Frazz by Jef Mallett for September 30, 2020

Scam artists work in economics.

Some presidents make an art of economics when they file their tax return (that had to be said)

Look, Frazz and Caulfield, your days are numbered ; why not just leave it at that? To coin a phrase, there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and economics.

What is on Frazz’s shirt ?

I hate the phrase “work smarter not harder”. It is too often said by people who have no idea how to do the work in question.

I still don’t see where this is going.

Actually, sometimes you’re working perfectly smart, and you just have to work harder.

Lean and mean.

I think these cliches were invented to justify understaffing by people who aren’t the ones actually doing the work.

If you laid a thousand economists end to end, they would point in all directions.

sounds like Oblique Strategies developed by ENO

yeah, the art of obfuscation

Statistics, not economics. Mark Twain.

I had a math professor who advised us to do our best to solve a problem, but if it still eluded us after extended effort, wait a day (after a night of sleep) and try again. It felt like magic when I returned to a problem like that—I solved them immediately when trying again at least 90% of the time.

It works for all sorts of problems.

One of the most annoying things for Economists (and Statisticians – which is I can lay some claim to) is having people distort the work we actually have done to say something we didn’t say – and then blame us for lies, damn lies and …

economics like vegas is always tilted to the house (rich).

I know Art. He’s neither an economist nor an artist. He’s a lawyer.

Jef Mallett’s Blog Posts

Frazz16 hrs · It’s been a long time since I’ve seen an episode of M*A*S*H. In fact, the last full episode I watched may well have been the final episode (which I watched on my 21st birthday; my first legal drink could wait). M*A*S*H was, much to the surprise of no one, a great series. But one line from one episode stands out in particular, at least for me. I think it was in one of their fake-documentary episodes, or maybe the hook was that it was from Dr. Sidney Freedman’s diary. I don’t know. I remember the impact better than the details. At any rate, Dr. Sidney Freedman, psychiatrist, makes the observation that “anger turned outward is hate; anger turned inward is depression; anger turned sideways, that’s Hawkeye.” That hit me hard and stuck with me. It’s probably why I try to be funny for a living. It’s certainly how I try to be funny for a living. Well, most of the time. (Farts don’t make me angry, but they sure make me laugh.) Maybe just some of the time. But those are the important times.