These jokes will hopefully cheer you up when the Dismaland is getting you down! Please send any new ones to me.

Man walking along a road in the countryside comes across a shepherd and a huge flock of sheep. He tells the shepherd, “I will bet you £100 to one of your sheep that I can tell you the exact number in this flock.”

The shepherd thinks it over; it’s a big flock so he takes the bet. “973,” says the man. The shepherd is astonished, because that is exactly right. Says “OK, I’m a man of my word, take an animal.” Man picks one up and begins to walk away.

“Wait,” cries the shepherd, “Let me have a chance to get even. Double or nothing that I can guess your exact occupation.” Man says sure. “You are an economist for a government think tank,” says the shepherd. “Amazing!” responds the man, “You are exactly right! But tell me, how did you figure that?”

“Well,” says the shepherd, “put down my dog and I’ll tell you.”

A mathematician, an accountant and an economist apply for the same job.

The interviewer calls in the mathematician and asks “What do two plus two equal?” The mathematician replies “Four.” The interviewer asks “Four, exactly?” The mathematician looks at the interviewer incredulously and says “Yes, four, exactly.”

Then the interviewer calls in the accountant and asks the same question “What do two plus two equal?” The accountant says “On average, four – give or take ten percent, but on average, four.”

Then the interviewer calls in the economist and poses the same question “What do two plus two equal?” The economist gets up, locks the door, closes the shade, sits down next to the interviewer and says, “What do you want it to equal”?

Three econometricians went out hunting, and came across a large deer. The first econometrician fired, but missed, by a metre to the left. The second econometrician fired, but also missed, by a metre to the right. The third econometrician didn’t fire, but shouted in triumph, “We got it! We got it!”

A mathematician, a theoretical economist, and an econometrician are asked to find a black cat (who doesn’t really exist) in a closed room with the lights off. The mathematician gets crazy trying to find a black cat that doesn’t exist inside the darkened room and ends up in a psychiatric hospital. The theoretical economist is unable to catch the black cat that doesn’t exist inside the darkened room, but exits the room proudly proclaiming that he can construct a model to describe all his movements with extreme accuracy. The econometrician walks securely into the darkened room, spends one hour looking for the black cat that doesn’t exits and shouts from inside the room”I’ve caught it  by the neck!”

Top Ten Economist Valentines

10. You raise my interest rate and I’ll double your money demand function.
    9. Despite a prolonged inflation I still love your supply curves.
    8. What do you say we measure our cross-elasticity?
    7. You bring the butter, I’ll bring the gun.
    6. Do you like my expectations-augmented Phillips curve?
    5. Further stimulus could result in hyper-inflation.
    4. Tell me, are my expectations rational?
    3. Let’s assume a hotel room at the Ritz and a bottle of Dom Perignon.
    2. You stoke the animal spirits of my market.
    1. Do you like my invisible hand?

Q: How many conservative economists does it take to change a light bulb?

A1: None. If the government would just leave it alone, it would screw itself in.

A2: None, because, look! It’s getting brighter! It’s definitely getting brighter!

A3: None, they’re all waiting for the unseen hand of the market to correct the lighting disequilibrium.

A4: None, just assume it changed.

Q: How many central bank economists does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: Just one — he holds the light bulb and the whole earth revolves around him.

It’s not easy being an economist. How would you like to go through life pretending you knew what M1 was all about?

Economics is the painful elaboration of the obvious.

Q.What’s the difference between an economist and a befuddled. senile old man?

A.The economist is the one with the calculator.

An economist is someone who doesn’t know what he’s talking about – and make you feel it’s your fault.

Economic forecasting is like reading the horoscope –except the horoscope is based on hard facts about stellar orbits.

Bill and Boris are taking a break from a long summit, Boris says to Bill, -Bill, you know, I have a big problem I don’t know what to do about. I have a hundred bodyguards and one of them is a liar. I don’t know which one. -Not a big deal Boris, I’m stuck with a hundred economists I have to listen to all the time before any policy decision, and only one tells the truth but it’s never the same one.

An experienced economist and not so experienced economist are walking down the road. They come across a pile of horse manure lying on the asphalt.

Experienced economist: “If you eat it I’ll give you £20,000!”
Not so experienced economist runs his optimization problem and figures out he’s better off eating it so he does and collects money.

Continuing along the same road they come across another pile of horse manure.

Not so experienced economist: “Now, if YOU eat this I’ll give YOU £20,000.”

After evaluating the proposal experienced economist eats it and collects the money.

They go on. The not so experienced economist starts thinking: “Listen, we both have the same amount of money we had before, but we both ate horse manure. I don’t see us being better off.”

The experienced economist replies “Well, that’s true, but you overlooked the fact that we’ve been just involved in £40,000 of trade.”

Q: Why did God create economists?

A: In order to make weather forecasters look good.

One night a policeman saw a macroeconomist looking for something by a street light. He asked him if he had lost something there. The economist said, “I lost my keys over in the alley.” The policeman asked him why he was looking by the street light. The economist responded, “it’s a lot easier to look over here.”

This tale is said to be told by John Kenneth Galbraith about himself. As a boy he lived on a farm in Canada. On the adjoining farm, lived a girl he was fancied. One day as they sat together on the top rail of the cattle pen they watched a bull servicing a cow. Galbraith turned to the girl, with what he hoped was a suggestive look, saying, “That looks like it would be fun.”

She replied, “Well…. She’s your cow.”

How has French revolution affected world economic growth? Too early to say. 

Did you hear of the economist who dove into his swimming pool and broke his neck? He forgot to seasonally adjust.

How many economists does it take to change a light bulb? Seven, plus/minus ten. 

President Truman once said he wants an economic adviser who is one handed. Why? Because normally the economists giving him economic advice state “On one hand and on the other…”

Ronald Reagan used to say that if trivial pursuit were designed by economists, it would have 100 questions and 3,000 answers.

There were two economists who were shipwrecked on a desert island. They had no money but over the next three years they made millions of dollars selling their hats to each other.

Two economists were sitting at a nudist colony. The one said, “Have you read Marx?” The other says, “No, it’s these wicker chairs.”

Economic forecasters assume everything, except responsibility.

Economists are people who are too smart for their own good and not smart enough for anyone else’s.

Three leading economists took a small plane to the wilderness in northern Canada to hunt moose over the weekend. The last thing the pilot said was, “Remember, this is a very small plane and you will only be able to bring ONE moose back.” But of course, they killed one each and come Sunday, they talked the pilot into letting them bring all three dead moose onboard. So just after takeoff, the plane stalled and crashed. In the wreckage, one of the economists woke up, looked around and said, “Where the hell are we.” The other economist replied “Oh, just about a hundred yards east of the place there we crashed last year.”

Did you know economists have predicted nine out of the last five recessions?

There was a party of economists out mountain climbing in the Himalayas and they got lost. One of them took a look at the map and studied very carefully, compared it to distant landmarks and checked his compass. Finally he said to the other economists, “Do you see that big mountain over there? According to the map, we’re standing on top of it.”

On the first day, God created the sun. In response, the Devil created sunburn. On the second day, God created sex. In response, the Devil created marriage. On the third day God created an economist. This was a tough one for the Devil, but, in the end and after a lot of thought, he created a second economist.

A central banker walks into a pizzeria to order a pizza. When the pizza is done, he goes up to the counter get it. There a clerk asks him: “Should I cut it into six pieces or eight pieces?” The central banker replies: “I’m feeling rather hungry right now. You’d better cut it into eight pieces.”

The First Law of Economists: For every economist, there exists an equal and opposite economist.  The Second Law of Economists: They’re both wrong.

An economist, a philosopher, a biologist, and an architect were were arguing about what was God’s real profession. The philosopher said, “Well, first and foremost, God is a philosopher because he created the principles by which man is to live.” “Ridiculous!” said the biologist “Before that, God created man and woman and all living things so clearly he was a biologist.” “Wrong,” said the architect. “Before that, he created the heavens and the earth. Before the earth, there was only complete confusion and chaos!” “Well,” said the economist, “where do you think the chaos came from?”

“You know it’s said that an economist is a man who, when he finds something works in practice, wonders if it works in theory.” – Walter Heller

“We have 2 classes of forecasters: Those who don’t know . . . and those who don’t know they don’t know. “ – John Kenneth Galbraith

They say that Christopher Columbus was the first economist. When he left to discover America, he didn’t know where he was going; when he got there he didn’t know where he was; and it was all done on a government grant.