Funny side of the world: data

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Sunday, July 28, 2013

IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH YOUR COMPUTER, BELOW SOME SUGGESTIONS

Computer Gender

Women claim that computers should be referred to in the masculine gender because:
1. In order to get their attention, you have to turn them on.
2. They have a lot of data, but are still clueless.
3. They are supposed to help you solve problems, but half the time they are the problem.
4. As soon as you commit to one, you realize that, if you had waited a little longer you could have had a better model.
Men concluded that computers should be referred to in the feminine gender because:
1. No one but the Creator understands their internal logic.
2. The native language they use to communicate with other computers is incomprehensible to everyone else.
3. Even your smallest mistakes are stored in long-term memory for retrieval.
4. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself spending half your paycheck on accessories for it.

Celebrity Computer Viruses

Monica Lewinsky virus: Sucks all the memory out of your computer.
Ronald Reagan virus: Saves your data, but forgets where it is stored.
Mike Tyson virus: Quits after one byte.
Oprah Winfrey virus: Your 200MB hard drive suddenly shrinks to 80MB, and then slowly expands to 300MB.
Lorena Bobbit virus: Turns your hard disk into a 3.5 inch floppy.
Dr. Jack Kevorkian virus: Searches your hard drive for old files and deletes them.
Ellen Degeneres virus: Your IBM suddenly claims it's a MAC.
Titanic virus: Makes your whole computer go down.
Disney virus: Everything in the computer goes Goofy.
Prozac virus: Screws up your RAM but your processor doesn't care.
Sharon Stone virus: Makes a huge initial impact, then you forget it's there.
Tim Allen virus: Appears helpful, only to destroy your hard drive upon contact.
HBO virus: Runs the same programs over and over, week after week after week.
Woody Allen virus: Bypasses the motherboard and turns on a daughter card.
NFL Blackout virus: Will only let you run progams on a remote terminal that's more than 75 miles away.
Linda Tripp virus: Makes copies of your personal files and forwards them to the authorities.
Bill Clinton virus: Won't let you query the system for information.
Rush Limbaugh virus: Biases everything to the right.
Ken Starr virus: Expands a focused search of a specific file into a global interregation of every existing file. Creates links between unrelated data. Works extremely slow while searching and compiling results.
Al Gore virus: Runs quietly in background mode but doesn't appear to really do much of anything.
Saddam Hussein virus: Won't let you into any of your programs.
Tonya Harding virus: Turns your .BAT files into lethal weapons.
George Michael virus: Runs its course, occasionally releasing excess data buildup.
Joey Buttafuoco virus: Only attacks minor files.
Jerry Seinfeld virus: Program about nothing that exits when you're really enjoying it.
David Caruso NYPD Blue virus: After running successfully for a while, it exits the program it was in and never works again.
Pee Wee Herman virus: Exposes your confidential files to everyone.
X-files virus: All your Icons start shape shifting.
Spice Girl virus: Has no real function, but makes a pretty desktop.
AT&T virus: Every 3 minutes it tells you what great service you are getting.
Arnold Schwarzenegger virus: Terminates and stays resident. It'll be back.

Computer Diagnosis

One day Bill complained to his friend that his elbow really hurt. His friend suggested that he go to a computer at the drug store that can diagnose anything quicker and cheaper than a doctor.

''Simply put in a sample of your urine and the computer will diagnose your problem and tell you what you can do about it. It only costs $10." Bill figured he had nothing to lose, so he filled a jar with a urine sample and went to the drug store. Finding the computer, he poured in the sample and deposited the $10. The computer started making some noise and various lights started flashing. After a brief pause out popped a small slip of paper on which was printed: "You have tennis elbow. Soak your arm in warm water. Avoid heavy lifting. It will be better in two weeks."
Later that evening while thinking how amazing this new technology was and how it would change medical science forever, he began to wonder if this machine could be fooled. He mixed together some tap water, a stool sample from his dog and urine samples from his wife and daughter. To top it off, he masturbated into the concoction. He went back to the drug store, located the machine, poured in the sample and deposited the $10. The computer again made the usual noise and printed out the following message:
"Your tap water is too hard. Get a water softener. Your dog has worms. Get him vitamins. Your daughter is using cocaine. Put her in a rehabilitation clinic. Your wife is pregnant with twin girls. They aren't yours. Get a lawyer. And if you don't stop jerking off, your tennis elbow will never get better."

From the WordPerfect Help Desk

This is a true story from the WordPerfect helpline. Needless to say, the help desk employee was fired; however, he/she is currently suing the Word Perfect organization for "Termination without Cause."

Actual dialogue of a former WordPerfect Customer Support employee with a caller:

"Ridge Hall computer assistant; may I help you?"
"Yes, well, I'm having trouble with WordPerfect."
"What sort of trouble?"
"Well, I was just typing along, and all of a sudden the words went away."
"Went away?"
"They disappeared."
"Hmm. So what does your screen look like now?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing?"
"It's blank; it won't accept anything when I type."
"Are you still in WordPerfect, or did you get out?"
"How do I tell?"
"Can you see the C: prompt on the screen?"
"What's a sea-prompt?"
"Never mind. Can you move the cursor around on the screen?"
"There isn't any cursor, I told you, it won't accept anything I type."
"Does your monitor have a power indicator?"
"What's a monitor?"
"It's the thing with the screen on it that looks like a TV. Does it have a little light that tells you when it's on?"
"I don't know."
"Well, then look on the back of the monitor and find where the power cord goes into it. Can you see that?"
"Yes, I think so."
"Great. Follow the cord to the plug, and tell me if it's plugged into the wall."
".......Yes, it is."
"When you were behind the monitor, did you notice that there were two cables plugged into the back of it, not just one?"
"No."
"Well, there are. I need you to look back there again and find the other cable."
".......Okay, here it is."
"Follow it for me, and tell me if it's plugged securely into the back of your computer."
"I can't reach."
"Uh huh. Well, can you see if it is?"
"No."
"Even if you maybe put your knee on something and lean way over?"
"Oh, it's not because I don't have the right angle - it's because it's dark."
"Dark?"
"Yes - the office light is off, and the only light I have is coming in from the window."
"Well, turn on the office light then."
"I can't."
"No? Why not?"
"Because there's a power outage."
"A power... A power outage? Ah, Okay, we've got it licked now. Do you still have the boxes and manuals and packing stuff your computer came in?"
"Well, yes, I keep them in the closet."
"Good. Go get them, and unplug your system and pack it up just like it was when you got it. Then take it back to the store you bought it from."
"Really? Is it that bad?"
"Yes, I'm afraid it is."
"Well, all right then, I suppose. What do I tell them?"
"Tell them you're too stupid to own a computer."

Girlfriend 1.0 -> Wife 1.0

MEMORANDUM RE: Computer Software Warning
Last year a friend of mine upgraded GirlFriend 1.0 to Wife 1.0 and found that it's a memory hog leaving very little system resources for other applications. He is only now noticing that Wife 1.0 also is spawning Child-Processes which are further consuming valuable resources. No mention of this particular phenomena was included in the productbrochure or the documentation, though other users have informed him that this is to be expected due to the nature of the application. Not only that, Wife 1.0 installs itself such that it is always launched at system initialization where it can monitor all other system activity. He's finding that some applications such as PokerNight 8.3, BeerBash 2.5, and PubNight 7.0 are no longer able to run in the system at all, crashing the system when selected (even though they always worked fine before). At installation, Wife 1.0 provides no option as to the installation of undesired Plug-Ins such as MotherInLaw 55.8 and BrotherInLaw Beta release. Also, system performance seems to diminish with each passing day.
Some features he'd like to see in the upcoming Wife 2.0. - A 'Don't remind me again' button - Minimize button - An install shield feature that allows Wife 2.0 to be installed with the option to uninstall at anytime without the loss of cache and other system resources. - An option to run the network driver in promiscuous mode which would allow the systems hardware probe feature to be much more useful.
I myself decided to avoid all of the headaches associated with Wife 1.0 by sticking with GirlFriend 2.0. Even here, however, I found many problems. Apparently you cannot install GirlFriend 2.0 on top of GirlFriend 1.0. You must uninstall GirlFriend 1.0 first. Other users say this is a long standing bug which I should have been aware of. Apparently the versions of GirlFriend have conflicts over shared use of the I/O port. You think they would have fixed such a stupid bug by now. To make matters worse, The uninstall program for GirlFriend 1.0 doesn't work very well leaving undesirable traces of the application in the system. Another thing that sucks - all versions of GirlFriend continually pop up little annoying messages about the advantages of upgrading to Wife 1.0
***** BUG WARNING ******** Wife 1.0 has an undocumented bug. If you try to install Mistress 1.1 before uninstalling Wife 1.0, Wife 1.0 will delete MSMoney files before doing the uninstall itself. Then Mistress 1.1 will refuse to install, claiming insufficient resources.
*** BUG WORK-AROUNDS *************** To avoid the above bug, try installing Mistress 1.1 on a different system and never run any file transfer applications such as LapLink 6.0. Also, beware of similar shareware applications that have beenknown to carry viruses that may affect Wife 1.0. Another solution would be to run Mistress 1.0 via a UseNet provider under an anonymous name. Here again, beware of the viruses which can accidentally be downloaded from the UseNet.

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

We stay by funny economy today

Bill and Boris are taking a break from a long summit, Boris says to Bill, -Bill, you know, I have a big problem I don't know what to do about. I have a hundred bodyguards and one of them is a traitor. I don't know which one. -Not a big deal Boris, I'm stuck with a hundred economists I have to listen to all the time before any policy decision, and only one tells the truth but it's never the same one.

Two government economists were returning home from a field meeting. As with all government travelers, they were assigned the cheapest seats on the plane so they each were occupying the center seat on opposite sides of the aisle. They continued their discussion of the knotty problem that had been the subject of their meeting through takeoff and meal service until finally one of the passengers in an aisle seat offered to trade places so they could talk and he could sleep. After switching seats, one economist remarked to the other that it was the first time an economic discussion ever kept anyone awake.

Robert J. BARRO in his 1989 paper in the Journal of Economic Perspectives:
"A colleague of mine argues that a 'normative' model should be defined as a model that fits the data badly."

Found in a paper of Anatol RAPOPORT (Scientific American, July 1967) who tells the following joke which he found in 'The Complete Strategist' by J. D. Williams:
"Two policemen are considering the problem of catching the bandit. One of them starts to calculate the optimal mixed strategy for the chase. The other policeman protests.
'While we're doodling,' he points out, 'he is making his getaway.'
'Relax,' says the game-theorist policeman. 'He's got to figure it out too, don't he?'"

During the waning days of communism in the Soviet Union, an inspector was encharged with visiting local poultry farmers and inquiring about the amount of feed they were giving their chickens. Central planning was still in effect and each farmer was allocated 15 Roubles to spend on chicken feed.

One farmer very honestly answered that he spent five of the allocated 15 Roubles on chicken feed. The inspector took this to mean that the thieving farmer pocketed the other ten and promptly had him imprisoned.
Hearing of this through the rumour mill, the next farmer down the road insisted that he spent all 15 Roubles on food for the chickens. The inspector saw this as a case of budget-padding and the farmer as a wasteful opportunist. He too was imprisoned.
The third farmer heard of both episodes and was more prepared for the inspector's arrival.
"How many of the 15 Roubles do you actually spend on chicken feed," asked the inspector.
Like a true nascent capitalist, the farmer threw his hands in the air and answered, "hey! I give 15 Roubles to the chickens. They can eat whatever they want!"

Experienced economist and not so experienced economist are walking down the road. They get across shit lying on the asphalt.

Experienced economist: "If you eat it I'll give you $20,000!"
Not so experienced economist runs his optimization problem and figures out he's better off eating it so he does and collects money.
Continuing along the same road they almost step into yet another shit.
Not so experienced economist: "Now, if YOU eat this shit I'll give YOU $20,000."
After evaluating the proposal experienced economist eats shit getting the money.
They go on. Not so experienced economist starts thinking: "Listen, we both have the same amount of money we had before, but we both ate shit. I don't see us being better off."
Experienced economist: "Well, that's true, but you overlooked the fact that we've been just involved in $40,000 of trade."

What's the difference between economists and businessmen: the first don't keep their feet on the ground; the latest use to keep their four feet in the ground

An economist is someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

Following story is to demonstrate some possible implications of the above statement. Two stangers, a man and a woman, meet in a cafe, the man asks.
"My Dear, would you go to bed with me for a million dollars?"
"Well, yes, I guess I would."
"How about $100?"
"What kind of person do you think I am?"
"My Dear, we have already established that. We are merely haggling over the price!"

According to Ross Emmet, the story was told by George Bernard Shaw. The man and woman are Winston Churchill and Lady Astor and the incident allegedly did occur.

Economists are people who are too smart for their own good and not smart enough for anyone else's.

From Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary:

Tariff -- A scale of taxes on imports, designed to protect the domestic producer against the greed of his consumer.
Economy -- Purchasing the barrel of whiskey that you do not need for the price of the cow that you cannot afford.

A woman hears from her doctor that she has only half a year to live. The doctor advises her to marry an economist and to live in South Dakota. The woman asks: will this cure my illness? Answer of the doctor: No, but the half year will seem pretty long.

A boy was crossing a road one day when a frog called out to him and said, "If you kiss me, I'll turn into a beautiful princess." He bent over, picked up the frog and put it in his pocket. The frog spoke up again and said, "If you kiss me and turn me back into a beautiful princess, I will stay with you for one week." The boy took the frog out of his pocket, smiled at it, and returned it to his pocket. The frog then cried out, "If you kiss me and turn me back into a princess, I'll stay with you and do ANYTHING you want." Again the boy took the frog out, smiled at it and put it back into his pocket. Finally, the frog asked, "What is the matter? I've told you I'm a beautiful princess, that I'll stay with you for a week and do anything you want. Why won't you kiss me?" The boy said, "Look, I'm an economist. I don't have time for a girlfriend, but a talking frog is cool."

Q:Why did God create economists ?

A:In order to make weather forecasters look good.

Q: Why did the economist cross the road?

A: It was the chicken's day off.

Q. What does an economist do?

A. A lot in the short run, which amounts to nothing in the long run.

Two economists meet on the street. One inquires, "How's your wife?" The other responds, "Relative to what?"

To an economist, real life is a special case.

Allow me to tell one joke in Finnish... its difficult to translate without loosing the funny point...

K: Miten ekonomi ja ekonomisti eroavat toisistaan?
V: Samalla tavoin kuin alkoholi ja alkoholisti!
...and one joke in German as requested...
Zwei Geraden treffen sich in der Unendlichkeit. Sagt die eine: "Aus dem Weg, sonst leit' ich dich ab!" Antwortet die andere: "Aetsch! Ich bin eine e-Funktion."

I asked an economist for her phone number....and she gave me an estimate.

One more lightbulb joke:

Q: How many economists does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: Eight. One to screw it in and seven to hold everything else constant.

Conversation between two Dinosaurs:

Dinosaur #1: "How many economists does it take to screw in a light bulb?"
Dinosaur #2: "What is an economist?"
Dinosaur #1: "A flunkie mathematician who tries to predict the population of kangaroos in Australia. But that's not important and don't ask what a Kangaroo is."
Dinosaur #2: "I don't know, how many?"
Dinosaur #1: "10 economists and one grad student. One economist to make a model, one to run the regression, one to test the hypothesis, one to interpret the results, one to conclude how to screw it on, one grad student to screw it on, and five economists trying to fight off the dinosaurs trying to eat them.

Economists have forecasted 9 out of the last 5 recessions.

An econometrician and an astrologer are arguing about their subjects. The astrologer says, "Astrology is more scientific. My predictions come out right half the time. Yours can't even reach that proportion". The econometrician replies, "That's because of external shocks. Stars don't have those".

SOCIALISM: You have two cows. State takes one and give it to someone else.
COMMUNISM: You have two cows. State takes both of them and gives you milk.
FASCISM: You have two cows. State takes both of them and sell you milk.
NAZISM: You have two cows. State takes both of them and shoot you.
BUREAUCRACY: You have two cows. State takes both of them, kill one and spill the milk in system of sewage.
CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.

Alternative: A COWSMIC VIEW OF WORLD ORGANIZATION

FEUDALISM: You have two cows. Your lord takes some of the milk.
PURE SOCIALISM: You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn with everyone else's cows. You have to take care of all the cows. The government gives you as much milk as you need.
BUREAUCRATIC SOCIALISM: You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn with everyone else's cows. They are cared for by ex-chicken farmers. You have to take care of the chickens the government took from the chicken farmers. The government gives you as much milk and as many eggs as the regulations say you should need.
FASCISM: You have two cows. The government takes both, hires you to take care of them, and sells you the milk.
PURE COMMUNISM: You have two cows. Your neighbors help you take care of them, and you all share the milk.
RUSSIAN COMMUNISM: You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the government takes all the milk.
DICTATORSHIP: You have two cows. The government takes both and shoots you.
SINGAPORE DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. The government fines you for keeping two unlicensed animals in an apartment.
MILITARIANISM: You have two cows. The government takes both and drafts you.
PURE DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. Your neighbors decide who gets the milk.
REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. Your neighbors pick someone to tell you who gets the milk.
AMERICAN DEMOCRACY: The government promises to give you two cows if you vote for it. After the election, the president is impeached for speculating in cow futures. The press dubs the affair "Cowgate".
BRITISH DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. You feed them sheep's brains and they go mad. The government doesn't do anything.
BUREAUCRACY: You have two cows. At first the government 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, 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.
ANARCHY: You have two cows. Either you sell the milk at a fair price or your neighbors kill you and take the cows.
CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.
HONG KONG CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax deduction for keeping five cows. The milk rights of six cows are transferred via a Panamanian intermediary to a Cayman Islands company secretly owned by the majority shareholder, who sells the rights to all seven cows' milk back to the listed company. The annual report says that the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more. Meanwhile, you kill the two cows because the Feng Shui is bad.
ENVIRONMENTALISM: You have two cows. The government bans you from milking or killing them.
FEMINISM: You have two cows. They get married and adopt a veal calf.
TOTALITARIANISM: You have two cows. The government takes them and denies they ever existed. Milk is banned.
POLITICAL CORRECTNESS: You are associated with (the concept of "ownership"is a symbol of the phallo-centric, war-mongering, intolerant past) two differently-aged (but no less valuable to society) bovines of non-specified gender.
COUNTER CULTURE: Wow, dude, there's like... these two cows, man. You got to have some of this milk. Far out! Awesome!
SURREALISM: You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.
JAPANESE DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. You give the milk to gangsters so they don't ask any awkward questions about who you're giving the milk to.
EUROPEAN FEDERALISM: You have two cows which cost too much money to care for because everybody is buying milk imported from some cheap east-European country and would never pay the fortune you'd have to ask for your cows' milk. So you apply for financial aid from the European Union to subsidise your cows and are granted enough subsidies. You then sell your milk at the former elevated price to some government-owned distributor which then dumps your milk onto the market at east-European prices to make Europe competitive. You spend the money you got as a subsidy on two new cows and then go on a demonstration to Brussels complaining that the European farm-policy is going drive you out of your job.
EASTERN EUROPEAN DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. You sell the milk (diluted with some water) at a high price to the neighbors or to anyone at the open-air market. If somebody asks for receipt, you charge for a two times higher price, so nobody will request an invoice. For concerned families with small babies you claim that the milk is "bio", though you collect the grass for feeding at the side of the highway and you keep the milk in plastic barrels used previously as containers of dangerous chemicals. Later, your neighbor or anybody from town will steal the cows and will buy their meat for a high price, and if you ask for a receipt, you will be charged for a two times higher price.
FINNISH SOCIALISM: You have two cows. Soon you have to kill one of them because in the Netherlands there is an overproduction of milk and the European Union rules say so. When you do so, you realize that it was not necessary, only the system was too slow in getting you the up-to-date news. From the stress, you get an ulcer in your stomach so you go to a doctor. The doctor realizes that this ulcer is a serious one, so you need an urgent treatment. Therefore, you soon get a call to the local hospital. The call's date is for 3 months later, because there is a queue with more urgent cases. Then your ulcer becomes even more serious because you remember that 40 percent of your income is taken for social tax.

Q: What do you call a little girl in a brown dress who is running across a playground?
A: A brownian motion.

David Gunn (Scotland): "Eighty percent of rules of thumb only apply 20 percent of the time"

This one I attribute to Richard Thaler, now at the Univ of Chicago.

When an economist says the evidence is "mixed," he or she means that theory says one thing and data says the opposite.

From Peter Kennedy's "A Guide to Econometrics" (MIT Press, 1992):

(P. 7) [Econometrics is...] the art of drawing a crooked line from an unproved assumption to a foregone conclusion."

True story: One day in microeconomics, the professor was writing up the typical "underlying assumptions" in preparation to explain a new model. I turned to my friend and asked, "What would Economics be without assumptions?" He thought for a moment, then replied, "Accounting."

Q: Why has astrology been invented? A: So that economy could be an accurate science.

This is a true story:

Back in the mid-1970s, I attended an ASSA/AEA convention in Dallas. During the third day of the convention, one of the bellhops at the convention hotel asked me who the people attending the convention were and what we did for a living.
"We're economists," I replied. "Why do you ask?"
"I don't know..... no women, no drugs, just booze, booze, booze."
John Palmer

An old joke applied to economists.
One night a policeman saw a macroeconomist looking for something buy a lightpole. He asked him is had had lost something there. The economist said, "I lost my keyes over in the alley." The policeman asked him why he was looking by the lightpole. The economist responded, "it's a lot easier to look over here."

This tale is said to be told by John Kenneth Galbraith on himself. As a boy he lived on a farm in Canada. On the adjoining farm, lived a girl he was fond of. One day as they sat together on the top rail of the cattle pen they watced a bull servicing a cow. Galbraith turned to the girl, with what he hoped was a suggestive look, saying, "That looks like it would be fun." She replied, "Well....she's your cow."

An economist is someone who gets rich explaining others why they are poor.

Not a joke as such, but (a true story, apparently, as told by a Finance lecturer at LSE):

An economist was about to give a presentation in Washington, DC on the problems with Black-Scholes model of option pricing and was expecting no more than a dozen of government officials attending (who would bother?). To his amazement, when he arrived, the room was packed with edgy, tough-looking guys in shades. Still, after five or so minutes into the presentation all of them stood up and left without a word. The economist found out only later
that his secretary ran the presentation through a spell-checker and what was "The Problem with Black-Scholes" became "The Problem with Black Schools", a rather more fascinating subject.

The last severe depression and banking crisis could not have been achieved by normal civil servants and politicians, it required economists involvement.

"I'd rather be vaguely right than precisely wrong."

- J.M.Keynes; Found in Forbes magazine 01/25/1999 issue. In the Numbers Game column by Bernard Cohen

A joke from the October 1992 Reader's Digest, the Best Medicine section:

"I'm thinking of leaving my husband," complained the economist's wife.
"All he ever does is stand at the end of the bed and tell me how good things are going to be."

Q: Why do social workers refuse to sleep with economists?
A: They have learned its a sunk cost.

Q: Why do Economists provide estimates of inflation to the nearest tenth of a percent?
A: To prove they have a sense of humour.

"Economic statistics are like a bikini, what they reveal is important, what they conceal is vital"
- Attributed to Professor Sir Frank Holmes, Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand, 1967.

"An economist is a person who confronted with a eight foot high wall, immediately assumes he is ten feet tall."
- Attributed to John Zanetti, Senior Lecturer, Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand 1971.

Contagion: A strory demostrating the possible outcomes from interlinkages in the financial markets.

Back during the Solidarity days, I heard that the following joke was being told in Poland:
A man goes into the Bank of Gdansk to make a deposit. Since he has never kept money in a bank before, he is a little nervous.
"What happens if the Bank of Gdansk should fail?" he asks.
"Well, in that case your money would be insured by the Bank of Warsaw."
"But, what if the Bank of Warsaw fails?"
"Well, there'd be no problem, because the Bank of Warsaw is insured by the National Bank of Poland."
"And if the National Bank of Poland fails?"
"Then your money would be insured by the Bank of Moscow."
"And what if the Bank of Moscow fails?"
"Then your money would be insured by the Great Bank of the Soviet Union."
"And if that bank fails?"
"Well, in that case, you'd lose all your money. But, wouldn't it be worth it?"

Seven habits that help produce the anything-but-efficient markets that rule the world by Paul Krugman in Fortune.

1. Think short term.
2. Be greedy.
3. Believe in the greater fool
4. Run with the herd.
5. Overgeneralize
6. Be trendy
7. Play with other people's money

Phelson's Law (or so I was told)
Copying an idea from an author is plagiarism. Copying many ideas from many authors is... research !!

These deep thoughts of colleague economists were originally collected by Hiroyuki Kawakatsu

How to do research
Keep the ass to the chair.
-James Buchanan
Everything has been thought before, but the problem is to think of it again.
-Goethe
Concepts without perceptions are empty; perceptions without concepts are blind.
-Kant
Mathematics has no symbols for confused ideas.
-George Stigler
All models are wrong but some are useful.
-George Box
Far better an approximate answer to the right question, which is often vague, than an exact answer to the wrong question, which can always be made precise.
-J. Tukey
The paradox is now fully established that the utmost abstractions are the true weapons with which to control our thought of concrete fact.
-A. Whitehead
In the long-run, there's just another short-run.
-Abba Lerner
Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.
-Kierkegaard
Someone once said about partisan analysts that they use economic data the way a drunkard uses a lamppost: for support rather than illumination. Or as Disraeli put it, there are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics.
-Paul Krugman
Theories are testable where they are least needed, and are not testable where they are most needed.
-Charles Manski
If you torture the data long enough, Nature will confess.
-Ronald Coase
There are two things you are better off not watching in the making: sausages and econometric estimates.
-Edward Leamer
Doing econometrics is like trying to learn the laws of electricity by playing the radio.
-Guy Orcutt
Any observed statistical regularity will tend to collapse once pressure is placed upon it for control purposes.
-Charles Goodhart
Time series regression studies give no sign of converging toward the truth.
-Phillip Cagan
Any time series regression containing more than four independent variables results in garbage
-Zvi Griliches
Forecasting is like trying to drive a car blindfolded and following directions given by a person who is looking out of the back window
-Anonymous
Given the choice between Bob Solow and an econometric model to make forecasts, I'd choose Bob Solow; but I'd rather have Bob Solow with an econometric model, than Bob Solow without one
-Paul Samuelson
Keep in mind the three most important aspects of real data analysis: compromise, compromise, and compromise.
-Edward Leamer
The four golden rules of econometrics:
1.Think brilliantly,
2.Be infinitely creative,
3.Be outstandingly lucky,
4.Otherwise, stick to being a theorist
-David Hendry
A good empirical study requires three components:
1.A concise and sensible theoretical framework that is related to the questions to be asked,
2.Reasonably good data, and
3.An experiment or an event or a set of circumstances that give the data a chance to answer the questions asked. In short, the model needs to be identifiable from the data at hand.
-Zvi Griliches

Two students of economics at lunch:
Student 1" 'Do you know what are the two most important degrees in economics?"
Student 2:"The MSc and the PhD?" Student 1:"No, the zeroth and the first!"

In explaining why she felt our relationship had problems, a former girlfriend (an English teacher) told me that the problem was that I was so ... so ... reasonable. (David Colander)

+With simultaneous low inflation and low unemployment in the US persisting for some time, certain policy-makers at the Fed are beginning to think NAIRU stands for Nothing About Inflation (is) Related (to) Unemployment.
- Chris Varvares (September 2000)

+A true story:
A game theorist was talking to a group of psychologists at a conference. The conversation turned to children. He said that he does not intend his children to get any money from him now that they are grown. "In fact, if I have so much as a penny to my name on the day I die, it will only be because I miscalculated my utility."

+In the Soviet Union, Stalin asked the Minister of Finance to give him an advice as to the establishment of the ruble convertibility. The minister produced a thick document, arguing in favor of establishment the rate 1 dollar = 14 rubles. Stalin looked at it and did not like that ruble is so undervalued. He took his red pencil and eliminated "1". The exchange rate was established at 1 dollar = 4 rubles.

An economics journal article should be like a woman's skirt: short enough to be provocative; long enough to have something substantial underneath.
- Gerard Debreu (?)

+ A student was sitting in an econometric class taught by Prof White. The lecture was too difficult that few students understood it.
"What is the lecture all about?" A student asked his friend who was sitting right next to him.
"I don't quite understand it either. All I get is, it's just some noise...specifically, white noise. He said we can expect it to be nothing on average."

+ When doctors make mistakes, at least they kill their patients. When economists make mistakes, they merely ruin them.

An economist is someone who has had a human being described to him, but has never actually seen one.

There are three sorts of economist. Those who can count, and those who can't.

Grow your own dope -- plant an economist.

Economic forecasters assume everything, except responsibility.

Economics is to be found in the library -- beyond fiction.

You know the difference between a dead economist and a dead cat. There are usually skid marks in front of the dead cat.

I begin with the assumption that economists have their uses. I know many of you will disagree with this, but as economists themselves say, 'we can relax the assumption later'.

Several academics are asked whether all odd numbers are prime:p> Mathematician: let's see...3 is prime, 5 is prime, and the result follows by induction.
Physicist: let's see...3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is -- experimental error, 11 is prime, 13 is prime, ...
Engineer: let's see...3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is prime, 11 is prime...
Computer Scientist: let's see...3 is prime, 3 is prime, 3 is prime...
Economist: let's see...2 is prime, 4 is prime, 6 is prime...
(the joke has apparently very little to do with economics, but if it makes you laugh...)

An econometrician E.M. left his office after a long day of doing estimations. When arriving at the parking lots, he could not find his car because he could not remember the exact place where he left it. After pondering a while, he stopped at an empty lot and started cursing, "they stole my car, those bloody bandits". He called in the police who started taking notes after arrival. A friend from the history department passed along. After listening to what had happened he said, "hey, your car is 25 meters over there, didn't you realize?" The econometrician said, "Can't be, this is the mean value of the distribution of my past choices of lots".

"I once read about a meeting of economists who agreed that if their forecasts were 33 1/3 % correct, that was considered a high mark in their profession. Well, of course, I know you cannot invest in securities successfully with odds like that against you if you place dependence solely upon judgement as to the right securities to own and the right time or price to buy them. Then, too, I read somewhere about the man who described an economist as resembling 'a professor of anatomy who was still a virgin.'"
-Gerald M Loeb (1935, 1965 ed.) "The Battle for Investment Survival"

Economics-everything we know in a language we don't understand.

A voice from history.

"Not all Germans believe in God but they believe in the Bundesbank"
Jacques Delors former president of European Commission
in FT December 15,1998

A real story

One day, the professor who taught Money and Banking in Buenos Aires told us: "I do not know if you will find a job as economists, but am sure you will know why you are going to be poor"

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