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