Sunday, November 22, 2015

Please allow me to introduce myself

Hi folks. This blog has been bereft of representation from one crucial constituency, the UnDead. Of course, undead economists are discussed here all the time, but never has one posted. I've shambled in to remedy that situation. For depressing job-related reasons I'm reduced to publishing under a pseudonym, since otherwise the undead at my place of work would get to gurgling and growling. You could chop off one of their arms and they wouldn't give it a second thought. But publish in a way that might annoy somebody, anybody, living, dead, or undead, oh no! Do I sound bitter? That would be a mistake. I can't be bitter. I'm dead! (In comments, please avoid the subject of my identity, in jest or otherwise. Don't make me take a bite out of your shoulder.)

I've always considered this site the property of its contributors, so if any take umbrage at my arrival, I'll be happy to stagger out. No hard feelings, there can't be after all, because . . . see above.

As Barkley could tell you, while living I was a great economist. Alas, death has sapped my prodigious mathematical faculties. Sadly, eating brains doesn't help, though it does hit the spot. That stuff would be over your heads anyway. I'm mostly verbal now, in a post-mortem kind of way. (Not post-modern. That would be worse than dead.)

I expect to write more about politics, since economics is looking pretty dead these days too. Utility theory got killed by behavioral economics, or maybe Barkley's brainwaves monitors. Monetarism and real business cycles, long dead. New Keynesian macro, deeply infirm, its representative consumer aimlessly roaming the countryside, trying to optimize current and future consumption when he has no idea what the hell the future will bring. Lumps of labor being posited everywhere.

Ditto the current crop of presidential candidates, though I would make an exception for Bernie Sanders, who actually could pass for dead but is really the only live option among the contenders.

With that I will sign off, since we undead take some getting used to, and I'm getting hungry.

4 comments:

rosserjb@jmu.edu said...

Hah!

Sandwichman said...

This sounds like a case for John Quiggin.

Jim Walker, Realtor said...

If you believe that you are a Zombie, and are able to learn and teach useful truths from that undead perch, then the beneficence of your writings shall affirm that you are, in reality, undead. Provided, of course, you came by this belief in your own undeadness via a reliable process.

Myrtle Blackwood said...

Welcome to Econospeak. Yes, economics is "looking pretty dead". It ties my tongue...and limits my knowledge.