By Austan Goolsbee, speech at the 486th convocation of the University of Chicago

“Congratulations to you graduates. You made it. That’s the good news. The bad news is that it’s extremely hot and I am going to spend the next fifteen minutes telling you about economics. Let me start, though, by reminding you that we always have a faculty member get up and talk about ideas at our commencements. We have always done it that way. Some people say that it’s because we are a place of ideas and we want the parents to see that you have been a serious person these past several years. Others say we have a hard time getting more famous people to speak. I don’t know why. Perhaps we are afraid that, starting this afternoon, everywhere you go they will assume you know something because you are a Chicago graduate, so we try to stuff in one last thing before you leave. Personally, I think it’s something completely different. I think these commencement speeches are for the faculty. We may get only twelve minutes to talk, but it’s the only time in our Chicago careers we get to stand up and say whatever we want and you aren’t allowed to challenge it. I mean, what are you going to do? Get up and leave?

So today I thought I would talk about why people hate economists and why we don’t care. Nobody likes an economist. In fact, some students who are here today from the Divinity School are thinking that if they have learned anything in school it’s that an economist like me should not be talking from a pulpit like this. (more…)

It is interesting and comforting to note that even American news anchors of big cable networks do have a limit to what they are able to bear when it comes to absurdity in politics. Like Jack Cafferty from CNN:

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