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Business/Finance See other Business/Finance Articles Title: Peter Coyne, thinking over a recent event in Baltimore... Peter Coyne, thinking over a recent event in Baltimore... Around the corner from our HQ in Baltimore, there's a BBQ joint that used to be known as the Midtown Yacht Club. It's a peanut-shells-on-the-floor kind of place… nowhere near the water. Earlier this week, we went to grab some ribs. They specialize in spicy sauces. We like the red, mild. But on the menu you can choose from a dozen or so. Surprisingly, after we walked in, we discovered at the bar a dozen or so economists. "How many people does it take to change a light bulb?" one asked. "Uh, oh," we thought... One gentleman, a smart-ass sports economist for the Orioles, answered first "Change? Relative to what?" The economist to his left --balding and taking a break from an op ed he was penning to the Baltimore Sun said no, no "it takes two people… one to assume there's a ladder, and another to climb up and change the bulb!" Heh. No one laughed… but he'd started something. A Chicago school economist -- one we knew from our days at Loyola a few blocks away mumbled in between peanuts: "You don't need any people. If the light bulb needed changing, the market would've done it already." "The Fed probably kept rates too low for too long, screw the light-bulb!" said another off topic. We presumed he was an Austrian. An all-too-serious man who looked of Indian descent glared and replied "How many workers to make that change? That depends on the wage-rate!" Hmmmn… Just then, two college-kids sipping their beer in the corner whispered their two cents: "The dark will incentivize the bulb to change itself." "No…" replied the other one, "the bulb contains the seeds of its own revolution. Change is inevitable." We got the sense they'd had this argument before. "Uhh… does it really matter how many people it takes?" joined in the bartender, sensing he was about to lose his only customers. "The market's probably already discounted the change. Drink up!" "On second thought," the Indian fellow again, drowning everyone out, "it will take anyone and everyone to change that light bulb! It's a recession after all! Let's get organized, we can create new jobs, break a few bulbs along the way… increase consumption and...the best part, my friends... shift aggregate demand up and to the right!" Out of nowhere he produced a pamphlet with a government seal on the cover, opened it and pointed to a chart with the title Aggregate Demand on the top. Whoa. Good thing we'd ordered our ribs to go, we thought. "Isn't this fun?" asked a slightly more affluent man in a Fedora sitting in the back of the room. "If you asked all these economists… and a few investors, too …to come to a consensus, they'd tell you it only takes seven people… plus or minus ten. Bet against the whole damn team!" Indeed. We left the bar. The ribs tasted good. And we got back to work. Poster Comment: Back to work. ;) Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread
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