01 July 2008

The Joy of Keynesian Economics

I took economics in high school and learned absolutely nothing, except how really bad a class could be when the teacher came to work drunk. I didn't take economics in college because I couldn't imagine it could be much more interesting than my high school class because I couldn't imagine a professor at Furman coming to work drunk.

I have really enjoyed learning more about economics as I was involved more and more with economic statistics. However, I readily confess that the subject does NOT make me giggle.

So imagine my surprise, as we're watching serious news programs on television, that my girls (and especially my oldest), start to giggle at the phrase "Keynesian Economics". It turns out that one of my girls' favorite actors, from two of my girls' favorite movies, is actor Skandar Keynes (Edmund Pevensie in both The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian). Skandar is the great-great-nephew of famed economist John Maynard Keynes and the son of author Randal Keynes. It also turns out, according to IMDB, that Skandar is the great-great-great grandson of Charles Darwin, but that name doesn't make the girls giggle as much as the name "Keynes" (pronounced like "canes", for those of you unfamiliar with the movies or Keynesian economics).



Anyone interested in learning mroe about Keynesian economics should visit the site
http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/KeynesianEconomics.html.
You can see if it makes you giggle.

ttfn