interview an accountant, an engineer and an economist. During the interview they assessed their math skills.

First was the accountant.

Interview: What is 1+1?

Accountant: 1+1 = 2.

Interview: Are you sure?

Accountant: Absolutely. 1+1 equals 2 and only 2.



Next the engineer.

Interview: What is 1+1?

Engineer: 1+1 = 2.

Interview: Are you sure?

Engineer: Well, within acceptable tolerance levels yes, 1+1 is 2.



Last the economist.

Interview: What is 1+1?

The economist got up, closed the door, drew the blinds, leaned across the table and replied "What do you want it to equal?"



Peter