As you might be able to tell from my previous scribblings I’m a big fan of comedy, I’m a comedy junkie a comedic whore who will do anything for a laugh and do anything to be given one.
I came across an English comic who impressed me with this 3 minute skit so I’ll look out for him at Adelaide Fringe 2014
Andy Zaltzman ( who bears a striking resemblance to Harpo Marx – but that might be the subject of another post called (tentatively)”Modern Comedians Who Look like Comedians From 80 Years Ago”
So here is what I can remember from the sketch
“Do we have any economics fans in today?
(one voice – YAY!)
Does anyone here today understand economics?
(silence)
Well Congratulations people that is the correct way to live your lives – in ignorance of economics
I don’t really understand it, but I have tried to understand a bit of what’s happened to the global economy over recent years it’s obviously quite important and I think some questions need to be asked. I particular why did the whole economic system collapse like a prim Victorian lady at the sight of a gentleman’s danglers, why did share prices around the world go down faster than a buttered baby down a well-waxed water slide
– (I cannot begin to explain the amount of empirical research that went into that joke, but you know, I thought “I’ve got two kids – I could spare one”
And why did the whole global economic system fall to pieces like a cheap flimsy jigsaw puzzle in a fistfight on an old bus going down a bumpy road during a big earthquake at the Battle Of The Somme?
And if there’s an artificial glut of contrived similes flooding onto the market at the same time during this gig could that cause a catastrophic crash in the comedic value of subsequent similes that takes, potentially, decades to recover from?
The answer to all those questions and what’s happened in the world over recent years is that the whole of global economics is based on bullshit, based on figments and fictions and people essentially gambling on stuff that doesn’t exist.
Capitalism got overexcited in the aftermath of it’s points victory over Communism in the Cold War, which was helped by the fact that Communism spent the entire fight standing in the corner punching itself in the face.
– Oh good, you quite liked the Cold War boxing analogy!
Capitalism got overexcited, waltzed into a casino and put the entire global economy on red whilst announcing to everyone ‘Don’t worry I have got a system’ sadly that didn’t work, and things have now gone more tits-up than Dolly Parton swimming backstroke.– And I think we have answered that question on the diminishing returns on similes
We must start learning lessons from all these mistakes,
In particular from the American mortgage sector that seemed to kick the disaster off that lesson is – that if you lend a lot of money to people who have absolutely no way of paying that money back,conceivably, they might not pay that money back.That is the kind of thing we can only learn by trial and error. I would say it’s very much like slamming your testicles in a car door. Until you actually do it, you do not know for sure whether or not it will actually hurt. You cannot build the global economy on hypothetically painful testicles, as John Maynard Keynes himself once said.
We’ve also learned the dangers of a lack of regulation of financial markets.
– there simply are not enough jokes that start with that as a set-up line, If I have my way by this time next year, ALL jokes will start with that as a set-up line, ” Hey, there’s a danger of unregulated financial markets – That’s what cats think, Dogs? they think deregulation is the way to go – What’s up with that?? (pauses, taps the Mic) You can’t handle the truth!!”
Now, Adam Smith, the celebrity 18th Century Scottish economist, please pay attention people – I have read nearly all of Adam Smith’s Wikipedia entry – He wrote about the Invisible Hand that’s supposed to guide financial markets making sure nothing goes too far wrong, a self-regulating benevolent force, so you don’t need too much state regulation nudging things in the right direction.
This is all very well in theory but there is a problem, and we all have to be honest with ourselves as we answer – if you had an invisible hand, what would you do with it?
Here we see the problem in the system we’ve been relying on – fundamental human-fucking-nature, We would nick stuff, flick invisible V signs at people we don’t like and we would grope things. That is exactly what the financial markets have been doing. At least regulation is some form of glove so you can see what it’s doing to you.
There’s also been too much debt in the world almost all money is borrowed, when you take 10 pounds from your cash point your bank will have borrowed it from another bank who will have borrowed it from a convincing-looking man in a suit, who will have borrowed it off the IMF, who will have borrowed it off a high-interest emergency-loan advert and so on, ’til when you take your 10 pounds from your cash point you’re essentially getting homeopathic money it has barely a trace of the original cash left but some nutcase insists it works exactly the same
I do hope we’ve now disproved this patent bullshitLook what’s happened to the European economy I see the European economy very much in these terms It’s like a man who managed to clamp one of his testicles in a George Foreman Grill then rectified that by spending money that he didn’t have on another George Foreman Grill and clamping it round his other testicle to make it look like he meant it in the first place -and for a bit of artistic symmetry, then he is standing up there with a George Foreman Grill on each testicle saying “HELP, HELP!, someone help – Lend me some money so I can buy a George Foreman Grill for my penis”
I hope I’ve explained that situation for you now
Two things I will add to the transcript
1. SIMILE
Noun A figure of speech involving the comparison of one thing with another thing of a different kind, (e.g., as brave as a lion)
2. THE INVISIBLE HAND
comes from the 1776 “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations” the title is commonly contracted to “The Wealth of Nations”
Every individual necessarily labours to render the annual revenue of the society as great as he can. He generally neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it … He intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for society that it was no part of his intention. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good.
One of these two images is Andy, the other is Harpo Marx
or
