Poem about Economics!!

Sameer Medhekar (Student) (4140 Points)

23 January 2009

If you do some acrobatics with a little mathematics it will take you far along. If your idea’s not defensible don’t make it comprehensible or folks will find you out, and your work will draw attention if you only fail to mention what the whole thing is about. Your must talk of GNP and of elasticity of rates of substitution and undeterminate solution and oligonopopsony.

The course of history has been shaped by many great men, from Jesus to Emperor Nero,

But I'm going to be greater than any of them because when I grow up I'm going to be a superhero.

Now you might think that being a superhero would not be easy,

But for me it will be breezy.

Here's my plan:

Everyone will think I'm just an ordinary mild-mannered web programmer but secretly when I hear the call of duty I'll run out of the room and take off my glasses and get changed in a phone box and become my super alter ego, LAISSEZ-FAIRE CAPITALISM MAN!

And one day in Metropolis City someone would be hoisting a piano up a skyscraper on a rope,

And the rope would snap at exactly the critical moment when a small fluffy kitten ran under the piano and a crowd of aghast onlookers would cry Help us, Laissez-Faire Capitalism Man, you're our only hope!

And I'd arrive on the scene instantly, leaping tall buildings with a speed unrivalled even by the world's fastest race-horses,

And I'd cry NOBODY MOVE! Including me! Nobody do anything, just leave it to market forces.

And the crowd of aghast onlookers would say Laissez-Faire Capitalism Man, shouldn't we get something done?

And I'd say Nope, the blind forces of economics will sort it out in the long run.

And inevitably the rope would break and down would come the piano and the poor kitten would get squished,

And I'd say Well that's all very sad, but ultimately this just shows that it's what the consumer wished.

Because if there were any real economic demand for stronger ropes or rubber pianos or spongy foam kittens that automatically re-inflated,

Then the engineering companies would be on the case and before long the market would be sated.

And the crowd of aghast onlookers would no longer be aghast and they would burst into a grateful cheer,

And say, He's right, if we'd all just change our spending habits there could be 18% fewer pianos falling on kittens next year.

And wipe away tears of grateful satisfaction,

And shout Hurrah for Laissez-Faire Capitalism Man, ever alert for the call to inaction!

And by the time kittens were extinct

And all the pianos in the world were in pieces on pavements so that never again would a child hear the joyous sound of ivory keys being plinked,

I'd have made my fortune and retired to a tropical tax-haven to escape the VAT man,

And the crowd of aghast onlookers would say, I wish we'd called Batman.