Economist - Cat Fanciers Poem by Sidi Mahtrow
Economist - Cat Fanciers
Once there was a farmer, poor
With wife, a babe and four children more.
One day the farmer chanced to read
The poem about Whittington's cat and deed.
Exclaimed, he; 'Wifemate,
We must send ‘fore it's too late,
Our children to University school
So they will be nobody's fool.
They can be, by tarnation,
As rich as Dick Whittington.'
Every day from dawn til dark
The farmer and his wife did work
In the fields, fed their pigs, milked their cows,
Collected eggs and did other things that God allows.
And finally came the day
They sent their children to college, far away.
The first born because he witnessed the efforts of
their plan,
Became a world-class, economic-historian.
The second born became a popular economic-theorist
Because he saw how was needed direction with a new
twist.
The third born who'd been responsible for counting the
egg money
Became an econometrician, to teach wealth accumulation
in times of plenty.
The forth born seeing the impact of politics
Became a politico-economist; studying all their shady
tricks..
And the fifth, the younger, because he was the wisest,
Became a freakoconomist.
A horrible accident befell the family homestead,
The mother and father by lightening were both stuck
dead.
The children returned from their comfortable city way
To the family farm much to their grief and dismay.
As is usual they need decide the fate
Of cattle, and the rest of the estate.
When the cat was found to be missing in the morn,
They thought perhaps it had fallen into the cistern.
For sure it would to high heavens smell
If not removed from this under-kitchen-floor, well.
They found a piece of old rope and lowered with a
winch
The first born into the dark, dank, but dry cistern
which
For many years, for the family had been
The sole source of water for cooking and washing.
The first born was soon brought back up to light
But he didn't have the cat, or relieve its plight.
He insisted the cat was there; it was theirs alright.
For he knew what it looked like.
After lunch, the brothers lowered the second born
Into the dark space where the cat was, most forlorn.
The others could hear him bumping about with
exclamations
Cursing madly as he went in all directions.
He didn't find the cat in the cistern,
But nevertheless in turn,
When hauled back to the cistern's top,
Described the cat in detail, non-stop.
The third born, the econometrician,
Was then lowered into the cavern.
He sat quietly in the dark, perhaps from force of
habit,
And after a period of time, exclaimed, 'I have it.'
Quickly, from the cistern, they hoisted the expert
with equations
But he was found to be empty-handed like his other
relations.
'Damn.' he exclaimed in light of day,
'I had it but it got away.'
The right thing to do
Was send the forth born into,
The cistern,
For it was his turn.
When the political economist
Reached the bottom of the pit,
He struck a match and in the dim light saw
No cat. Reasoning's fatal flaw.
His brothers would never believe him
And might accuse him of being dim.
So he called up, 'One of you
Must have injured the cat, too.'
'I'll never be able to bring him up.'
So they hauled the brother to the top.
They would have to send the younger sibling
To effect the rescue of the feline.
The fifth brother, rogue economist that he was,
Imagined he could solve the problem, and find the
cause.
Gathered up all sorts of data, much
Equipment, so forth and such.
The brothers lowered him slowly into the cistern
And when out of sight, a light he did turn on.
Alas, he dropped the flash he had thought to bring,
The light went out; there would be no seeing.
In the dark he called up, 'You are wrong
The cat is here. Hasn't been injured all along.
She's made herself quite a nest
For a litter of kittens and is in no distress.
Another way in and out she has found.
Haul me out of this hole in the ground.'
The five economist were quite pleased,
Boarded up the cistern. Threw away the keys,
Sold the farm; returned to the city,
And retired on their legacy.
published an interesting letter to the editor on the
use of mathematical models to describe the world as
imagined by economist. Entitled, 'Who let the Cats
Out? ' by Jeffrey Huston.
'I read with interest Susan Lee's review (Bookshelf,
Dec.7) of John Sutton's recent book 'Marshall's
Tendencies.' As an alternative interpretation of the
usefulness of mathematical models within the
discipline of economics I offer the following
observation shared with me by Jan Kmenta some 22 years
ago. There are three types of economist: economic
historians, economic theorist and econometricians. An
economic historian has the task that is like chasing a
black cat in a dark room. The theorist, on the other
hand, is chasing a black cat in a dark room, but there
is no cat. Lastly, the poor econometrician is chasing
a black cat in a dark room when there is no cat and he
proclaims, 'I have it! '
To which is added a fourth category of economist - a
politico-economist. It makes no difference if the cat
exist or not, it will be painted black or red by the
politico-economist to reflect his or her views of
whether the party in power is advancing the country or
driving it to ruin. The color chosen to paint the cat
will depend upon how the economist registers to vote
and if his/her party is in power. The
politico-economist, of course knows that after dark,
all cats are grey, but it matters not so long as
political capital can be made at the expense of the
other party.
And there is yet a fifth category of economist, newly
minted. Those who practice the art of freakonomics,
for they are called freakoconomist. These individuals
look at the same glass as others, but see it as
neither half full or half empty, instead their glass
has neither a top or bottom. Experts from another
field might point out that what they describe is a
cylinder and it wont hold water. But they are not
dismayed, and offer their own peculiar solutions to
problems. They provide correlations and coefficients
that boggle the mind. Logical it is; of course this
is the answer, forgetting that if they have come up
with an explanation so easily, perhaps there are
others as well. Never mind they will tell you, an
answer to the problem you asked for and an answer you
got. Sure Bernard Mandeville proposed the same sort
of solutions back in 1730 or so, but who reads him
anyway, so as newly minted economist, er,
freakoconomist, they have the press. Steven D. Levitt
of the University of Chicago has used the term,
'freakonomics, ' to describe his solutions to problems.
Frederic Bastiat followers would insist that you must
permit the cat to breed so that you can offer the
offspring to the French and English for culinary
dishes. They will export the hides to a Far East
country to be made into fine gloves, etc., which will
be sold to you and your fellow citizens. The free
trade ensuing will enrich you, the French and English,
and the second tier nation as well; permitting all to
take leisure. But wait you say, 'The cat does not
exist.' No problem, our Government will through the
use of hot-decking(a) provide numerical proof of its
existence based on their knowledge of the kind and
number of pets in your neighbor's house.
Note added in proof. The Supreme Court voted in 2002
that it is permissible for the census bureau to use
hot-decking to estimate the number of peoples who
inhabit properties even when it is not possible to
know if they (the peoples and the property) actually
exist or not. On this basis, North Carolina was
permitted to gain representatives to the United States
House of Representatives while (and at the expense of)
Utah could not increase its representatives (although
it is acknowledged that Utah most surely had a more
accurate head count.)
(a) Devised by Deming (of Total Quality Assurance
fame) . Named after the process which used computer
cards to count responses to various Census question.
Fresh data on piles of cards (decks) , warmed by
processing, was eagerly sought. Where data was
missing, the 'nearest neighbor' data is used to fill
in the blank. The process continues although the use
of cards (decks) is long gone.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
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5/9/2024 3:05:06 AM # 1.0.0.1119
