When I hear politicians recite some economic statistic, I emit a barely audible groan a la Kif Kroker. You know damned well that the choice of what to recite came after the conclusion was reached. Then it just takes a little rote memorization skill and barely tangible linkage to the policy argument of your choice.
The problem I have is that I don’t know when I’m doing it, let alone distant voices on the flashing box.
I note this because everyone with a microphone has been droning on about economic statistics. I lose faith and go online, find awesome discussions and then can’t track it because… I’m not an economist and numbers make my head hurt. Maybe we can’t make substantial progress because we just assume that stuff like fiscal policies can be distilled down to bumper sticker wisdom.
Which brings me to this great Daily Show video.
So much furniture
The last part of that bit is priceless. It pulls me away from my normally hypnotic perception of economists: Gosh he looks like he knows a lot…Oooh, I heard about that in high-shool…What was that term?
The lesson seems to be that if you look tweedy enough and have written a book nobody’s read, you should be on a talk show. Jon and company seem to have learned this well. Personally, I think they should interview all their economists this way.
