Yeah, if those dinosaurs had understood catastrophe theory, they would have brought in Al Gore's ancestor to fix up the global climate when that asteroid hit.
BTW, actually I think Brad ran off with Raquel Welch.... Barkley Rosser -----Original Message----- From: Max Sawicky <sawicky at epinet.org> To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Date: Wednesday, September 08, 1999 12:20 PM Subject: RE: growth: De Long view
>>>> From Martin Wolf's column in today's Financial Times:
>
>"In a heroic paper, Bradford De Long of the University of California
>at Berkeley has estimated the population, total income and real
>income per head of humanity over the past million years.* . . .
>
>>>>>>>>>
>
>Other findings in the DeLong study:
>
>The present economic boom took root in the
>Pleistocene Era, not in the Clinton Administration;
>
>The volcano in '1 Million B.C.' that destroyed Raquel
>Welch's village actually increased GDP in that year,
>hoodwinking the cavemen into thinking they were better
>off;
>
>Taxes and government spending have been increasing
>for a million years, proving that economic growth
>does not depend on low taxes;
>
>The Mongols murdered more people than the Crusaders
>and scorned the then-progressive principle of the
>divine right of kings;
>
>Ten thousand years ago, the first utility function
>had only one argument; now they have two or three;
>
>Dinosaurs were able to maximize utility, but only
>in static terms, not being able to handle the math
>for dynamic optimization; this explains their
>extinction (see also Rosser, 1986);
>
>The economy has been in crisis for the past five
>thousand years;
>
>If suitable property rights had been established
>for the invention of fire, the economy would have
>grown faster;
>
>
>Other notes:
>
>DeLong's results are based on strict, non-testable assumptions.
>
>An error of .001 percentage points in his price index has
>thrown his results off by approximately 76.42 percent.
>
>Since publication, he has run off with the author of an actual
>article entitled, "I ran one million regressions."
>
>
>mbs
>
>