Category: Funny Business

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Chicago Funny Business

Chicago. Gilbert and Sullivan Parody Songs. About Classical and Keynesian Economics.

 

 

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Every so often the tiny cultural studies scholar inside my economist body says it is time to post another artifact from the social life of an economics department. Annual Christmas parties, skit parties and picnics (less so) are occasions when economists attempt to write comedy and some popular or familiar song or text gets reworked into a bit of burlesque humor.

Transcriptions of such masterpieces previously posted in Economics in the Rear-view Mirror include: FIRST EPISTLE UNTO NEW STUDENTS, WHEN I WAS A LAD, COWLES COMMISSION SONG, and SONG FOR AN ENTREPRENEUR.

This evening I thought I would treat myself to a quick-and-easy posting of the lyrics of two songs taken from the nine pages stapled together of University of Chicago skits that I found in Albert Rees’ papers at Duke. In an act of unpremeditated scholarship I glanced at what I had believed to be identical copies of the same stuff in Milton Friedman’s papers. Then to my horror (I really wanted this to be a quick-and-easy posting), I discovered that the two versions are not quite identical (recycling!). The only honorable thing to do was to post both versions side-by-side and highlight their differences. The versions found in Milton Friedman’s papers seem to me to read better than those found in Albert Rees’ papers which leads me to conclude that the versions from the Friedman papers are of more recent vintage.

Authorship is unknown, but there can be no doubt that we are dealing with lyrics composed, performed, and (first) enjoyed by economists at the University of Chicago sometime in the first two decades after WWII (when Rees was at the University of Chicago).

My personal favorite line: “In economic theory we’re wed to ceteris paribus./We find it nicer living where the air is rather raribus.”

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Parody of  Gilbert and Sullivan’s “I am the very model of a modern Major General”

To enjoy the original work being parodied:

English National Opera: Major-General’s Song from The Pirates of Penzance – live and with lyrics!

I AM THE VERY MODEL OF A CLASSICAL ECONOMIST

(To the tune of “I am the very model of a modern Major General” from THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE)

I AM THE VERY MODEL OF A U OF C ECONOMIST

(To the tune of “I am the very model of a modern Major General” from THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE)
I am the very model of a classical economist.
A Marshall, Smith, Pigou and Mill
Comprise my total reading list
For policy, you must insist
On having as your analyst
A U of C example of a classical economist.		 I am the very model of a classical economist.
A Marshall, Smith, Pigou and Mill
Comprise my total reading list
For policy, you must insist
On having as your analyst
A U of C example of a classical economist.
Our tools are based on static equilibrium analyses.
The economy we study is afflicted with paralyses.
But, if you want an analyst,
For quality you must insist
On a U of C example of a classical economist.		 Our tools are based on static equilibrium analyses.
The economy we study is afflicted with paralyses.
But, if you want an analyst,
For quality you must enlist
A U of C example of a classical economist.
Competitive adjustment is the true course for all laborers.
A freely fluctuating wage, all long-run benefits confers,
So, unions, if you must persist
Remember, that an analyst
Does not come any finer than a classical economist.		 Competitive adjustment is the true course for all laborers.
A freely fluctuating wage, all long-run benefits confers,
So, unions, if you must persist
Remember, that an analyst
Does not come any finer than a classical economist.
In economic theory we’re committed to ceteris paribus.
We find it easier living where the air is rather raribus.
So, if you want an analyst
For purity you must insist
On a U of C example of a classical economist.		 In economic theory we’re wed to ceteris paribus.
We find it nicer living where the air is rather raribus.
So, if you want an analyst
For purity you must enlist
A U of C example of a classical economist.
The chastity of this our land we manifestly must preserve.
The banking system should be based on 100% reserve.
So obvious, so simple this
Why does the FRB exist?
Replace it with a very special U of C economist.		 The chastity of this our land we manifestly must preserve.
The banking system should be based on 100% reserve.
So obvious, so simple this
Why does the FRB exist?
Replace it with a very special U of C economist.
Our little coterie extends from here across to Manchester.
But government advisers seldom here or there with us concur.
We must ask a psychiatrist
Why our advice they all resist.
But we’ll keep the tradition of the classical economist.		 Our little coterie extends from here across to Manchester.
But government advisers seldom here or there with us concur.
We’ll ask a good psychiatrist
Why our advice they all resist.
But we will bear the standard of the classical economist.
Source: Duke University. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Economists’ Papers Archive. Papers of Albert Rees. Box 1, Folder “Rees—Personal”. Source: Hoover Institution Archives, Papers of Milton Friedman, Box 79, Folder 6 “University of Chicago Miscellaneous”.

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Parody of  Gilbert and Sullivan’s “I’m Called Little Buttercup”

To enjoy the original work being parodied:

Lyric Theatre of San Jose performing “I’m Called Little Buttercup” from H.M.S. Pinafore.  Song starts at 0:45.

KEYNESIAN SONG

(To the tune “They call me Little Buttercup” from H.M.S. Pinafore)

THEY CALL ME A KEYNESIAN

(to the tune of Buttercup from PINAFORE)
They call me a Keynesian, a Keynesian Economist
And that I can never deny
For I’m a heretic, a classicist critic—
Bold little Keynesian, I.		 They call me a Keynesian, a Keynesian economist
And that I cannot deny.
For I’m a heretic, a classicist critic,
Bold little Keynesian, I.
I’ve equations and functions, and marginal assumptions
All here in my little kit bag.
I have tricky proposals for income disposals
All lest the economy sag.		 I’ve equations and functions, and marg’nal assumptions
All here in my little kit bag.
I’ve tricky proposals for income disposals
Lest the economy sag.
To deficit spending and government lending
I give a hearty “Huzzah”.
I distrust automaticity despite its simplicity—
I doubt if it would work at all.		 To deficit spending and government lending
I give a hearty huzzah.
I shun automaticity despite its simplicity;
I doubt if it would work at all.
For I am a Keynesian, a Keynesian economist
And that I can never deny
For I’m a heretic, a classicist critic—
Bold little Keynesian, I.		 They call me a Keynesian, a Keynesian economist
And that I can cannot deny.
For I’m a heretic, a classicist critic,
Bold little Keynesian, I.
When faced with deflation or misallocation
I feel that the former is worse
I abominate waste with Ricardian distaste
But still first things always come first.		 When faced with deflation or misallocation
I feel that the former is worse.
I abominate waste with Ricardian distaste,
But still first things always come first.
And yet they deplore me, criticize and abhor me
For I am the standard straw man
But blows I don’t heed—Oh, I’ll stick to my credo
That a plan is a plan is a plan.		 And yet they deplore me, criticize and abhor me,
For I am the standard straw man.
But blows I don’t heedo, I’ll stick to my credo,
That a plan is a plan is a plan.
For I am a Keynesian, a Keynesian economist
And that I can never deny
For I’m a heretic, a classicist critic—
Bold little Keynesian, I.
Source: Duke University. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Economists’ Papers Archive. Papers of Albert Rees. Box 1, Folder “Rees—Personal”. Source: Hoover Institution Archives, Papers of Milton Friedman, Box 79, Folder 6 “University of Chicago Miscellaneous”.

Image Source:   Monty Python’s silly walks.  Quora website:   What are examples of Low Comedy?

 

 

 

 

Categories
Chicago Funny Business

Chicago. First Epistle Unto the Entering Students. Ca. 1950

 

 

These scriptural apocrypha were found in a folder archived in Milton Friedman’s papers at the Hoover Institution labelled “University of Chicago, Miscellaneous” in which texts from Chicago (economics) performance art had been filed. The First Epistle Unto the Entering Students and First Epistle Unto New Students are clearly of divine inspiration though we are left without any explicit indication of authorship or date. The version designated V2.0 is presumed to be of later origin: the correction of “thou” for “thee” as well as the multiplication of false gods, from “Probability” to “Macro-economics and Probability” seem to fit the proposed sequence.

Confidence intervals for the date of the first appearance of the Epistle should probably include 1950. The Cowles Commission “The American Patrol” song follows immediately in Friedman’s folder and it has been dated to be around 1949 by Carl Christ (JEL, March 1994, p. 34). For this reason I have included course descriptions for the economics courses in 1950-51 specifically mentioned (301 and 302 being standard Frank Knight courses). From the text it would appear that a dissertation writing graduate student at that time could have been the author “for these many months have I spent in the land of Marshall and Pigou, and have felt the weight of prelims on my balding head.” Perhaps a visitor to this page knows the identity of a witty balding graduate student in economics at mid-century Chicago?

The image for this posting is taken from the bottom of the page of the alternate version of the First Epistle. Is there another riddle of the Sphinx?

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First Epistle Unto the Entering Students:
[V1.0]

Lo ye who enter through the gates of admissions, unto the sanctity of the Department, behold its Grace and witness the Truth it gives unto you.

Heed ye well the words of one who is older and wiser than thee, for these many months have I spent in the land of Marshall and Pigou, and have felt the weight of prelims on my balding head.

Beware the course called 302, for therein shalt thou know the deer from the beaver.

Beware also the courses 300 A & B, for they shall try thee sorely. There is a time to speak and there is a time to be silent: be thou silent. Present thyself upon the appointed hour, lest the social cost exceed the private gain and the wrath of the master descend upon thee.

Shun thou the geometer, for he loveth his curves too dearly and seeks to seduce thee therewith. Throw thou his siren song from thy soul, for it lacketh rigor and appeals but to the senses.

Shun thou also the temple of the false god Probability, for therein dwell the Philistines who worship not Marshall. For there shall they descend upon thee with all manner of strange things, and thy head shall whirl in n-dimensions.

Attend carefully upon the course 301, for there if thou learnest nothing else, shalt thou learn at least this—and it shall be a contribution to thy general education.

Avoid thou the seven sins of the classicists and remember as thine own name the five rates of substitution. Confuseth not stocks with flows lest thou spend thy days in the industrial relations center.

Shun thou the welfare economist, for he duly loveth to stick out his neck, and he will teach thee his evil ways.

Disturb not the agricultural economist when he is at his data for he loveth them mightily and will defend them as a lioness her cubs—he heeds not the statistician or the wiseman.

Yea, verily, stray not unto the land of the Hansenites. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child, but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

Scourge from thy heart the heretics of Keynes. The devil dost appear in the name of the Lord.

Await the coming of the Messiah, for then shall the Pigou effect bring full employment upon the land.

 

FIRST EPISTLE UNTO NEW STUDENTS
[V2.0]

 

  1. To all who enter through the Gate of Admissions unto the sanctity of the Department, heed ye well the words of one who is wiser and older than thou. For verily I have dwelt in the land of Marshall for many months, and have felt the curse of Prelims on my head.
  2. Beware the courses called 300A and 300B, for they will tax thee sorely. They have been devised that the deer may be known from the beaver.
  3. Present thyself upon the appointed hour, lest the social cost exceed the private gain and the wrath of the Master fall upon thee mightily.
  4. Shun thou the geometer, for he seeks to seduce thee with curves. His siren song is pleasant but he lacketh rigor.
  5. Shun thou also the temple of the twin gods, Macro-economics and Probability, for therein dwell the Philistines who worship not Marshall. There wilt thou be set upon with all manner of strange things and thou shalt feel the lash of the mixed strategy upon thee, and thy head shall whirl in n-dimensions.
  6. Treasure thy Marshall, for verily all manner of mysteries are set down therein. Read it well and carefully, but say not that thou hast understood.
  7. Take to thine own bosom the demand curve lest it desert thee in thine hour of need.
  8. Attend well upon the lectures called 301, for there if thou learnest nothing else, shalt thou learn at least one thing and it shall be a contribution to thy general education.
  9. Shun thou the agricultural economist when he is at his data, for he loveth them dearly and will defend them as a lioness her cubs.
  10. Beware also the statistician who will leave thee witless with a pair of dice.
  11. Shun the welfare economist, for he loveth mightily to stick out his neck and will teach thee his evil ways.
  12. Shun thou the Social Science Tea, but study diligently in Harper lest thou and thy end thy days in the Business School.
  13. There is a time to speak and a time to be silent. Be thou silent in the presence of the Master, for he shall reveal to thee the secrets of Marshall and there shalt thou solve the riddle of the Sphinx.

Source: Hoover Institution Archives. Milton Friedman Papers. Box 79, Folder 6, “University of Chicago, Miscellaneous”.

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ADVANCED COURSES

300A, B. Price Theory. A systematic study of the pricing of final products and factors of production under essentially stationary conditions. Covers both perfect competition and such imperfectly competitive conditions as monopolistic competition, oligopoly, and monopoly. 300A deals primarily with the pricing of final products; 300B, with the pricing of factors of production. Prereq: for 300A, Econ 209 or equiv and Math 112 or equiv, or consent of instructor. For 300B, Econ 300A. Aut (300A) ThTh 1:30-3:30; Wallis; Win (300A): MWF 1:30; Metzler; Win (300B): TuTh 1:30-3:30; Friedman; Spr (300B): MWF 2:30; Metzler.

301. Price and Distribution Theory. Study of the general body of economic thought which centers about the theory of value and distribution and is regarded as “orthodox theory.” Critical examination of some modern systems of this character. Prereq: Econ 209, Math 112 or equiv, and two years’ work in the Division of Social Sciences, or equiv. Sum: MTuWF 11; Knight.

302. History of Economic Thought. Brief survey of the whole field of economic thought and a more intensive study of the “classical school” of British economists, whose doctrines are studied in relation to the problems and discussions of today. Prereq: Econ 301 or equiv. Spr: TuTh 3:30-5:30; Knight.

 

Source:   The University of Chicago. Announcements, Vol. L, No. 9 (July 20, 1950): The Division of the Social Sciences, Sessions of 1950-1951, pp. 28-29.

Categories
Economists Funny Business M.I.T.

M.I.T. Analysis in Wonderland. Graduate Student Skit, 1975

 

The annual skit party was a huge social event in the economics department at MIT in the 1970s and presumably before and after.  Each of the cohorts was expected to write and perform its own skit in which economics and economics professors were the principal targets. Faculty written skits were often a part of the festivities. Here in this posting for the historical record, a parody of Alice in Wonderland set in the Wonderland Institute of Technology in 1975 written by the first-year class of 1974-75. But first I provide a list of my classmates with links to some biographical information where I was able to find something…whatever happened to Paul Krugman? Not everybody participated in the preparation and performance so there remains a presumption of comic innocence for the majority of the following.

In 1978 many of this cohort were involved in Casablank, a parody of the movie Casablanca. That script has been transcribed and posted at the highlighted link.

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First Year Economics Graduate Students, 1974-75
M.I.T. (Spring 1975)

Abel, Andrew B.
Aspe, Pedro A.
Begg, David K. H.
Beleza, Luis Miguel C. P.
Bookstaber, Richard M.
Collier, Irwin L., Jr.
Datcher, Linda P.
Daula, Thomas V.
Desormeaux, Jorge J.
Donnelly, John F.
Duarte, Virgulino
Klorza, Santiago C.
Feiger, Margaret C.
Frankel, Jeffrey A.
Geehan, Randall R.
Giavazzi, Francesco
Halpern, Janice D.[sic, H.?]
Helms, L. Jay
Hill, Raymond D.
Krasker, William S.
Krugman, Paul R.
Malveaux, Julianne M.
Mincy, Ronald B.
Mooney, Patricia D.
Mork, Knut A.
Nagatani, Hiroaki
Neuer, Margaret R.
Smith, David A. [Alton]
Startz, Richard
Winicker, Mary K.

Source:  M.I.T. Archives. MIT Department of Economics Records, Box 1, Folder “Women & Minorities”.

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While transcribing this skit from my own days as a graduate student, I discovered how much I had indeed forgotten. The mapping of many a character to the corresponding faculty member was no longer obvious to me. I have added a listing of  Dramatis Personae with annotations based on the combined incomplete memories of myself,  Jeff Frankel, Dick Startz, Andy Abel, Ray Hill and Jay Helms. Perhaps some long-lost member of the troupe will stumble across this page and help me fill in the blanks, especially with respect to casting (20 characters!). 

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ANALYSIS IN WONDERLAND

Composed and performed by the first-year economics graduate students at M.I.T.
Second term, 1974-75

 

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

Narrator: played by Richard Bookstaber
Alice (Representative Graduate Student): played by Margaret (née Agnew) Feiger
Advisor (presumably the actual first-year advisor, Peter Diamond): actor unknown
Cheshire Cat (Jagdish Bhagwati): actor unknown
Micro: (Hal Varian?): actor unknown
Macro: (Stanley Fischer?): actor unknown
Quick & Dirty (Martin Weitzman): actor unknown
Palmer (Palmer, an actual Sloan School graduate student): actor unknown
Dormouse (Evsey Domar?): actor unknown
Mad Hatter (Charles Kindleberger): played by Jeffrey Frankel
March Hare (Robert Engle?): actor unknown
Tweedledee (Jerry Hausman):  possibly played by Jay Helms
Tweedledum (Robert Hall): possibly played by Bud Collier
Knave of Hearts (Franco Modigliani): actor unknown
Knave of Clubs (Arthur Burns): actor unknown
Knave of Spades (William McChesney Martin): actor unknown
Knave Alan (Allan Greenspan): actor unknown
King (President Gerald Ford): actor unknown
Joker (Paul Samuelson): possibly played by Ray Hill
White Rabbit (Robert Bishop?): actor unknown

ACT I

Narrator: The first year class presents…

Analysis in Wonderland, a tragicomedy in four unnatural acts. Any resemblance to faculty members living or otherwise should be inferred from the initials worn by the characters.

Act I, Alice enters Wonderland and meets the Cheshire cat.
(Alice is sitting at a table reading Samuelson’s Economics.)
Narrator: One day Alice was reading a book, but she was getting very bored, for the book had no conversations or jokes in it.
Alice: And what is the use of a book without conversations or jokes?
Narrator: And so she began to drift off. And eventually she noticed that there was someone on the other side of the desk…
Advisor: Hi! Welcome to the Wonderland Institute of Technology. You must be a first year graduate student. I’m your first year advisor, and it’s my job to talk to you and give you a feeling that someone cares about you personally.

Now, let me see your schedule (grabs book). Well, uh, (looks at book then says with emphasis) Paul, this schedule looks fine to me (signs it) and remember to turn in your roll cards on the first day of each class.

(Through all this Alice keeps going “uh” and “but”…but can’t manage to say anything)

Remember that if you have any questions or problems, just come in and talk to me, I have plenty of time. Excuse me!

(The advisor gets up and runs out. Alice runs after, then comes back)
Alice: What a strange place! But where should I go from here? Why there’s a Cheshire Cat. (Enter Cheshire cat) Excuse me, sir, but can you tell me where I ought to go from here?
Cheshire Cat: Why, I’m wery [sic] glad you asked me that. You should go to the optimal point, of course.
Alice: But how long will that take me?
Cheshire Cat: I can’t tell you that, listen to this. (Turns on radio, which produces static. Turns it off.) You see! Our economic theories are all static.
Alice: I would like to see some faculty.
Cheshire Cat: Well, you could go to Harward [sic], but it’s wery rare that anyone sees any faculty there. Or you could stay here, but everyone here has completely lost their faculties. They’re all mad, you know.
Alice: But I don’t want to go among mad people.
Cheshire Cat: Oh, you can’t help that; we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.
Alice: How do you know I’m mad?
Cheshire Cat: Well, a physicist’s not mad, you grant that? Now, a physicist starts with facts and tries to find theories that fit them. I start with theories and don’t bother with facts. Therefore I’m mad. Yes?
Alice: But what are your theories about?
Cheshire Cat: Do they have to be about anything?
Alice: Well, I’ve often seen a subject without a theory, but a theory without a subject? It’s the most curious thing I ever saw in all my life!

(Alice suddenly starts)
Cheshire Cat: Don’t worry, it’s just the inwisible hand.
(Enter two characters with paper hats (?) on which are cross diagrams. One has a potato chip taped to his shoulder.)
Cheshire Cat: They’re Mike and Mac Ro
Micro: Someone must stop him! It’s shameful! Look at that silly diagram he’s wearing! It’s a disgrace to the profession.
Macro: It’s a perfectly good diagram. Not like that ridiculous diagram you’re wearing!
Alice: But the diagrams look just the same.
Cheshire Cat: Shhh! You’ll only get them more upset.
Alice: Why don’t you try to talk your differences over?
Micro: Well, we microeconomists believe in logic, so I’m willing to reason it out.
Macro: You can’t expect me to be reasonable. Can’t you see I’ve got a chip on my shoulder?
Alice: Why, yes—it’s a potato chip in fact.
Macro: I wear it in honor of our founder, Cain’s. So prepare to defend yourself.
Micro: I warn you, I’m a master of the Marshallian arts.
Macro: But I’m armed with the most deadly tool of macroeconomics: (pulls out several pairs of pliers)…Multi-pliers!
Micro: And I have the most dangerous concept of microeconomics. (pulls out a slingshot) Elasticity!
Alice: Oh no, they’re going to have a duel and micro is a semi-strict under dog!

(Mike and Mac turn back to back)
(enter panting, the Quick and Dirty banker, carrying a money bag and a calculator)
Q&D: Wait! You can’t have a duel without a primal.
Alice: Who are you?
Q&D: I’m duh quick and doity bankuh. And by my quick and doity bankuh’s calculation, I find dat what you need is more liquidity which I will now provide.

(out of the moneybag he pulls a waterpistol, shoots everyone, then runs)
Macro: Now we’re all wet. What are we going to do?
Alice: It’s all right, I know just what to do. Here’s the driest thing I know.

(begins reading from Bishop [notes])
Micro: This isn’t getting me dry at all.
Macro: Now there’s only one way to get dry, and this will prove to you that macroeconomics is good for something.
Alice: What are you going to do?
Macro: I’m going to do some hand-waving! Macroeconomists are always drying things out by waving their hands.
Alice: They are?
Macro: Of course! That’s why none of their theories will hold water. Now, watch this! (He begins to draw a diagram)
Alice: What do those lines mean?
Macro: Oh, I don’t know. But they’re pretty good lines, and Lord knows I have the right to a few good lines in this ridiculous skit.
Palmer: Haven’t you got the A line drawn wrong?
Macro: (Going very fast) Well, that line doesn’t really matter. (erases it)
Palmer: But then shouldn’t you erase the k line, too?
Macro: Well, all right (erases).
Palmer: What do X and Y stand for?
Macro: Oh, don’t worry about the axes (erases them). Actually, these are not quite like this anyway. (erases remaining lines) And, as you can see, equilibrium is at the intersection.
Alice: Well, I’ve often seen lines without an intersection, but an intersection without lines? It’s the most curious thing I ever saw in my whole life.
Narrator: You’re repeating yourself, Alice.
Alice: What do you expect, Mel Brooks?
Micro: You think that’s hand-waving! Why, I have seen hand-waving, compared with which that is no better than eternal bliss.
Alice: But what is better than eternal bliss?
Micro: Well, a ham sandwich, for instance.
Alice: But nothing’s better than eternal bliss.
Micro: And a ham sandwich is better than nothing. So, by transitivity, there you are!
Alice: (ignoring Micro as she turns to the Cheshire Cat) Isn’t there anyone here who isn’t mad?
Cheshire Cat: You might try an assistant professor.
Alice: Which one should I try?
Cheshire Cat: It doesn’t matter—pick one at random.
Alice: How do I do that?
Cheshire Cat: Just draw one from an assistant professor urn.
Alice: What’s an assistant professor urn?
Micro, Macro, Cheshire Cat, Narrator (in unison) About eleven thousand a year!
(pause)
Narrator: …and a copy of Bishop’s notes.
Alice: Curiouser and curiouser.
(exeunt all)

 

ACT II

Narrator: Act II. The Mad Boston Tea Party
(Dormouse sleeps throughout. Mad Hatter stuttering throughout; price keeps going up on hat.)
Mad Hatter: What’s your liquidity preference my dear?
Alice: It looks like you have nothing but tea.
Mad Hatter: That is all we have.
Alice: Then why did you ask?
Mad Hatter: Consumer sovereignty. (gives Alice tea) I would like to suggest to you that that will be eight pence (takes shilling from Alice.)
Alice: No cover charge?
Mad Hatter: A gentleman never takes cover, as we say in the old country.
Alice: Hey, I gave you a shilling and you only gave me two pence change back!
Mad Hatter: A gentleman never counts his change.
Hare: Gentleperson!
Alice: This sounds like a liquidity trap to me.
Mad Hatter: Alright, I’ll put it down on the T-account…(gets book)
Alice: There is something floating in my tea.
March Hare: (looking) Exchange rates.
Mad Hatter: … two pence… (fiddling with T-accounts)
Alice: No it’s ice.
Mad Hatter: …under frozen assets.
Hare: Gary Becker! (general laughter)
Mad Hatter: Why is the Poisson distribution like a temperature of 102?
Alice: Well, let’s see… I suppose you would have to integrate e to the…
Mad Hatter: Integration! They only do that in South Boston.
March Hare: No, that’s disintegration.
Alice: I suppose you have to differentiate between…
Mad Hatter: Differentiate? The first derivative is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
Alice: I give up, why is the Poisson distribution like a temperature of 102?
Mad Hatter: I haven’t the slightest idea.
Alice: That’s not very funny.
Mad Hatter: Funny?
March Hare: She wants to hear a joke.
Mad Hatter: A joke, a joke!
March Hare: …Fogel and Engerman! (general laughter)
Alice: I’m afraid I don’t get it.
Mad Hatter: Well, you see, certain names are standing jokes around here, like…Walt Whitman Rostow! (laughter)
Alice: Can I try one?
Mad Hatter: Go right ahead.
Alice: Milton Friedman! (silence among the actors who look sour a moment after the audience’s laughter dies down.)
Mad Hatter: Try another one.
Alice: Jay Forrester….(more silence).
Alice: I don’t understand. What’s wrong?
Mad Hatter: Well, some people just can’t tell a joke.
March Hare: Perhaps you’d like to see a proof?
Mad Hatter: A proof! A proof!
March Hare: This is a proof I recited before the Queen of Hearts. (goes to board)

Twiddle Twiddle lambda star
Alpha hat, beta hat times X bar.
Alpha hat, beta hat sigma Xi

One over n, equals mean of Y.
[writes on board:]:
\begin{array}{l}\mathop{{\tilde{\tilde{\lambda }}}}^{*}=\hat{\alpha }+\hat{\beta }\cdot \bar{X}\\=\hat{\alpha }+\hat{\beta }\cdot \sum{{{X}_{i}}}\left( \frac{1}{n} \right)=\bar{Y}\end{array}
Mad Hatter: Time to move on to the next place.
(everybody gets up to move)
Alice: What?! You mean you just move on to the next place without erasing?
March Hare: We don’t have to erase; we just relabel the axes.
Mad Hatter: I always erase twice, once before the period and once afterward. (erases)

(everyone moves down one, and relabels axes and curve)
     
Alice: And I suppose when you use up all the places you just start again at the beginning of the circle?
Mad Hatter: Yes. It’s called recycling.
March Hare: You better wake up the Dormouse.

(Mad Hatter and March Hare exit)
Alice: (To Dormouse) Wake up, wake up. (shakes him)
Dormouse: (waking) Whaaaaat?
Alice: Wake up. It’s over.
Dormouse: (Pause…) Can I Xerox your notes?
Alice: (starts to leave. turns and says) Why is a Poisson distribution like a temperature of 102? (Pause. Alice exits)
Dormouse: (alone) Because it’s not normal.

 

ACT III

Narrator: Act III. Alice meets Tweedledum and Tweedledee, who have a battle.
(Alice enters and sits down. Dum and Dee enter, arm-in-arm, prancing. Dee sits down; Dum goes to the board and begins. Throughout, Dee is frantic, pacing, and talking very fast. Dum is red-faced, slow-talking, constantly looking at the floor; arms folded, with noticeably short pants and a turtleneck.)
Dum: So, to conclude yesterday’s talk, we can see that it’s entirely possible that for the two sub-groups, say, men and women, you could have different parameters in the regression…
Dee: (jumping up to interrupt) I think I can draw a picture that will make that all clear. Wish I had my colored chalk… [draws pictures].
     
…so you see that while the slope in the pooled regression is zero, contrariwise; it’s actually negative for men and positive for women.
Dum: …Sort of, different slopes for different folks, which tells us…
Dee: [interrupting] …and contrariwise, I can clear this up by drawing a picture that would show…[draws picture]
 
Dum: [interrupting]…that there could be kinky behavior in some subgroups….
Dee: Right. (sits down)
Dum: But, as I was going to say, this illustrates the 287th “Iron Law” of econometrics, which states that….
Dee: (again jumping up to interrupt)…Contrariwise,…I think I can make that clear with a picture in four dimensions. Damn, I just wish I had my colored chalk…(draws pictures)
…which shows that…
Dum: (getting very irritated, interrupting) Nohow!

The time has come, the Walras said
to talk of many things,
of matrices and error terms
of cabbages and kings,
and keeping out your pictures
that keep complicating things.
Dee: Contrariwise!

In my way of showing things
I’m better far than you,
Your talk is like an old dead horse–
It’s slow, not unlike glue.
Dum: Now wait a second…
(Dum and Dee break into a general dispute, yelling at one another.)
Dum: ….you’re not consistent…
Dee: …you’re almost surely driving me to the p-limit…
Dum: …you’re a homoscedastic deviate…
(While Tweeledum and Tweedledee continue arguing, the Narrator breaks in…)
Narrator: So Tweedledum and Tweedledee
Agreed to have a fight
For Tweedledum said Tweedledee
Couldn’t prove Gauss-Markov right.
Dum: Of course we must have a fight. What time is it?
Dee: 10:40—We’re late getting started, so we better hurry up.
Dum: Let’s fight ‘till noon, then have lunch.
Narrator: So they agreed to fight and, as Alice watched, they began to see who could prove the theorem better.
(Dum and Dee give lectures simultaneously, beginning and ending at the same time with the same words.)
Dee:

[simultaneously with Dum]

I CLAIM THAT OLS IS BLUE.

Basically, we want to prove that

{{\sum{\left( \mathbf{{X}'Y} \right)}}^{-1}}\mathbf{{Z}'}\beta \le {{\sum{\left( \mathbf{{X}'\tilde{Y}} \right)}}^{-1}}\mathbf{{Z}'}\gamma

Now just take the inverse of the antilog of the Jacobian and delete the fourth row. Let little x be the square root of big X, and let medium-sized x be measured from its mean; substitute back in and we have

{{\sum{\left( \mathbf{{X}'}\left[ \begin{matrix} \mathbf{Y} \\ \mathbf{Z} \\ \end{matrix} \right] \right)}}^{-1}}{\left| J \right|\cdot \Pi \cdot {{R}^{2}}}/{\text{hat size}}\;

which you will recall from 14.381.

Then, as I promised, you can use this by transposing Z and x, deleting R and reversing the inequality…..OH SHIT…I’ve screwed up…Well, just change every medium-sized x in your notes to big X, delete all sigmas, and reverse the third and fourth steps of the proof I gave last week which was right here on the board. Or look in Tahl’s [Theil with an West Virginian accent] book. Everyone should understand this perfectly—and of course the notation is clear. Then, adding the obvious steps we learned in 14.381 to this proof completes the argument. SO OLS IS BLUE, as promised.
Dum:

[simultaneously with Dum]

I CLAIM THAT OLS IS BLUE.

Well….a lot of people go around proving the Gauss-Markov….Theorem….but the literature is full of cases….where what’s done is wrong….Take matrix addition for example….Some people just add element-by-element….while often the more interesting thing to do…..is to use the Choleski factorization of one of the matrices….And recalling that Tweedledum and I are the final arbiters of econometrics at W.I.T. (at least until Fisher gets back off leave) you’d better do it this way, or consider dropping the course. SO OLS IS BLUE, as promised.
Palmer: Shouldn’t you invert that Jacobian before proceeding to expansion in Lambert spaces….
Dee: [interrupting] If it was so, it might be; If it WERE so, it could be; But as it isn’t, it ain’t. That’s logic.
Narrator: Alice couldn’t figure out just who had won the fight, although Tweedledee HAD used a lot more words….
[exeunt]

 

ACT IV

Tweedledee: Act Four, “The trahl”.
Narrator: Within a few moments Alice will witness the trial of the Knave of Hearts who is in deep trouble now because the King of Hearts is flying all the way from the Capital of Wonderland to preside at the trial. You are undoubtedly familiar with the Knave of Hearts most important contribution to economic analysis, “A Life-Cycle Built for Two”. But now he has been accused of starting the latest Wonderland inflation and depression—or as they say in the seminar rooms down by the River Chuck—“inflession”. The economic experts of the King—Knave Arthur of Clubs, Knave William of Spades, and Knave Alan of Diamonds—have all convinced him that economic voodoo has been practiced on models on the Wonderland economy in the hallowed halls of W.I.T. Since the King of Hearts has never played with a full-deck in his life, he was easily deceived by these rascals. Fortunately for the Knave of Hearts the Queen was unable to come to the trial due to a prior speaking engagement before the Veterans of Foreign Business Cycles.
(Enter Knaves of C.S. &D. They play “Hail to the Chief” on kazoos for a few bars and end with “Pop goes the weasel.” Then the King enters wearing a helmet and carrying a football. A WIN button is conspicuous. King bends over, hikes the ball to Knave of Clubs. King sits down on throne in middle of stage.)
Knave of Clubs. Where’s the jury?
King of Hearts. (points at the Knaves) You. (Knaves turn around but no one is behind them. King continues…) Yes, you. You are his peers. And for a proper trial before we cut off his grant, we must have a jury of his peers.
Knight of Diamonds. (tossing a coin à la [George] Rath) We know what to do.
(Enter all the other characters from Wonderland, except Joker and reporters)
King: What are the charges?
Knave of Clubs: Eleven dollars a barrel.
White Rabbit: The King of Hearts, he has no smartz
But Unemployment yes.
The Knave of Hearts has played his part
To make inflation worse.
Knaves in the jury-box: Boo, Hiss, Boo!
King: It is a pretty despicable offense isn’t it?
Knave of Spades: Are you kidding? The charges don’t even rhyme.
King: Will the defendant rise?
Knave of Hearts: If I had known you were going to ask me that question I would have built it into my model.
King: I’ll hold you in contempt!
Knave of Hearts: I don’t suppose I’ll become overly fond of you either.
King: Let the jury note the defendant’s behavior.
Knave of Hearts: Which reminds me of my 1944 paper, but that is of course a secondary issue given the gravity of the problems which we now face. While I can’t formally defend the following equation to my own satisfaction, I think that it does make some economic sense. But first I should say that things will be getting much worse before they will get better, I can give you the latest predictions…..
King: (fuming through all of the above) Bind the bearer of bad tidings or he’ll talk us to death…
Knave of Clubs: But what shall we bind him with?
King: Bearer bonds, naturally!
(The Knaves come out of the jury box and use first-aid gauze to tie the knave of Hearts by body and legs & gag him—leaving only one arm free. Knave of Hearts has been talking with his hands throughout his testimony, and he continues gesturing with his free hand while occasional grunts can be heard under his gag.)
King: May it be noted that in the tradition of Wonderland jurisprudence we have left the defendant with one degree of freedom in spite of his lack of respect for this court. Are there any witnesses?
Mad Hatter: I am.
King: Take the stand.
Knave of Clubs (to Mad Hatter): Did the defendant do it?
Mad Hatter: Certainly not.
Knave of Spades: And you witnessed this with your own eyes?
Mad Hatter: And I didn’t hear or smell him do it either.
Knave of Diamonds: But how strong was your prior?
Mad Hatter: Well, I don’t like to boast but when I was a young man working for the OSS during the War, I once spent a week in bed with a….
Knave of Clubs: No, no, no. How much could new data affect your prior beliefs, and if considerably, what was your posterior judgment?
Mad Hatter: I don’t now, that’s a good one. But I’ve got one for you. What weighs 12,000 pounds and has a twice differentiable indifference map over hay and peanuts?
King: That’s irrelevant!
Mad Hatter: That’s right.
King: Give your evidence, or I’ll cut your grant off on the spot!
Mad Hatter: (stutters) I’m a poor man your majesty.
King: You’re a very poor speaker. (knaves laugh) I thought that was a pretty good one too. I’m in the mood for a few laughs (to White Rabbit) Call in the Joker.
White Rabbit: The Joker.
(Enter Joker, attended by secretary, fans seeking autographs, and reporters taking pictures)
Joker: It’s great to be back in Wonderland folks. A funny thing happened on my way…
King: (interrupting) You have been called here to testify. What is the Keynesian viewpoint?
Joker: As Uncle Miltie Friedman would say, only blindmen use Keynes. Hey, that’s a pretty good one. (To secretary) Write that down for my textbook—Better yet, put out a new edition. But, seriously folks just the other day I was leafing through a volume of Ricardo’s letters in the Sraffa collection when I came across a letter from Ricardo to James Mill describing the following encounter between Thomas Malthus and David Ricardo. Ricardo was walking down the street one day when he ran into the good Reverend who was, much to Ricardo’s surprise, sporting a banana in his left ear. Ricardo was surprised because Malthus was always the last of the political economists to adopt a new fashion. Finally Ricardo’s curiosity got the better of him and he asked, “I say Tom, why is that banana in your ear?” Malthus didn’t seem to understand—but that was hardly unusual as Malthus, more often than not, couldn’t understand what his friend was saying. In fact, old Malthus personally thought that Ricardo couldn’t optimize his way out of a paper sack, much less a Lambert space. Finally Malthus said, “I’m sorry Dave, but I can’t hear you, you see, I have this banana in my ear.” (everyone in the courtroom is sleeping) And now….ahem…ahem (everyone wakes up). A few of your favorite impressions: Francois Quesnay! (He covers his face with his hands; removes hands; expression unchanged) Böhm-Bawerk! (same routine)
King: Enough!
Joker: Nassau Senior! (same routine)
King: Take him away. (White rabbit and knaves carry Joker off, still doing impressions. e.g. Stanley Jevons, Joseph Schumpeter, Vilfredo Pareto….)
King: Who is the next witness?
Rabbit: Alice!
Alice: Here! (she goes to the witness stand)
King: What do you know about this business?
Alice: Nothing.
King: If you say anything, I’ll give you part credit. Otherwise….
Alice: But I don’t need part credit!
King: Young lady, I’m growing impatient. Either tell us something about this business or I’ll cut off your grant.
Alice: (crying) But I don’t have a grant.
King: Then why are you so upset, indeed.
Alice: What sort of….(alarm clock goes off in the jury box and the knaves wake up).
Knaves: (in unison) Verdict time!!
Knave of Spades: (To Knave of Diamonds) Do you have the coin?
Knave of Diamonds: Yes I do. (to Spades). You’re innocence, (to Clubs) you’re guilt. Call it innocence. (he tosses the coin high in air)
Alice: What kind of trial is this?
King: Don’t be a stupid child. It’s a Bernoulli trial.
Knave of Spades: Tails.
Knave of Diamonds: Sorry it’s heads. He’s guilty!
Alice: May I see the coin? (it’s tossed to her) This coin has two heads.
King: Did anyone say p equaled one half?
(Lights out. Everyone leaves but Alice. Lights on she has book and wakes up.)
Alice: I’m glad I woke up before I had to take generals. (She leaves)
Audience: (Deafening applause) Bravo. Cheers. Whoopee.

 

Source: Transcribed by Irwin Collier from personal copy.

Categories
Funny Business

Now for something completely different…

In honor of the inauguration of the 45th President of the United States on January 20, 2017, I have written new lyrics to a famous production number from the musical The Producers. My version has the title “Springtime for Twittler“. 

Categories
Funny Business

On the second day of Christmas my colleague wrote with me…

a doggerel about 2-016:

“A Visit from St. Vlad” by Michael Burda and Irwin Collier.

 

Image SourceTrump Tower @ 5th Ave by Victor Harota posted on Flickr: .

Categories
Chicago Funny Business

Chicago. Two Christmas Songs, “Economized” Lyrics. Undated.

Copies of the following bastardized Christmas Carols from the University of Chicago Department of Economics can be found in Milton Friedman’s papers at the Hoover Institution Archives. They are filed with other skit party materials in a folder marked “University of Chicago, Miscellaneous”.

These texts are undated, one might say timeless.

From the same collection: a HMS Pinafore parody; “Ode to an Economist”).

_______________________________

THE TWELVE WEEKS OF CLASSES
(tune: “The Twelve Days of Christmas”)

On the first week of class my Professor said to me:

                                    We must maintain consumer sovereignty!

Second week:             Uncertainty is no answer, and
Third week:               Impute costs,
Fourth week:             Lunch is never free,
Fifth week:                 Free Enterprise!!!
Sixth week:                Marshall is our hero;
Seventh week:           M V equals P T;
Eight week:                Manna comes each Monday;
Ninth week:               Inflation is an evil;
Tenth week:               This week do the readings;
Eleventh week:          Answer true or false please;
Twelfth week:            SORRY, BUT I FLUNKED YOU!

_______________________________

SONG FOR AN ENTREPRENEUR
(To the tune of Jingle Bells)

 

Maximize, maximize, that’s the crucial key.
Allocate resources by their productivity.
Equalize VMP’s with their prices, and
Your production function is the finest in the land.

 

Source: Hoover Institution Archives. Milton Friedman papers. Box 79, Folder “79.6 University of Chicago, Miscellaneous.”

Image Source: From a 1939 Nativity Play in Rockefeller Chapel in 1939. University of Chicago Photographic Archive, apf4-03011. Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.

 

Categories
Economists Funny Business M.I.T.

M.I.T. Faculty Skit with Peter Diamond as Sir Lancelot, 1967

____________

Today’s post is an excerpt from a script for a department faculty skit performed at the MIT Graduate Economics Association’s “Shawmut Follies” of 1967. The “skitwrights” were Duncan Foley and Peter Temin who adapted the lyrics from tunes taken from the popular musical Camelot (based on the legend of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round-Table) to departmental happenings.

The backstory of this scene is that the future 2010 Nobel prize winner Peter Diamond left the University of California (Berkeley) to join the M.I.T. economics faculty in 1966. I suppose one could imagine the scene opening with the two long-haired peasants as West coast hippies speaking in a Greenwich Village beatnik-ese dialect. The casting problem for having a “chick” in a faculty solely made up of men was solved by employing the departmental administrator Del Tapley rather than by an Elizabethan substitution of male actors in female roles (We are talking Cambridge Massachusetts in the 1960’s and not Berlin in the early 1930’s!).

For those not familiar with the show-tune “C’est moi!” from Camelot, here the Robert Goulet version in the original Broadway Cast Recording at YouTube.

 

 

Dramatis Personae of Scene 2

Herald: Richard Eckaus

First Peasant: E. Cary Brown

Second Peasant: Del Tapley

Lancelot: Peter Diamond

Scene 2
(A provincial city named after an English philosopher)

A Herald: Hear ye, hear ye. Come one, come all to hearken to the Grand Proclamation of King Arthur.

First Peasant: Man, what’s his bag?

Second Peasant: Something about King Arthur.

First Peasant: Who’s this King Arthur cat?

Second Peasant: It’s some weird kick they got out East.

First Peasant: Do you know I hear there aren’t any chicks at all out there?

Second Peasant: Groovy.

First Peasant: Groovy? What’s your bag, man?

Second Peasant: I am a chick, man. No shut up and listen to the proclamation.

Herald: If you’re ready.

First Peasant: Oh, we’re ready. Don’t stand on your fancy Eastern ways out here.

Herald: King Arthur of M.I.T. offers to all young knights of intellectual errantry the opportunity to join the select long Corridor of economists sworn to uphold true theory, to rescue theorems from rape and pillage at the brutal hands of Midwestern Ph.D.’s, to form a fellowship of intellectual excellence and as much good cheer as can coexist with it.

Second Peasant: “With it” is a pretty weak way to end a sentence, if you ask me.

Herald: Admission to the Long Corridor will be by open combat in a faculty seminar, jousting with mathematical, graphical, and verbal reasoning. Come one, come all. That’s it. Break it up.

First Peasant: Gee whiz.

Second Peasant: What’s that slang jargon you’re talking, man?

First Peasant: Who’s going to go and compete with those fierce Eastern minds?

Second Peasant: Not me, man.

First Peasant: I hope somebody goes out here.

Lancelot: I will.

Second Peasant: You? Who are you?

Lancelot: I am Lancelot du Bay, academic fencer par excellence. I will go.

First Peasant: To M.I.T.? Think twice, man.

Lancelot: (sings)

M.I.T….
M.I.T….
On the West Coast I heard your call.
M.I.T….
M.I.T….
And here am I to give my all.
I know in my soul
What you expect of me
And all that and more I shall be.

A prof of the Corridor Long should be unstoppable
A mind on which less fantastic minds can lean:
Teach a class no one else can teach
Prove a theorem that’s out of reach
Run regressions without the help of a machine.

His logic and argument should be unstoppable
His papers of course always beyond compare.
But where in the world
Is there in the world
A man so extraordinaire?

C’est moi, c’est moi
I’m forced to admit
‘Tis I, I humbly reply
That Ph.D. who
These marvels can do
C’est moi, c’est moi, ‘tis I.

The students say
My lectures are keen
My proofs are fit for a king.
I’ll show a way
Through Pontryagin
To prove most any thing.
C’est moi, c’est moi
My colleagues have fits
Because I never am wrong.
Where will they find brains better than mine
Theoretically wise
Empirically fine
To serve in the Corridor Long? C’est moi.

 

Source: MIT Libraries, Institute Archives and Special Collections, Department of Economics Records, Box 2, Folder “GEA 1961-67”.

Image Source: Robert Goulet as Lancelot in the 1960 Broadway Musical Camelot at Fanpix.net. [A google search did not find an image of Peter Diamond in chain mail and a tunic]

 

 

Categories
Chicago Economists Funny Business

Chicago. Economics Ph.D. (1903), Canadian Humorist Stephen Leacock.

It is not every day that one stumbles upon a history-of-economics arc connecting Thorstein Veblen to Groucho Marx and Jack Benny. The economist that connected the iconoclast economist to those veterans of vaudeville comedy is the Canadian humorist and Chicago student of Thorstein Veblen, Stephen Butler Leacock.

First I post here some data (the actual starting point of my background check of Leacock, the Chicago Ph.D.) found in the University of Chicago’s registers of its Ph.D.’s and annual catalogues.

The author’s autobiographical Preface to Leacock’s greatest hit, Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town (1912) follows. The stories themselves strike most, if not all, of the same chords that Garrison Keillor’s News from Lake Wobegon has played over the past decades. 

Finally I will allow myself the short-cut of quoting Wikipedia to complete the sketch of both sides of this most interesting fellow. 

The McGill economics department entry for Stephen Leacock.

 

_____________________

Stephen Butler Leacock
University of Chicago Ph.D. in Political Economy, 1903.

Thesis Title: The doctrine of laissez faire.

 A.B. University of Toronto, 1891.

1889-99. Instructor in French and German, Upper Canada College.
1899-1900. Graduate Student, University of Chicago.
1921. Head of Department of Economics and Political Science, McGill University, Montreal, Canada.
1931, April 1. Professor and Head of Department of Economics and Political Science, McGill University, Montreal, Canada.
1938, April 1. Professor Emeritus of Economics and Political Science, McGill University, Montreal, Canada.

 

_____________________

Author’s Preface to Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town (1912)

               I KNOW no way in which a writer may more fittingly introduce his work to the public than by giving a brief account of who and what he is. By this means some of the blame for what he has done is very properly shifted to the extenuating circumstances of his life.

I was born at Swanmoor, Hants, England, on December 30, 1869. I am not aware that there was any particular conjunction of the planets at the time, but should think it extremely likely. My parents migrated to Canada in 1876, and I decided to go with them. My father took up a farm near Lake Simcoe, in Ontario. This was during the hard times of Canadian farming, and my father was just able by great diligence to pay the hired men and, in years of plenty, to raise enough grain to have seed for the next year’s crop without buying any. By this process my brothers and I were inevitably driven off the land, and have become professors, business men, and engineers, instead of being able to grow up as farm labourers. Yet I saw enough of farming to speak exuberantly in political addresses of the joy of early rising and the deep sleep, both of body and intellect, that is induced by honest manual toil.

I was educated at Upper Canada College, Toronto, of which I was head boy in 1887. From there I went to the University of Toronto, where I graduated in 1891. At the University I spent my entire time in the acquisition of languages, living, dead, and half- dead, and knew nothing of the outside world. In this diligent pursuit of words I spent about sixteen hours of each day. Very soon after graduation I had forgotten the languages, and found myself intellectually bankrupt. In other words I was what is called a distinguished graduate, and, as such, I took to school teaching as the only trade I could find that needed neither experience nor intellect. I spent my time from 1891 to 1899 on the staff of Upper Canada College, an experience which has left me with a profound sympathy for the many gifted and brilliant men who are compelled to spend their lives in the most dreary, the most thankless, and the worst paid profession in the world. I have noted that of my pupils, those who seemed the laziest and the least enamoured of books are now rising to eminence at the bar, in business, and in public life; the really promising boys who took all the prizes are now able with difficulty to earn the wages of a clerk in a summer hotel or a deck hand on a canal boat.

In 1899 I gave up school teaching in disgust, borrowed enough money to live upon for a few months, and went to the University of Chicago to study economics and political science. I was soon appointed to a Fellowship in political economy, and by means of this and some temporary employment by McGill University, I survived until I took the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in 1903. The meaning of this degree is that the recipient of instruction is examined for the last time in his life, and is pronounced completely full. After this, no new ideas can be imparted to him.

From this time, and since my marriage, which had occurred at this period, I have belonged to the staff of McGill University, first as lecturer in Political Science, and later as head of the department of Economics and Political Science. As this position is one of the prizes of my profession, I am able to regard myself as singularly fortunate. The emolument is so high as to place me distinctly above the policemen, postmen, street-car conductors, and other salaried officials of the neighbourhood, while I am able to mix with the poorer of the business men of the city on terms of something like equality. In point of leisure, I enjoy more in the four corners of a single year than a business man knows in his whole life. I thus have what the business man can never enjoy, an ability to think, and, what is still better, to stop thinking altogether for months at a time.

I have written a number of things in connection with my college life — a book on Political Science, and many essays, magazine articles, and so on. I belong to the Political Science Association of America, to the Royal Colonial Institute, and to the Church of England. These things, surely, are a proof of respectability. I have had some small connection with politics and public life. A few years ago I went all round the British Empire delivering addresses on Imperial organization. When I state that these lectures were followed almost immediately by the Union of South Africa, the Banana Riots in Trinidad, and the Turco-Italian war, I think the reader can form some idea of their importance. In Canada I belong to the Conservative party, but as yet I have failed entirely in Canadian politics, never having received a contract to build a bridge, or make a wharf, nor to construct even the smallest section of the Transcontinental Railway. This, however, is a form of national ingratitude to which one becomes accustomed in this Dominion.

Apart from my college work, I have written two books, one called “Literary Lapses” and the other “Nonsense Novels.” Each of these is published by John Lane (London and New York), and either of them can be obtained, absurd though it sounds, for the mere sum of three shillings and sixpence. Any reader of this preface, for example, ridiculous though it appears, could walk into a bookstore and buy both of these books for seven shillings. Yet these works are of so humorous a character that for many years it was found impossible to print them. The compositors fell back from their task suffocated with laughter and gasping for air. Nothing but the invention of the linotype machine or rather, of the kind of men who operate it made it possible to print these books. Even now people have to be very careful in circulating them, and the books should never be put into the hands of persons not in robust health.

Many of my friends are under the impression that I write these humorous nothings in idle moments when the wearied brain is unable to perform the serious labours of the economist. My own experience is exactly the other way. The writing of solid, instructive stuff fortified by facts and figures is easy enough. There is no trouble in writing a scientific treatise on the folk-lore of Central China, or a statistical enquiry into the declining population of Prince Edward Island. But to write something out of one’s own mind, worth reading for its own sake, is an arduous contrivance only to be achieved in fortunate moments, few and far between. Personally, I would sooner have written “Alice in Wonderland ” than the whole Encyclopaedia Britannica.

In regard to the present work I must disclaim at once all intention of trying to do anything so ridiculously easy as writing about a real place and real people. Mariposa is not a real town. On the contrary, it is about seventy or eighty of them. You may find them all the way from Lake Superior to the sea, with the same square streets and the same maple trees and the same churches and hotels, and everywhere the sunshine of the land of hope.

Similarly, the Reverend Mr. Drone is not one person, but about eight or ten. To make him I clapped the gaiters of one ecclesiastic round the legs of another, added the sermons of a third and the character of a fourth, and so let him start on his way in the book to pick up such individual attributes as he might find for himself. Mullins and Bagshaw and Judge Pepperleigh and the rest are, it is true, personal friends of mine. But I have known them in such a variety of forms, with such alternations of tall and short, dark and fair, that, individually, I should have much ado to know them. Mr. Pupkin is found whenever a Canadian bank opens a branch in a county town and needs a teller. As for Mr. Smith, with his two hundred and eighty pounds, his hoarse voice, his loud check suit, his diamonds, the roughness of his address and the goodness of his heart, all of this is known by everybody to be a necessary and universal adjunct of the hotel business.

The inspiration of the book, —a land of hope and sunshine where little towns spread their square streets and their trim maple trees beside placid lakes almost within echo of the primeval forest, is large enough. If it fails in its portrayal of the scenes and the country that it depicts the fault lies rather with an art that is deficient than in an affection that is wanting.

STEPHEN LEACOCK.

McGill University,
June, 1912.

Source: Stephen Leacock, Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town, London: John Lane, 1912, pp. vii-xii.

 

_______________________

Academic and political life

Disillusioned with teaching, in 1899 he began graduate studies at the University of Chicago under Thorstein Veblen, where he received a doctorate in political science and political economy. He moved from Chicago, Illinois to Montreal, Quebec, where he eventually became the William Dow Professor of Political Economy and long-time chair of the Department of Economics and Political Science at McGill University.

He was closely associated with Sir Arthur Currie, former commander of the Canadian Corps in the Great War and principal of McGill from 1919 until his death in 1933. In fact, Currie had been a student observing Leacock’s practice teaching in Strathroy in 1888. In 1936, Leacock was forcibly retired by the McGill Board of Governors—an unlikely prospect had Currie lived.

Leacock was both a social conservative and a partisan Conservative. He opposed giving women the right to vote, disliked non-Anglo-Saxon immigration and supported the introduction of social welfare legislation. He was a staunch champion of the British Empire and the Imperial Federation Movement and went on lecture tours to further the cause.

Although he was considered as a candidate for Dominion elections by his party, it declined to invite the author, lecturer, and maverick to stand for election. Nevertheless, he would stump for local candidates at his summer home.

Literary Life

Early in his career, Leacock turned to fiction, humour, and short reports to supplement (and ultimately exceed) his regular income. His stories, first published in magazines in Canada and the United States and later in novel form, became extremely popular around the world. It was said in 1911 that more people had heard of Stephen Leacock than had heard of Canada. Also, between the years 1915 and 1925, Leacock was the most popular humorist in the English-speaking world.

A humorist particularly admired by Leacock was Robert Benchley from New York. Leacock opened correspondence with Benchley, encouraging him in his work and importuning him to compile his work into a book. Benchley did so in 1922, and acknowledged the nagging from north of the border.

Near the end of his life, the American comedian Jack Benny recounted how he had been introduced to Leacock’s writing by Groucho Marx when they were both young vaudeville comedians. Benny acknowledged Leacock’s influence and, fifty years after first reading him, still considered Leacock one of his favorite comic writers. He was puzzled as to why Leacock’s work was no longer well known in the United States.

During the summer months, Leacock lived at Old Brewery Bay, his summer estate in Orillia, across Lake Simcoe from where he was raised and also bordering Lake Couchiching. A working farm, Old Brewery Bay is now a museum and National Historic Site of Canada. Gossip provided by the local barber, Jefferson Short, provided Leacock with the material which would become Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town (1912), set in the thinly-disguised Mariposa.

Although he wrote learned articles and books related to his field of study, his political theory is now all but forgotten. Leacock was awarded the Royal Society of Canada’s Lorne Pierce Medal in 1937, nominally for his academic work.

Source: From the Wikipedia article “Stephen Leacock”.

Image Source: PMA Productions, Extraordinary Canadians. Margaret Macmillan’s Episode on Stephen Leacock.

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Funny Business Harvard

Harvard. On Latino immigration. Carver recalls 1929 invitation to White House.

From the conclusion of John Maynard Keynes’ General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money:

“Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back”

______________________

Presidential candidate Donald J. Trump wants to build a Wall with Mexico.  The Donald has given Economics in the Rear-View Mirror a “teachable moment” in the history of economics. President Herbert Hoover issued an executive order to protect American workers from Latino immigration. Hoover was not a madman, obviously. Cut to 1929…

 

From Harvard Professor Thomas Nixon Carver’s autobiography:

            One day during the spring of 1929, while I was playing golf at the Oakley Country Club, a messenger from the clubhouse told me that there was a long distance call for me from the White House. When I went to the phone, Mr. Williams, one of President Hoover’s secretaries, told me that the President would like to consult me and was inviting me and Mrs. Carver to have dinner with him and Mrs. Hoover, and to spend the night in the White House, on a certain date about a week later. I accepted the invitation and called up Flora to tell her of the invitation. She was pleased and said, “But I’ll have to get a new dress.”

When we arrived in Washington we were met at the train by a White House porter and a secretary who took us to the White House in an official limousine. It was midafternoon, so we had several hours to wait for dinner. We were shown to our rooms where we put in some time writing letters to our friends on White House stationery.

At dinner there were only four persons besides the President and Mrs. Hoover. One was his secretary, Mr. Williams, and the other was a daughter of one of Mrs. Hoover’s friends. After dinner the President, Mr. Williams and I retired to his office where we talked till bedtime.

The tariff question and the labor question were worrying him. He was already feeling some disappointment—even some irritation at the lack of cooperation he was receiving from the members of his own party in the Senate. He had sound ideas on the tariff and the labor question, both of which were in the public mind. The Senate, however, was for increasing rather than decreasing the tariff. Eventually he felt forced to sign a tariff bill as a means of getting the duties stabilized, at least for a time, knowing that nothing is so bad for business as uncertainty.

He saw clearly that the immigration of cheap labor from low standard countries was the chief threat to the American standard of living. A move had been made in the right direction when the quota system of limiting, immigration was adopted, but that system did not apply to immigration from the Western Hemisphere. Immigrants from French Canada, from the West Indies, from the Philippines and from all of Latin America were still free to come and were coming by the tens of thousands. These doors were kept open by the combined influence of those who wanted cheap labor and the sentimentalists who wanted to welcome “the poor and oppressed of all the earth,” together with the inertia of Congress.

Before the end of his administration, President Hoover put through an order, based on an old law, instructing consular agents to refuse visas to any immigrant who might become a public charge, or displace a citizen worker who might then become a public charge. That order did more for the American worker than all the New Deal legislation that followed. It seems not to be very well enforced just now (1948), judging by the reports regarding the immigration of Puerto Ricans, Cubans, and Mexicans.

 

Source: Thomas Nixon Carver. Recollections of an Unplanned Life (Los Angeles: Ward Ritchie Press, 1949), pp. 254-254.

 

 

Categories
Chicago Economists Funny Business M.I.T. Undergraduate

Chicago. Paul Samuelson’s 50th Class Reunion Questionnaire, 1985

For his 50th class reunion Paul A. Samuelson filled out the following one page questionnaire. Besides revealing the youthful musical taste of this Chicago educated Wunderkind, Samuelson’s responses sometimes even illustrate his writing style (e.g. 7 8/9 grandchildren). I was most struck by his declared favorite professor during these formative years. Guess, then read.

____________________________________

CLASS OF 1935 SURVEY

Your former classmates are interested in what you’re doing.

 

Name Paul A. Samuelson                Maiden Name [blank]

Address MIT E52-383

City/State/Zip Code Cambridge, MA 02139

Your past and present occupation and employer Professor of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Anything you wish to mention about your job Overpaid/underworked

Spouse’s name and occupation Risha Samuelson, Painter

No. of children 6       No. of grandchildren 7 8/9            No. of great-grandchildren [blank]

Degrees received and institutions attended AB U of C 1935; AM 1936, Ph.D. Harvard 1941, 2 dozen honorary degrees, including Chicago

Favorite class and professor at the University, and why Henry Simons, Economics! Great economist, great person.

Most rewarding, exciting, or unusual experience as a student Being reborn as a scientist-scholar

Most memorable moments since graduation Nobel Prize, 1970; birth of triplets, 1953; first-born, 1946

Favorite song or band of the ‘30s Wayne King, Hal Kemp, Paul Whiteman

Other affiliations (clubs, professional associations, political parities) [blank]

Have you received any civic, community, or academic honors? Yes

Accomplishments, interests, hobbies that you find especially significant Tennis

Future plans Economic writing

Please share any other information that your classmates may find interest I was given a great education, in the Midway’s golden age

 

Please return this form by April 15, 1985. You may attach an additional sheet if needed. Mail to: Reunion ’85 Network, 5757 S. Woodlawn Avenue, Chicago, IL 60637

[pencil note: Sent 2/22-85]

 

Source: David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University. Paul A. Samuelson Papers, Box 4, Folder “Personal”.

Image Source:  Henry Calvert Simons. University of Chicago Photographic Archive, apf1-07614, Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.