Economic analogies explained

Via a self-confessed “long time reader, first time contributor” came this excellent Onion article on job growth being akin to a slug.

And to clarify, sources emphasized that the current employment climate isn’t being described as sluggish because it looks like a slug. That reportedly wouldn’t make any sense. No, the slug term is being evoked due to the performance of the job market, which in spite of moderate gains in the manufacturing sector is currently, you know, slow.

Just like a slug, sources again confirmed.

Look, this reportedly still may not be totally clear. But how about this: If you think of job growth as an animal—and you don’t necessarily have to do that, but sources confirmed it can be a useful way of explaining things—it makes sense to choose an animal based on its speed, as that’s how the overall economy itself is usually assessed.

Aha, excellent.  There is no way economists abuse analogies  …

Sidenote:  For the social scientists is this (via Robert Went on Twitter).  If  this does not make you lol, you must be having an annoying day, and I’m sorry 🙂

2 replies
  1. MarkS
    MarkS says:

    Hi Matt,

    Regarding the side node, without having access to the journal I am undecided whether the article is:
    * Intentionally humourous, human-written
    * Computer auto-generated
    * Serious human-written

    Can you enlighten me?

    Cheers,

    Mark

    • Matt Nolan
      Matt Nolan says:

      I am not 100% sure – but my guess is that it is intentionally humourous and human written.

      That would make it consistent with other satirical points that have been made in the past about statistical significance, data mining, the purpose of a prori theory, and unnecessary jargon. That fact it can capture all of those things in a short abstract is superb 😀

      If I was to sudden discover that this is a serious paper I would start to shuffle very uncomfortably!

Comments are closed.