Sunday, July 18, 2010

Blow you, Jack, I'm all right

One of the 20,000 professional economists who didn't expect the Global Financial Crisis gives thanks for other people's unemployment. To quote Mel Brooks: "I cut my finger. That's tragedy. A man walks into an open sewer and dies. That's comedy."

This leather-armchair contemplation of other people's difficulties in abstract, aggregated terms tempts me into unfair comparisons with Ebenezer Scrooge, Dives and Lazarus, or the savage philosopher-tyrants of the East in the twentieth century. But it would be more charitable of me to ascribe his views to limited imagination, rather than hard-heartedness. Let him be, in his Flint ivory tower (or would that be the pleasanter purlieus of Washington?), while the State of Michigan slides into insolvency . Economics is only a dismal science for others.

3 comments:

James Higham said...

This leather-armchair contemplation of other people's difficulties in abstract, aggregated terms tempts me into unfair comparisons with Ebenezer Scrooge, Dives and Lazarus, or the savage philosopher-tyrants of the East in the twentieth century.

Wonderfully put.

Tyrone said...

A little no-nonsense chart analysis for DOW 5000...
Dow Jones 2011 Target 5000, Part 1
Dow Jones 2011 Target 5000, Part 2

Sackerson said...

Thanks, both. Tyrone, I'm not a chart technician, but the simple-minded chart I did a couple of years ago suggested something like this so it confirms my prejudice.