Miscellany:List of Austrian economics jokes

The optimist thinks the glass is half-full; the pessimist thinks the glass is half-empty; the Austrian economist thinks capital was malinvested in oversized glassware.

Mises, Rothbard and Keynes are stranded in a desert island and they find a can of beans.

Mises says: “We can’t open this can now, but we can save it for later, when we have managed to build the necessary capital for the task.”

Rothbard jumps and grabs the can. Then he says: “Maybe you were the first to see the can, but if I manage to open it you bet I own the food!”

Then Keynes shakes his head and says: “Guys, you are focusing on the problem of opening the can, but there’s a harder problem. What if we are not hungry enough to eat the whole of it?”

Austrian economists never die; they are just dragged kicking and screaming into equilibrium.

Q: Why did the Austrian rearrange his spice rack? A: Thyme preference.

Q: How would you describe that play about Austrian capital theory? A: I’d say it was a roundabout production.

Q: How did Professor Hayek ask his students to line up? A: In spontaneous order.

Q: How many Austrian economists does it take to screw in a lightbulb? A: All of them. First, Ludwig von Mises has to screw the bulb in personally. Then the rest of the Austrian economists have to spend the next 80 years writing about what a good job he did. A: None. It was screwed in a priori. A: You can’t make quantitative predictions.

Q: Why did the Austrian Economist lose his job as a supermarket cashier? A: He couldn’t figure out how to impute the prices without knowing what you were making for dinner.