MARDUQUE

Question: How many days in a week?
Answer:   6 Saturdays, 1 Sunday


Question: When is a retiree's bedtime?
Answer:   Three hours after he/she falls asleep on the couch.

Question: How many retirees to change a light bulb?
Answer:   Only one, but it might take all day.

Question: What's the biggest gripe of retirees?
Answer:   There is not enough time to get everything done.

Question: Why don't retirees mind being called Seniors?
Answer:   The term comes with a 10% discount.

Question: Among retirees what is considered formal attire?
Answer:   Tied shoes.

Question: Why do retirees count pennies?
Answer:   They are the only ones who have the time.

Question: What is the common term for someone who enjoys work and
          refuses to retire?
Answer:   NUTS!

Question: Why are retirees so slow to clean out the basement, attic or garage?
Answer:   They know that as soon as they do, one of their adult kids will want to
          store  their stuff there..

Question: What do retirees call a long lunch?
Answer:   Normal.

Question: What is the best way to describe retirement?
Answer:   The never ending Coffee Break.

Question: What's the biggest advantage of
          going back to school as a retiree?
Answer:   If you cut classes, no one calls your Parents.

Question: Why does a retiree often say he doesn't miss work, but misses the
          people he used to work with?
Answer:   He is too polite to tell the whole truth.


My favorite one:

Question: What do you do all week?
Answer:   Mon to Fri. Nothing, and on
          Sat & Sun I rest!

E assim se passaram sete anos desde que deixei a Expo e me instalei em S. Bento. Dei-me conta disso quando preparava umas notas de apoio a uma pequena prelecção de despedida que iria fazer aos colaboradores que me calharam em sorte nesta jornada. Sete anos que passaram rapidamente envoltos num sentimento estranho de não pertença àquele lugar nem àquela tribo. Cada dia ali vivido foi apenas um dia ali passado. Sem a chama que queima ou, no mínimo, que amorna a alma. Mesmo assim, fica a pegada indelével de um envolvimento profissional honesto. Fica um sistema de gestão académica, instalado e adaptado de raiz. Provavelmente o melhor do país.

Pop Quiz: How Do You Stop Sea Captains From Killing Their Passengers?

by DAVID KESTENBAUM

Listen to the Story

Morning Edition

To get into the back-to-school spirit, we've been asking economists about the stories they tell to kick off their classes.

Here's one from Alex Tabarrok of George Mason University(and Marginal Revolution). It gets right to the heart of economics.

Back in the 1700s, the British government paid sea captains to take felons to Australia. At first, it didn't work so well, Tabarrok says:

About a third of the males on one particularly horrific voyage died. The rest arrived beaten, starved, and sick. I mean, they were hobbling off, those who were lucky enough to survive.

This was a scandal back in England, so the government tried to fix it with all different kinds of rules. Force the captains to bring a doctor along. Require them to bring lemons to prevent scurvy. Have inspections. Raise captains' salaries. None of it worked.

The clergy begged the captains, for humanity's sake, to take better care of the prisoners. No dice.

Finally, an economist (who else?) had a new idea.

Instead of paying for each prisoner that walked on the ship in Great Britain, the government should only pay for each prisoner that walked off the ship in Australia. And in fact, this was the suggestion which in 1793 was adopted and implemented. And immediately, the survival rate shot up to 99%.

Here is the first, fundamental lesson of economics: Incentives matter.

Incentives are at the heart of all kinds of things. Everything in the tax code is an incentive — or a disincentive. When we change the regulatory rules for banks, credit card companies and mortgage lenders, we're trying to change the incentives, to change their behavior.

But it can be tricky to get those incentives right.

Before the captains were paid to keep the convicts alive, they had different incentives — "like keep food from the prisoners, and then sell the food in Australia," Tabarrok says.

Reward the captains for keeping the passengers alive, and — voila! — they arrive alive.

A good social order, Tabarrok tells his class, aligns self-interest with social interest.