JP WoodCock Returns

JP Woodcock Returns

Greetings, everyone from your favorite mini economist JP Woodcock.  It has been a few years since I was last able to send a communiqué out to everyone from the Great Hall of Mini Economics because, quite frankly, our funding has been slight because our donors have been more concerned with other prevailing economic headwinds such as their own wallet.

Well, we now have our Internet turned back on and I no longer have to answer the phones, weed the ever-flowering gardens on our grounds and clean the johns all by myself.  This relief has allowed me time to reflect on my experiences of the last few years here at the great hall of mini economics and I would like to share with you my feelings and thoughts of these times.

First, and I say rather foremost on my mind, has been my reminiscences of my grandfather the eminent maxi economist; he was born too late to be a mini economist such as myself.  Well anyway, Ambrose Woodcock would stride into my study as I prepared for my exams and say loudly, "Some day J.P.", he called me JP even though I was only a teen,  "JP someday the politicians and the financiers will have developed so much greed that the very structures of the maximum economic apparatus will collapse upon itself before we economists can see the light of day."

Grandpa Ambrose would then start muttering about how Grandma Eloise wanted to summer in Greece but Grandpa Ambrose was uncertain if the Greeks would want to take his money as he felt the Greeks didn't really want to work for his money, UK of course,

and that the Greeks would rather just keep borrowing money from the Krauts until the Krauts were tired of owning their Greek vacations.

I was always amused with Grandpa Ambrose but I took a different direction than him and I took up the study of mini-economics and somehow I felt we mini-economists were outsmarting politicians and greedy financiers with cheap bow ties and green visor hats but it turns out Grandpa Ambrose was correct.

All during the last five years of horrific economic conditions here at the great hall of mini economics, while all alone and plugging all of our leaking conditions with my own digits I have been reading a great deal in the evenings by candle light.

The Tao Te Ching has been my solace and as I have been only able to get our accountant to allow me to purchase a pocket edition abridged version of Lao Tzu's masterpiece sometimes my reasoning of the Tao has been short and small minded.

For instance, once, when the utility workers came to shut off our electricity, I said to them, you do not need to take this action because Lao Tzu says:

           

"Free from desire, you realize the mystery

            Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations."

The workers stared at me as if I were some sort of shiny Chinese enigma and then they

said, the only mystery here is when are going to pay."

I was heartened to hear that economic theory really does hold water dueling with the Tao but I was uncomfortable sitting in the dark and cold for days on end and I finally pleaded with our accountant that we actually saved money by having electricity over the opposite.

I did endless spreadsheets that showed that taking no action was more expensive than taking action and paying our bill.  Again it was a relief to see what was going on while I was in the bathroom.

The accountants were happy and relieved as well because we accrued no utility charges while the power was off.  There was the nasty business of paying a turn on fee to the utility company but the accountants were more than happy to have me negotiate this.

Now that order is returning to our Great Hall and we have electricity and a receptionist I am pleased that I am now able to return to my research on the Australian marsupials and their effect on that continents economy rather than pulling weeds and mowing lawns in the great expansive shadows of the Mini Economic Hall and it's magnificent grounds.