A grade school teacher was asking students what their parents did for a living. "Tim, you be first. What does your mother do all day?" Tim stood up and proudly said, "She's a doctor." "That's wonderful. How about you, Amy?" Amy shyly stood up, scuffed her feet and said, "My father is a mailman." "Thank you, Amy" said the teacher. "What does your parent do, Billy?" Billy proudly stood up and announced, "Nothing. He's an economist."

Ten things to do with a graduate Economics textbook1. Press pretty flowers. 2. Press pretty insects. 3. Use it as paper weight on your already overcluttered desk. 4. Leave out in obvious places to impress uninformed undergraduates. 5. Mail to the White House as an intimidation tactic. 6. Give it a walk-on part in a boring European existentialist play. 7. Just throw the lousy thing away. 8. Leave out for the rain and other forces of nature to reckon with. 9. Read it, and weep. 10. Get a refund from bookstore so you can buy a weekend's beer supply.

There is also a joke about the last Mayday parade in the Soviet Union.After the tanks and the troops and the planes and the missiles rolled by there came ten men dressed in black. "Are they Spies?" Asked Gorby? "They are economists," replies the KGB director, "imagine the havoc they will wreak when we set them loose on the Americans"

Economic computer virusesINTEREST GROUP ECONOMIST VIRUS - Divides your hard disk into hundreds of little units, each of which does practically nothing, but all of which claim to be the most important part of the computer. ECONOMETRICIAN VIRUS - Sixty percent of the PCs infected will lose 38 percent of their data 14 percent of the time (plus or minus a 3.5 percent margin of POLITICAL THINK TANK ECONOMIST VIRUS - Doesn't do anything, but you can't get rid of it until next election. GOVERNMENT ECONOMIST VIRUS - nothing works on your system, but all your diagnostic software says everything is just fine. MARXIAN ECONOMIST VIRUS - Helps your computer shut down whenever it wants to. SOVIET ECONOMIST VIRUS - Crashes your computer, but denies it ever happened. MAINSTREAM ECONOMIST VIRUS - It claims it feels threatened by the other files on your PC and erases then in "self-defense." CENTRAL BANK ECONOMIST VIRUS - Makes sure that it's bigger than any other file. MULTINATIONAL CORPORATION ECONOMIST VIRUS - Deletes all monetary files, but keeps smiling and sending messages about how the economy is going to get better. SUPPLY SIDE ECONOMIST VIRUS - Puts your computer to sleep for four years. When your computer wakes up, you're trillion more dollars in debt. NEW ECONOMY VIRUS - Also known as the "Tricky Dick Virus." You can wipe it out, but it always makes a comeback. ENVIRONMENTAL ECONOMIST VIRUS - Before allowing you to delete any file, it first asks you if you've considered the alternatives

An econometrician and an astrologer are arguing about their subjects.The astrologer says, "Astrology is more scientific. My predictions come out right half the time. Yours can't even reach that proportion".The econometrician replies, "That's because of external shocks. Stars don't have those".

Dinosaur #1: "How many economists does it take to screw in a light bulb?" Dinosaur #2: "What is an economist?" Dinosaur #1: "A flunkie mathematician who tries to predict the population of kangaroos in Australia. But that's not important and don't ask what a Kangaroo is." Dinosaur #2: "I don't know, how many?" Dinosaur #1: "10 economists and one grad student. One economist to make a model, one to run the regression, one to test the hypothesis, one to interpret the results, one to conclude how to screw it on, one grad student to screw it on, and five economists trying to fight off the dinosaurs trying to eat them.

A woman hears from her doctor that she has only half a year to live.The doctor advises her to marry an economist and to live in South Dakota.The woman asks: will this cure my illness?The doctor replies: No, but the half year will seem pretty long.

"Two policemen are considering the problem of catching the bandit. One of them starts to calculate the optimal mixed strategy for the chase. The other policeman protests. 'While we're doodling,' he points out, 'he is making his getaway.' 'Relax,' says the game-theorist policeman. 'He's got to figure it out too, don't he?'"

Two government economists were returning home from a field meeting. As with all government travelers, they were assigned the cheapest seats on the plane so they each were occupying the center seat on opposite sides of the aisle.They continued their discussion of the knotty problem that had been the subject of their meeting through takeoff and meal service until finally one of the passengers in an aisle seat offered to trade places so they could talk and he could sleep.After switching seats, one economist remarked to the other that it was the first time an economic discussion ever kept anyone awake.

Bill and Boris are taking a break from a long summit. Boris says to Bill, "Bill, you know, I have a big problem. I don't know what to do about it. I have a hundred bodyguards and one of them is a traitor. I don't know which one.""Not a big deal Boris, I'm stuck with a hundred economists I have to listen to all the time before any policy decision, and only one tells the truth but it's never the same one."