I just found this, and it’s marvelous!
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
As soon as I could safely toddle
My parents handed me a Model;
My brisk and energetic pater
Provided the accelerator.
My mother, with her kindly gumption,
The function guiding my consumption;
And every week I had from her
A lovely new parameter,
With lots of little leads and lags
In pretty parabolic bags.
With optimistic expectations
I started on my explorations,
And swore to move without a swerve
Along my sinusoidal curve.
Alas! I knew how it would end:
I’ve mixed the cycle with the trend,
And fear that, growing daily skinnier,
I have at length become non-linear.
I wander glumly round the house
As though I were exogenous,
And hardly capable of feeling
The difference ‘tween floor and ceiling.
I scarcely now, a pallid ghost,
Can tell ex ante from ex post:
My thoughts are sadly inelastic,
My acts invariably stochastic.
– Sir Dennis H. Robertson
{ 2 comments }
Very funny and appropriate. As a statistician, I cn sympathize with the author. Econometrics can be very frustrating.
Sean, Right you are!
If this: My thoughts are sadly inelastic,
doesn’t capture the whole of the bane of Econometricians, I’m not quite sure what would.
No wonder the Keysians are so enthralled with Econometrics. Nothing makes for clearer snapshots, than the stillness provided by, our friend, the = sign. Long Hail the Polaroid School.
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