The Dudes Abide

It is very easy to recognize economists when the budget season nears. They go about looking pale and sickly, heedless of all sights and sounds, except when wincing painfully at the sight of a copy of The Economic Times. It is not hard to reason why. Most economists forget all they have learned ten minutes after they get their degrees. Some do not even wait till the end of the examinations. After that, all theories propounded by them are a result of assumptions made and an imagination active. Many are the theories I myself have created on ill prepared examinations. Three of the papers easily deserve a Nobel. John Nash is a classic case of famous economists. No one but he could have created something which reads "Complementarity is the source of multiplicity in the Nash equilibrium". One requires the aid of an imagination fueled idea and a psychological disease to make up that.

The lot of an economist is a hard one. In the olden days, most people would join the Foreign legions to help them forget. With the legions having now been disbanded, they try to fall in love. Love after all, always makes you forget everything. However, most economists are a bunch of snobs, assuming (which is their business) that every other human is inferior to them intellectually and they deserve no less than Fellows from Oxford. Of course they do not get them. But economists are extremely persistent. If nothing else works, they go and take to drink. And they forget.

(N.B. If the economist is a female, she does not even need to take to drink, she takes to weight loss. That makes her forget everything, including love and foreign legions. It is an unstated general rule that female economists who take the subject seriously are fat. The fact that there are not enough female economists proves it. Who really wants to remain fat nowadays?)

But then drink brings out all that is base in man. Which is why perhaps when we got drunk, all we could do was whine about "Cournot equilibrium" and "Todaro-Harris model" and then sob in a corner.

But I digress.

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Every man meets his Waterloo. And economists, despite all rumours, are humans. Albeit with slightly different Waterloos. While the misogynist finds the woman of his dreams, business tycoons find brothers constantly reminding them of their share in the business, politicians find unsuitable son-in-laws, economists have the budget thrust upon their unwary faces.

For in this world, there still remain a few of little faith. Judas is the name which comes to the mind as an example. Some who do not trust enough in the healing power of forgetfulness. And they keep on remembering. Then they go join newspapers as columnists. Or the "Gor-ment" as financial advisors.

It can never be a very pleasing sensation when served with your early morning coffee are the screaming headlines referring to cost push inflation. The Fates band up against you and you realize there is a family member looking down expectantly and asking you to explain the meaning of cost push inflation as opposed to other kinds of inflation. The hurriedly mumbled line defining cost push inflation as inflation pushed by cost, rather than by other, say, non cost, what do you call it, thing, is not accepted in a spirited manner and the economist goes back to face the world, a mere shadow of his former, jubilant, coffee sipping self. The Fates are a cruel lot though, once aroused by the Furies, and questions regarding the subtle difference between fiscal and revenue deficit haunts the economist's mind till he receives the next day's paper, which speaks glibly of various anti inflationary measures and waiving of farmers' loans.

However, the budget question, once admirably settled, does not raise its head again for a considerable time. No more is the economist tormented by the general, misguided public to explain something the general, misguided public happily imagines the economist knows about. The economist, what with the daily cares of the world on his shoulders and the severe concern for the income of various alcohol fermentators, gets involved in the grind again. And forgets. Time, as usual, remains the best healer. And the economists, as spelled out by this very fascinating movie called The Big Lebowski, abide.