October 16, 2023
There is a fairytale that I heard in my first economics class about three sailors who were stranded on an uninhabited island. They had nothing for food except one small tin of fish. They had a problem opening the tin. The first person suggested that they should open the tin with a locally-made catapult. That was not a brilliant idea according to the second person who suggested that they should burst the tin open by heating it on fire. “Wait a minute. How do we share the fish after we have opened the tin?” interjected the third person who foresaw another problem lying ahead after the delicacy was ready for consumption. By show of hands – any guess who these people were by profession? Well, the first speaker was a physicist, the second person was a chemist, and the third person was an economist. Truly, economists never fail to amaze me – they always think ahead.