Wednesday 2 March 2011

Economics and Rorschach

I regularly read the Junk Charts blog by Kaiser Fung...but had to share this one (which comes third hand from an economics paper at Queens University  in Ontario).

The curve is called a Phillip's Curve... I didn't know what that was, but Wikipedia says, "In economics, the Phillips curve is a historical inverse relationship between the rate of unemployment and the rate of inflation in an economy. Stated simply, the lower the unemployment in an economy, the higher the rate of inflation. While it has been observed that there is a stable short run trade off between unemployment and inflation, this has not been observed in the long run." 

And for my students who may not know "Rorschach";  here is Wikipedia's intro to that as well, "The Rorschach test also known as the Rorschach inkblot test, the Rorschach technique, or simply the inkblot test) is a psychological test in which subjects' perceptions of inkblots are recorded and then analyzed using psychological interpretation, complex scientifically derived algorithms, or both. Some psychologists use this test to examine a person's personality characteristics and emotional functioning."

Which reminds me of a joke about a guy in the psychiatrist's office...as each inkblot is shown he describes some terrible scene of murdered and mutilated bodies... finally the psychiatrist stops and announces "You are the sickest degenerate I have ever analyzed.."  The patient responds .." Who?,,,, ME?..you're the one with all the pictures of dead people!".

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