Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Remind You Of Anywhere....

Someone sent my blog address this piece of Polictial Satire as a PEI parody and some comic relief from The Journal of Political Economy:

The Distortionary Effects of Regulation and Rent Seeking
“Major Major’s father . . . was a . . . God-fearing, freedom-loving, law-abiding rugged individualist who held that federal aid to anyone but farmers was creeping socialism. . . .
His specialty was alfalfa, and he made a good thing out of not growing any.
The government paid him well for every bushel of alfalfa he did not grow.
The more alfalfa he did not grow, the more money the government gave him, and he spent every penny he didn’t earn on new land to increase the amount of alfalfa he did not produce.
Major Major’s father worked without rest at not growing alfalfa. On long winter evenings he remained indoors and did not mend harness, and he sprang out of bed at the crack of noon everyday just to make certain that the chores would not be done.
He invested in land wisely and soon was not growing more alfalfa than any man in the county.”

[Joseph Heller, Catch 22 (New York: Scribner Paperback Fiction, 1996), p. 93 (first published in 1955). As suggested to, and cited in the JPE by Glen Weyin, 2008, vol. 116, no. 3. ]

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