Illus. from “The Pit and the Pendulum”
A couple of years ago I shared some haikus by Steven Ziliak, Professor of Economics at Roosevelt University in Chicago, who uses literature with his students to make the subject matter come alive. As the government remains shut and the clock ticks down to the day when we will breach the debt ceiling and trigger financial Armageddon (probably October 17), he is back with some more.
In my earlier post, I quoted Ziliak pointing out that economic models too often fail to acknowledge the emotions that are bound up in actual economic behavior. Poetry can help fill that gap. Here are Ziliak’s most recent efforts:
Moral sentiment –
Not even Hayek would want
a shuttered White House
Affordable care -
A man in the house dining
on my last food stamp
October sunset –
The debt ceiling turns Boehner
red
–orange and pink
Red October sun -
The debt ceiling is burning
Boehner a real tan
When I was in school
quantitative easing was
largely sophistry
“O Captain! My Captain!
The ship’s weather’d every rack” –
at the Goodwill store
In an e-mail, Ziliak informed me that his birthday occurs on October 17. Given that we are now beginning to see Congressional debt ceiling denialism to go along with climate change denialism, evolution denialism, and Obama-as-legitimate-president denialism, I wrote back saying that I hoped he would be enjoying a happy birthday rather than a tea party.
Previous post on Ziliak’s use of literature
Ziliak’s also uses Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath in his macroeconomics class. I also include some of Ziliak’s economics limericks in the post.
