Teori, praktik, humor 8

Teori, inledningen i Frédéric Bastiats What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen:

1.1
In the economic sphere an act, a habit, an institution, a law produces not only one effect, but a series of effects. Of these effects, the first alone is immediate; it appears simultaneously with its cause; it is seen. The other effects emerge only subsequently; they are not seen; we are fortunate if we foresee them.

1.2
There is only one difference between a bad economist and a good one: the bad economist confines himself to the visible effect; the good economist takes into account both the effect that can be seen and those effects that must be foreseen.

1.3
Yet this difference is tremendous; for it almost always happens that when the immediate consequence is favorable, the later consequences are disastrous, and vice versa. Whence it follows that the bad economist pursues a small present good that will be followed by a great evil to come, while the good economist pursues a great good to come, at the risk of a small present evil.

Praktik, ur en rapport (pdf) av Timothy Conley och Bill Dupor om effekten av det amerikanska stimulanspaketet 2009 (via Tyler Cowen):

We estimate the Act created/saved 450 thousand government-sector jobs and destroyed/forestalled one million private sector jobs.

Humor, från The Onion:

(Direktlänk)

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