Showing posts with label forecast. Show all posts

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"

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Economists Jokes

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

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

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

A man takes a balloon ride at a local country fair. A fierce wind suddenly kicks up, causing the balloon to violently leave the fair and carry its occupant out into the countryside. The man has no idea where he is, so he goes down to five meters above ground and asks a passing wanderer: "Excuse me, sir, can you tell me where I am?"

Eyeing the man in the balloon the passer-by says: "You are in a downed red balloon, five meters above ground."

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

"Then you must be in management", said the passer-by.
"Thats right! How did you know?"
"You have such a good view from where you are, and yet you don't know where you are and you don't know where you are going. The fact is you are in the exact same position you were in before we met, but now your problem is somehow my fault!"

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

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

Continuing along the same puddle they almost step into yet another frog. The accountant says: "Now, if you eat this frog I'll give you $20,000."
After evaluating the proposal the economist eats the frog and gets the money.
They go on. The accountant starts thinking: "Listen, we both have the same amount of money we had before, but we both ate frogs. I don't see us being better off."
The economist: "Well, that's true, but you overlooked the fact that we've been just involved in $40,000 of trade."

An economist returns to visit his old school. He's interested in the current exam questions and asks his old professor to show some. To his surprise they are exactly the same ones to which he had answered 10 years ago! When he asks about this the professor answers: "the questions are always the same - only the answers change!"

An economic forecaster was known to have an horseshoe prominently displayed above the doorframe of his office. Asked what it was for, he replied "it is a good luck charm that helps my forecasts".

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

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

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

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

A few weeks later, the economist came out of his office building and the small boy was again sitting on the curb minus the dog. The man said to him, "I see you took my advise and sold the dog for five dollars."
The boy said, "No, I got fifty thousand dollars for him."
The business man was completely flabbergasted. "How did you ever get fifty thousand dollars for that dog" he asked.
"It was easy," said the boy. "I traded him for two twenty five thousand dollar cats."

There are two types of economists:

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

An economics professor and a student were strolling through the campus.
"Look," the student cried, "there's a $100 bill on the path!"
"No, you are mistaken," the wiser head replied. "That cannot be. If there were actually a $100 bill, someone would have picked it up."

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

Inflation allows you to live in a more expensive neigbourhood without moving.

Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidise it.

Feudalism: You have two cows. Your lord takes some of the milk.
Socialism: You have two cows. State takes one and gives it to someone else.
Communism: You have two cows. State takes both of them and gives you as much milk as you need.
Bureaucratic Communism: You have two cows. State takes both of them and gives you as much milk as the regulations say you should need.
Bureaucracy: You have two cows. State regulates what you can feed them and when you can milk them. Then it pays you not to milk them. After that it takes both cows, shoots one, milks the other and pours the milk down the drain. Then it requires you to fill out forms accounting for the missing cows.
Fascism: You have two cows. State takes both of them and sells you milk.
Nazism: You have two cows. State takes both of them and shoots you.
Liberalism: You have two cows. State doesn't care whether you exist, let alone your cows.
Capitalism: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.

How economists do it...

Economists do it cyclically.
Economists do it on demand.
Economists do it with models.
Economists do it with crystal balls.

Senior management had collected a lot of operations data but did not know what to do with it. They knew they needed a numbers person and decided to interview an accountant, an engineer and an economist. During the interview they assessed their math skills.
First was the accountant.
Interview: What is 1+1?
Accountant: 1+1 = 2.
Interview: Are you sure?
Accountant: Absolutely. 1+1 equals 2 and only 2.
Next the engineer.
Interview: What is 1+1?
Engineer: 1+1 = 2.
Interview: Are you sure?
Engineer: Well, within acceptable tolerance levels yes, 1+1 is 2.
Last the economist.
Interview: What is 1+1?
The economist got up, closed the door, drew the blinds, leaned across the table and replied "What do you want it to equal?"

Engineers Jokes

Three men: a project manager, a software engineer, and a hardware engineer are helping out on a project. About midweek they decide to walk up and down the beach during their lunch hour. Halfway up the beach, they stumbled upon a lamp. As they rub the lamp a genie appears and says "Normally I would grant you three wishes, but since there are three of you, I will grant you each one wish."

The hardware engineer went first. "I would like to spend the rest of my life living in a huge house in St. Thomas with no money worries." The genie granted him his wish and sent him on off to St. Thomas.
The software engineer went next. "I would like to spend the rest of my life living on a huge yacht cruising the Mediterranean with no money worries." The genie granted him his wish and sent him off to the Mediterranean.
Last, but not least, it was the project manager's turn. "And what would your wish be?" asked the genie.
"I want them both back after lunch" replied the project manager.

A mathematician, a physicist, and an engineer were all given a red rubber ball and told to find the volume.
The mathematician carefully measured the diameter and evaluated a triple integral.
The physicist filled a beaker with water, put the ball in the water, and measured the total displacement.
The engineer looked up the model and serial numbers in his red-rubber-ball table.

What's the difference between mechanical engineers and civil engineers?
Mechanical engineers build weapons.
Civil engineers build targets.

The wireless telegraph is not difficult to understand. The ordinary telegraph is like a very long cat. You pull the tail in New York, and it meows in Los Angeles. The wireless is the same, only without the cat.

Albert Einstein

Scientists at NASA have developed a gun built specifically to launch dead chickens at the windshields of airliners, military jets and the space shuttle, all traveling at maximum velocity. The idea is to simulate the frequent incidents of collisions with airborne fowl to test the strength of the windshields.

British engineers heard about the gun and were eager to test it on the windshields of their new high speed trains. Arrangements were made, and when the gun was fired, the engineers stood shocked as the chicken hurtled out of the barrel, crashed into the shatterproof shield, smashed it to smithereens, crashed through the control console, snapped the engineer's backrest in two and embedded itself in the back wall of the cabin.

Horrified Britons sent NASA the disastrous results of the experiment, along with the designs of the windshield, and begged the U.S. scientists for suggestions. NASA's response was just one sentence, "THAW THE CHICKEN!"

An astronaut in space was asked by a reporter, "How do you feel?"
"How would you feel," the astronaut replied, "if you were stuck here, on top of 20,000 parts each one supplied by the lowest bidder?"

During the heat of the space race in the 1960's, NASA decided it needed a ball point pen to write in the zero gravity confines of its space capsules.

After considerable research and development, the Astronaut Pen was developed at a cost of $1 million. The pen worked and also enjoyed some modest success as a novelty item back here on earth.

The Soviet Union, faced with the same problem, used a pencil.

If it wasn't for Thomas Alva Edison, we'd all be watching TV to the light of a candle.

Irrigation of the land with seawater desalinated by fusion power is ancient. It's called rain.

An engineer, a mathematician and an arts graduate were given the task of finding the height of a church steeple (the first to get the correct solution wins a $1000).

The engineer tried to remember things about differential pressures, but resorted to climbing the steeple and lowering a string on a plumb bob until it touched the ground and then climbed down and measured the length of the string.
The Mathematician laid out a reference line, measured the angle to the top of the steeple from both ends and worked out the height by trigonometry.

However, the arts graduate won the prize. He bought the vicar a beer in the local pub and he told him how high the church steeple was.

The great mathematician John Von Neumann was consulted by a group who was building a rocket ship to send into outer space. When he saw the incomplete structure, he asked, "Where did you get the plans for this ship?"
He was told, "We have our own staff of engineers."
He disdainfully replied: "Engineers! Why, I have complete sewn up the whole mathematical theory of rocketry. See my paper of 1952."

Well, the group consulted the 1952 paper, completely scrapped their 10 million dollar structure, and rebuilt the rocket exactly according to Von Neumann's plans. The minute they launched it, the entire structure blew up. They angrily called Von Neumann back and said: "We followed your instructions to the letter. Yet when we started it, it blew up! Why?"
Von Neumann replied, "Ah, yes; that is technically known as the blow-up problem - I treated that in my paper of 1954."

An engineering student is walking along when a fellow student arrives on a new bicycle. Impressed, he asks, "Where did you got this beautiful bicycle?"

"Well," the second engineering student says, "A couple of days ago I was just walking along when this gorgeous blonde pulls up, hops off the bike, rips off all her clothes, and says 'take what you want'."

The other engineering student nods and says "Good choice. The clothes probably wouldn't have fit."

Three freshman engineering students were sitting around talking between classes, when one brought up the question of who designed the human body.

One of the students insisted that the human body must have been designed by an electrical engineer because of the perfection of the nerves and synapses.
Another disagreed, and exclaimed that it had to have been a mechanical engineer who designed the human body. The system of levers and pulleys is ingenious.

"No," the third student said "your both wrong. The human body was designed by an architect. Who else but an architect would have put a toxic waste line through a recreation area?"

The physician can bury his mistakes, but the architect can only advise his clients to plant vines.

Doctors bury their mistakes, architects just plant ivy.

Lawyers hang their blunders, doctors bury theirs, architects plant vines and teachers send theirs into politics.

Top Ten Things Engineering School didn't Teach You

1. There are at least 10 types of capacitors.

2. Theory tells you how a circuit works, not why it does not work.

3. Not everything works according to the specs in the databook.

4. Anything practical you learn will be obsolete before you use it, except the complex math, which you will never use.

5. Engineering is like having an 8 a.m. class and a late afternoon lab every day for the rest of your life.

6. Overtime pay? What overtime pay?

7. Managers, not engineers, rule the world.

8. Always try to fix the hardware with software.

9. If you like junk food, caffeine and all-nighters, go into software.

10. Dilbert is not a comic strip, it's a documentary.

A start-up engineer is someone who solves a problem you didn't know you had, in a way you don't understand.

After Receiving an Invitation to an Inventors' Ball:

Edison thought it would be an illuminating experience.

Watt reckoned it would be a good way to let off steam.

Stephenson thought the whole idea was loco.

Wilbur Wright accepted, provided he and Orville could get a flight.

Morse's reply: "I'll be there on the dot. Can't stop now must dash."

Pick-Up Lines to use on Engineering Chicks

I won't stop bugging you until I get the address of your home page.
Let's convert our potential energy to kinetic energy.
Wanna come back to my room and see my 166mhz Pentium?
How about you and I go back to my place and form a covalent bond?
You're sweeter than glucose.
We're as compatible as two similar Power Macintoshes.
Wanna see the programs in my HP-48GX?
Your body has the nicest arc length I've ever seen.
You're hotter than a bunsen burner set to full power!
My love for you is like a concave up function because it is always increasing.

Real Engineers consider themselves well dressed if their socks match.
Real Engineers buy their spouses a set of matched screwdrivers for their birthday.
Real engineers have a non-technical vocabulary of 800 words.
Real Engineers repair their own cameras, telephones, televisions, watches, and automatic transmissions.
Real Engineers say "It's 70 degrees Fahrenheit, 25 degrees Celsius, and 298 Kelvin" and all you say is "Isn't it a nice day?"
Real Engineers wear badges so they don't forget who they are. Sometimes a note is attached saying "Don't offer me a ride today. I drove my own car".
Real Engineers' politics run towards acquiring a parking space with their name on it and an office with a window.
Real Engineers know the "ABC's of Infrared" from A to B.
Real Engineers know how to take the cover off of their computer, and are not afraid to do it.
Real Engineers' briefcases contain a Phillips screwdriver, a copy of "Quantum Physics", and a half of a peanut butter sandwich.
Real Engineers don't find the above at all funny.

The Dictionary: what engineers say and what they mean by it

Major Technological Breakthrough

Back to the drawing board.

Developed after years of intensive research

It was discovered by accident.

The designs are well within allowable limits

We just made it, stretching a point or two.

Test results were extremely gratifying

It works, and are we surprised!

Customer satisfaction is believed assured

We are so far behind schedule that the customer was happy to get anything at all.

Close project coordination

We should have asked someone else; or, let's spread the responsibility for this.

Project slightly behind original schedule due to unforeseen difficulties

We are working on something else.

The design will be finalized in the next reporting period

We haven't started this job yet, but we've got to say something.

A number of different approaches are being tried

We don't know where we're going, but we're moving.

Extensive effort is being applied on a fresh approach to the problem

We just hired three new guys; we'll let them kick it around for a while.

Preliminary operational tests are inconclusive

The darn thing blew up when we threw the switch.

The entire concept will have to be abandoned

The only guy who understood the thing quit.

Modifications are underway to correct certain minor difficulties

We threw the whole thing out and are starting from scratch.

Essentially complete.

Half done.

We predict...

We hope to God!

Drawing release is lagging.

Not a single drawing exists.

Risk is high, but acceptable.

100 to 1 odds, or with 10 times the budget and 10 times the manpower, we may
have a 50/50 chance.

Serious, but not insurmountable, problems.

It will take a miracle. God should be the program manager.

Not well defined.

Nobody has thought about it.

Requires further analysis and management attention.

Totally out of control.

The project is designed for high availability.

Malfunctions will be blamed on the operators mistakes.

This project has low maintenance requirements.

We wouldn't let the technicians change a light bulb, much less fool around with our baby.

The software is being developed without excessive process overhead.

The documentation will be written in clear and lucid Chinese.

The delivery is scheduled for the last quarter of next year.

This leaves us plenty of time to decide who to blame for it being late.

Engineering Revisited

Any circuit design must contain at least one part which is obsolete, two parts which are unobtainable and three parts which are still under development.
Nothing ever gets built on schedule or within budget.
A failure will not appear till a unit has passed final inspection.
If you can't fix it -- document it.
The primary function of the design engineer is to make things difficult for the fabricator and impossible for the serviceman.

How engineers do it...

Engineers do it with precision.
Electrical engineers are shocked when they do it.
Electrical engineers do it on an impulse.
Electrical engineers do it with large capacities.
Electrical engineers do it with more frequency and less resistance.
Electrical engineers do it with more power and at higher frequency.
Mechanical engineers do it with stress and strain.
Mechanical engineers do it with less energy and greater efficiency.
Chemical Engineers do it in fluidized beds.
City planners do it with their eyes closed.
Petroleum engineers do it with lubrication.
Reservoir engineers do it thoroughly and with lot of simulation.
Drilling engineers do it with smooth penetration aided by lubrication, frequent short wiper tripps, and at the end slug is pumped before they pull out.

You Might Be an Engineer if...

your favorite James Bond character is "Q".
you see a good design and still have to change it.
you still own a slide rule and you know how to use it.
your family haven't the foggiest idea what you do at work.
in college you thought Spring Break was metal fatigue failure.
you have modified your can-opener to be microprocessor driven.
you are better with a Karnaugh map than you are with a street map.
you think the real heroes of "Apollo 13" were the mission controllers.
you take a cruise so you can go on a personal tour of the engine room.
you think "cuddling" is simply an unproductive application of heat exchange
you have owned a calculator with no equal key and know what RPN stands for.
you make four sets of drawings (with seven revisions) before making a bird bath.
you have trouble writing anything unless the paper has horizontal and vertical lines.
your ideal evening consists of fast-forwarding through the latest sci-fi movie looking for technical inaccuracies.

you think the value of a book is directly proportionate to the amount of tables, charts and graphs it contains.

A doctor, lawyer, priest and an engineer are golfing as a foursome on a beautiful Sunday morning. They're approaching a really slow group ahead of them, and they ask the groundskeeper, "what's the deal?" Turns out the group ahead of them are legally blind firefighters who saved an orphanage on Christmas. "Wow, I'll see if there's anything I can do for their quality of living", said the doctor. "I can start a collection", stated the priest. "I'm sure there are benefits and programs for them out there, I'll see what I can do to help," said the lawyer. .... They all turned and looked at the engineer, and he simply replied,"why can't they play at night?".

In an Exam -
Q. - Prove that 2+2=0.
Art student - this question is out of syllabus.
Commerce student - problem is not well defined.
Doctor - research in progress but no result found.
Engineering student - it is so simple...
  2+2=0
  two+two=0
  tw(0+0)=0
  if tw=0
  than 0+0=0
  0=0
ENGINEERS ARE INCREDIBLE !

Question: What is the difference between engineer boots and cowboy boots?
Answer: Cowboy boots have the bull-crap on the outside!

An optomist sees their glass as half full.
A pesssimist sees their glass as half empty.
An engineer sees their glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

Everyone else Jokes

A secretary was leaving the office one Friday evening when she encountered Mr. Jones, the Human Resources manager, standing in front of a shredder with a piece of paper in his hand.

"Listen," said Mr. Jones, "this is important, and my secretary has already left. Can you make this thing work?"
"Certainly," said the secretary. She turned the machine on, inserted the paper, and pressed the start button.

"Excellent, excellent!" said Mr. Jones as his paper disappeared inside the machine. "I just need one copy."

A man was given the job of painting the white lines down the middle of a highway. On his first day he painted six miles; the next day three miles; the following day less than a mile. When the foreman asked the man why he kept painting less each day, he replied "I just can't do any better. Each day I keep getting farther away from the paint can."

Two employees for the gas company were at a house call. The younger man said to the older one, "Geez, you're old!"
"Yeah, that may be so, but I can still outrun you," replied the older employee.
"How about a foot race to see if your'e right," said the younger employee.
With that they start running at full speed around that block. The older man kept up with the younger man around the first corner, the second corner, the third corner. As they come up on the last corner, the younger man sees an elderly woman running as fast as her legs could carry her. Puzzled by this, they both stop ask her why she was running behind them. The old woman caught her breath and said, "Well, you were at my home checking my gas meter, and when I saw you running away, I figured I'd better run too!"

A preacher dies, and when he gets to Heaven, he sees a New York cab driver who has more crowns. He says to an angel, "I don't get it. I devoted my whole life to my congregation."

The angel says, "We reward results. Did your congregation always pay attention when you gave a sermon?"
The preacher says, "Once in a while someone fell asleep."

The angel says, "Right. And when people rode in this guy's taxi, they not only stayed awake, but they usually prayed!"

A man is hired by the circus to perform a necessary but rather unpleasant task. He is asked to walk behind the elephants in the center ring, shoveling aside their droppings as they walk about. After a rather difficult evening at work, he goes to the circus cafeteria, sits with other workers, and begins complaining about his work.

"It's just terrible work, walking behind those huge beasts and first dodging, then shoveling aside the dung they produce. My arms are tired, my shoes and pants are a mess, and I'll have to shower before I return home, because of the stink."
His friends at work agree: "Why don't you just quit this miserable job and find something more rewarding to do. You have to have some skills and talents that you can put to use somewhere else."

He looks at them, stunned: "You know, you're probably right, but I just can't give up the glamour of show business!"

A movie producer is lying by the pool at the Beverly Hilton. His partner arrives in a great state of excitement. "How'd the meeting go?" asks the first guy.

"It went great," says his buddy. "Tarentino will write and direct for six million, Mel Gibson will star for eight, and we can bring in the whole picture for under fifty million."
"Fabulous," says the guy by the pool.
"There's just one catch," his partner warns.
"What's the catch?"

"We have to put up ten thousand in cash".

Stammerer: "I hea..hea... heard tha...that you can hel...hel...help me".
Speech therapist: "Yes, sure. Ease yourself in the chair, look straight in my eyes, and count slowly till ten".
Stammerer: "O...one, t...two, th...th...three, ..... eight, nine, ten. It's wonderful, I don't stammer anymore!"
Speech therapist: "My fee is 300 dollar."
Stammerer: "H...h...how mu...mu...much?!"

Abraham wanted a new suit, so he bought a nice piece of cloth and then tried to locate a tailor. The first tailor he visited looked at the cloth and measured Abraham, then told him the cloth was not enough to make a suit.

Abraham was unhappy with this opinion and sought another tailor. This tailor measured Abraham, then measured the cloth, and then smiled and said, "There is enough cloth to make a pair of trousers, a coat and a vest, please come back in a week to take your suit."

After a week Abraham came to take his new suit, and saw the tailor's son wearing trousers made of the same cloth. Perplexed, he asked, "Just how could you make a full suit for me and trousers for your son, when the other tailor could not make a suit only?"
"It's very simple," replied the tailor, "The other tailor has two sons."

Andy wants a job as a signalman on the railways. He is told to meet the inspector at the signal box. The inspector puts this question to him: "What would you do if you realised that two trains were heading for each other on the same track?"
Andy says, "I would switch the points for one of the trains."
"What if the lever broke?" asked the inspector.
"Then I'd dash down out of the signal box," said Andy, "and I'd use the manual lever over there."
"What if that had been struck by lightning?"
"Then," Andy continues, "I'd run back into the signal box and phone the next signal box."
"What if the phone was engaged?"
"Well in that case," persevered Andy, "I'd rush down out of the box and use the public emergency phone at the level crossing up there."
"What if that was vandalised?"
"Oh well then I'd run into the village and get my uncle Silas."
This puzzles the inspector, so he asks, "Why would you do that?"
Came the answer, "Because he's never seen a train crash."

An archaeologist was digging in the Negev Desert in Israel and came upon a casket containing a mummy. After examining it, he called the curator of a prestigious natural-history museum. "I've just discovered a 3,000 year-old mummy of a man who died of heart failure!" the excited scientist exclaimed.

To which the curator replied, "Bring him in. We'll check it out." A week later, the amazed curator called the archaeologist. "You were right about the mummy's age and cause of death. How in the world did you know?"

"Easy. There was a piece of paper in his hand that said, '10,000 Shekels on Goliath'."

An archaeologist is the best husband a woman can have: the older she gets, the more interested he is in her.

Those three boys are in the schoolyard bragging of how great their fathers are.

The first one says: "Well, my father runs the fastest. He can fire an arrow, and start to run, I tell you, he gets there before the arrow".
The second one says: "Ha! You think that's fast! My father is a hunter. He can shoot his gun and be there before the bullet".

The third one listens to the other two and shakes his head. He then says: "You two know nothing about fast. My father is a civil servant. He stops working at 4:30 and he is home by 3:45"!!

A graduate with a Science degree asks, "Why does it work?"
A graduate with an Engineering degree asks, "How does it work?"
A graduate with an Accounting degree asks, "How much will it cost?"
A graduate with a Law degree asks, "Who gave it a permission to work?"
A graduate with a Liberal Arts degree asks, "Would you like fries with that?"

Psychology is actually biology.

Biology is actually chemistry.

Chemistry is actually physics.

And physics is actually math.

If you understand it and can prove it, then send it to a journal of mathematics.
If you understand it, but can't prove it, then send it to a physics journal.
If you can't understand it, but can prove it, then send it to an economics journal.
If you can neither understand it nor prove it, then send it to a psychology journal.

A Marketing Manager got married to a woman who had previously been married eight times. On his wedding night, his wife informed him that she was still a virgin. This was her explanation:

My first husband was a sales representative who spent our entire marriage telling me, in grandiose terms, "It's gonna be great"!
My second husband was from software services; he was never quite sure how it was supposed to function, but he said he would send me the documentation.
My third husband was an accountant. His comments were that he knew how, but he just wasn't sure whether or not it was his job.
My fourth husband was a teacher, and he simply said, "Those who can...do; those who can't...teach".
My fifth husband was an engineer. He told me that he understood the basic process but needed three years to research, implement, and design a new state-of-the-art method.
My sixth husband was a psychiatrist and all he ever wanted to do was talk about it.
My seventh husband was a help-desk coordinator and he kept teaching me how to do it myself.
My eighth husband was in technical support, and he kept saying, "Don't worry, it'll be up any minute now."

The wife said sweetly to her new husband, "Now I am married to you, a man of marketing". The husband looked at his wife and simply said, "I know I have the product, I'm just not sure how to position it".

A CEO has his business going well, but he's a bit worried. He decides to check the competence of his employees.

The first person he meets is his assistant:
- Oh Miss, I'd like to ask you just a question. How much make 2+2 ?
- Yes Sir. Do you want a detailed memo on that?
- No, just answer the question.
- Well, I think it's 4.
Then he goes to the computer tech:
- Hi John! Just a question. Can you tell me how much make 2+2 ?
John runs Excel, and after five minutes answers:
- It is 4.00 E+0, but I'm not sure, the support staff should come tomorrow. Will I ask them to check it?
Then he goes to the accountant:
- Hello mister, can you tell me how much make 2+2 ?
- Well, well, I know I'm late. I'm sorry. I didn't already collect all the data, neither check all the accounts. But I can estimate it now between 3.196... and... let's say... 5.659. But I'll be able to make a much more accurate estimate within two weeks!
A bit disappointed, he goes to the sales manager:
- Hello Bob, could you tell me how much make 2+2 ?
- So... How much do you think it makes?
- I ask you to answer.
- Mmh... you don't want to tell me your price. You want me to make an offer. - Indeed.
- So, let's say 6! No, excuse me, you're not that kind of man, you know the market. I sell it to you for 5.25, and that's the price I' make for my best friend!
Then he goes to his lawyer:
- Good Morning Mister. Can you tell me how much make 2+2?
- Right now?
- Yes!
- So, at first I would say 2, but I'm convinced that with a good preparation, we can get 3!

And, finally, he goes to the actuary:
- Hello Sir, can you tell me how much make 2+2 ?
- Of course. It is... It is... Mmmmh, well, how much would you like it to make?

Heaven and Hell

In Heaven:
The cooks are French,
The policemen are English,
The mechanics are German,
The lovers are Italian,
The bankers are Swiss.

In Hell:
The cooks are English,
The policemen are German,
The mechanics are French,
The lovers are Swiss,
The bankers are Italian.

Old accountants never die, they just lose their balance.
Old actuaries never die, they just get broken down by age and sex.
Old chemists never die, they just fail to react.
Old chemists never die, they just reach equilibrium.
Old cosmologists never die, they just go to another world.
Old doctors never die, they just loose their patience.
Old dynamicists never die, they just lose their attraction.
Old electricians never die, they just lose contact.
Old geologists never die, they just recrystallize.
Old laser physicists never die, they just become incoherent.
Old lawyers never die, they just threaten their doctor with malpractice.
Old lawyers never die, they just lose their appeal.
Old mathematicians never die, they tend to zero.
Old mathematicians never die, they just lose some of their functions.
Old professors never die, they just lose their faculties.
Old programmers never die, they just gosub without return.
Old programmers never die, they just branch to a new address.
Old publishers never die, they just go out of print.
Old statisticians never die, they just become nonsignificant.
Old thermodynamicists never die, they just achieve their state of maximum entropy.
Old soldiers never die. Young ones do.

You are one of three people on a malfunctioning airplane with only one parachute. How would you react?

Pessimist: you refuse the parachute because you might die on the jump anyway.
Optimist: you refuse the parachute because people have survived crashes just like this before.
Procrastinator: you play a game of Monopoly for the parachute.
Bureaucrat: you order them to conduct a feasibility study on parachute use in multi-engine aircraft under code red conditions.
Computer Scientist: you design a machine capable of operating a parachute as well as a human being could.
Mathematician: you refuse to accept the parachute without proof that it will work in all cases.
Engineer: you make them another parachute out of aisle curtains and dental floss.
Psychoanalyst: you ask them what the shape of a parachute reminds them of.
Doctor: you tell them you need to run more tests, then take the parachute in order to make your next appointment.
Lawyer: you charge one parachute for helping them sue the airline.
Judge: after reminding them of their constitutional right to have a parachute, you take it and jump out.
Economist: your only rational and moral choice is to take the parachute, as the free market will take care of the other person.
Statistician: you plot a demand curve by asking them, at regular intervals, how much they would pay for a parachute.
IRS auditor: you confiscate the parachute along with their luggage, wallet, and gold fillings.
Manager: as you jump out with the parachute, you tell them to work hard and not expect handouts.
Consultant: you tell them not to worry, since it won't take you long to learn how to fix a plane.
Salesperson: you sell them the parachute at top retail rates and get the names of their friends and relatives who might like one too.
Advertiser: you strip-tease while singing that what they need is a neon parachute with computer altimeter for only $39.99.
Philosopher: you ask how they know the parachute actually exists.
Teacher: you give them the parachute and ask them to send you a report on how well it worked.
English major: you explicate simile and metaphor in the parachute instructions.
Comparative Literature major: you read the parachute instructions in all four languages.
Dramatist: you tie them down so they can watch you develop the character of a person stuck on a falling plane without a parachute.
Modern Painter: you hang the parachute on the wall and sign it.
Auto Mechanic: as long as you are looking at the plane engine, it works fine.

An accountant is someone who knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing.

An actuary is someone who brings a fake bomb on a plane, because that decreases the chances that there will be another bomb on the plane.
An archaeologist is a person who's career lies in ruins.
An architect is someone who makes beautiful models, but unaffordable realities.
An auditor is someone who arrives after the battle and bayonets all the wounded.
A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining and wants it back the minute it begins to rain.

Mark Twain

A chemical engineer is a man who is doing for a profit what an organic chemist only does for fun.
A consultant is someone who takes the watch off your wrist and tells you the time.
A diplomat is someone who can tell you to go to hell in such a way that you will look forward to the trip.
An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday didn't happen today.

Laurence J. Peter

An editor is a person employed on a newspaper whose business it is to separate the wheat from the chaff, and to see that the chaff is printed.

Elbert Hubbard

A journalist is someone who spend 50% of its time not saying what he knows and 50% of its time talking about things he doesn't know.
A lawyer is a person who writes a 10,000 word document and calls it a "brief".

Franz Kafka

A mathematician is a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat which isn't there.

Charles R. Darwin

A modern artist is one who throws paint on canvas, wipes it off with a cloth and sells the cloth.
A philosopher is a person who doesn't have a job but at least understands why.
A professor is one who talks in someone else's sleep.
A programmer is someone who solves a problem you didn't know you had in a way you don't understand.
A psychologist is a man whom you pay a lot of money to ask you questions that your wife asks free of charge.
A schoolteacher a is disillusioned woman who used to think she liked children.
A sociologist is someone who, when a beautiful women enters the room and everybody look at her, looks at everybody.
A statistician is someone who is good with numbers but lacks the personality to be an accountant.

A topologist is a man who doesn't know the difference between a coffee cup and a doughnut.

Why did the chicken cross the road?

Pierre de Fermat: I just don't have room here to give the full explanation.
Zeno of Elea: To prove it could never reach the other side.
Albert Einstein: Whether the chicken crossed the road or the road moved beneath the chicken depends on your frame of reference.
Freud: The fact that you are at all concerned that the chicken crossed the road reveals your underlying sexual insecurity.
Bill Gates: I have just released the new Chicken Office 2000, which will not only cross roads, but will lay eggs, file your important documents, and balance your checkbook.
Darwin: Chickens, over great periods of time, have been naturally selected in such a way that they are now genetically disposed to cross roads.
Karl Marx: It was a historical inevitability.
Captain James T. Kirk: To boldly go where no chicken has gone before.
Social Worker: It crossed the road to be able to understand both sides.
An actuary: It looked in the file and that's what it did last year.
A consultant: Deregulation of the chicken's side of the road was threatening its dominant market position. The chicken was faced with significant challenges to create and develop the competencies required for the newly competitive market. Our consulting firm, in a partnering relationship with the client, helped the chicken by rethinking its physical distribution strategy and implementation processes. Using the Poultry Integration Model (PIM), we helped the chicken use its skills, methodologies, knowledge, capital and experiences to align the chicken's people, processes and technology in support of its overall strategy within a Program Management framework. This was conducive towards the creation of a total business integration solution.
Martin Luther King, Jr.: I envision a world where all chickens will be free to cross roads without having their motives called into question.
Moses: And God came down from the Heavens, and He said unto the chicken, "Thou shalt cross the road." And the chicken crossed the road, and there was much rejoicing.
Fox Mulder: You saw it cross the road with your own eyes. How many more chickens have to cross the road before you believe it?
Machiavelli: The point is that the chicken crossed the road. Who cares why? The end of crossing the road justifies whatever motive here was.
Timothy Leary: Because that's the only trip the establishment would let it take.

Colonel Sanders: I missed one?

What do you call a caseworker who just broke up with her boyfriend?
Homeless.

Question: What inventory method does a petstore use ?
FIDO

How do dogs get into town?
On the bark and ride bus!

A railwayman was training to be an actor, but he forgot the lines.

He takes a general view of the building, his client and his client's secretary's view. Also he asks the opinion of his own secretary as well as his his colleagues to find as much as he can about the said building.

He charges the highest interest.

Funny side of the world

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Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Economists Jokes

Engineers Jokes

Everyone else Jokes