Comments (11)

• Doug

  Where did stereotypes come from?

  Must be an evil rightist plot.

  Glad the psychologists are here to set us straight.

  Published: October 6, 2005 9:03 PM

• Francisco Torres

  
  Add to the joke (In what Hell is):

  "[...] and the bureaucrats are Mexican".

  :)

  
  (I should know)

  Published: October 7, 2005 11:51 AM

• Roy W. Wright

  You said it, Doug.

  Published: October 7, 2005 12:40 PM

• Bernard Palmer

  I think it's a bit wrong. In the version I know in heaven the police are English the French are the cooks, the wives are Japanese, all houses are American, the Italians are the lovers and everything is organized by the Germans. In hell the English are the cooks, the French are the police (remembering the antics of the CSR in student demonstrations which made Chicago look peaceful) the wives are American and the houses are Japanese and the Germans are the lovers and everything is organized by the Italians. This version raises the specter of the cost of divorce in the USA. Does anyone else notice that Mises seems to be a mans club with the occasional token female member? Does this say anything about economics being strictly the reserve of the male and why? Or does it confirm the hypothesis that men are merely pussy whipped slaves to the female and do all the dirty work so that she'll be pleased with him and reward him by letting him breed with her and build her a home which she then gets using gender traitor lawyers when he bores her? Is that the natural order of things?

  Published: October 7, 2005 1:26 PM

• Curt Howland

  I've heard the joke both ways. The one that mentions Japanese I heard in California, so maybe it's a nod to Pacific verses Atlantic centric thinking.
  
  
  As far as the tyranny of the female, ask a Japanese man some time. Japanese wives do in fact take the paycheck and allow the husband some small stippend for his own spending, if anything at all. The American woman may treat men as contemptable, but watch what they do around men they like! They will let him get away with anything at all, exemplified by Bill Clinton.

  Published: October 7, 2005 2:18 PM

• Bernard Palmer

  For the Pacific that sounds like both the American and Japanese male go towards confirming the hypothesis and women are fickle and keep men on their toes as they try and serve them. So all economics is based on trying to keep women happy.

  Published: October 7, 2005 5:34 PM

• Paul Edwards

  Bernard, you said "economics is based on trying to keep women happy", but i would go one further and say: "life" is based on trying to keep women happy.

  Cheers.

  Oh and i don't know about interest levels, but i am proud to report that my three girls appear to have absorbed many of the lessons contained in human action and (so far) the first several chapters of mes. I read economics to them each night. So the ladies can do it. But you may have a point that they may not see the merit to spending the kind of time and energy discussing these topics on a blog like this that some guys do. Does that make them smarter? I have to ponder that now.

  Published: October 7, 2005 6:09 PM

• Bernard Palmer

  Hi Paul

  I found that very interesting what you said "life" is based on trying to keep women happy." Recently it became obvious to me that all monetary systems are probably based on engagement rings as looney as that may sound.

  "All monetary systems are probably based on sexual attraction. The use of gold and precious stones made into jewelry and given by wealthy men to the women in their lives is possibly why gold became the standard for all wealth.

  The later makers of this jewelry in the west were often Jewish craftsmen. These Jews probably kept their wealth in the lightest form of precious stones in the event they had to quickly flee a pogrom, so naturally because of their wealth accumulation they became excellent mathematicians and merchant bankers.

  Unless all monetary systems return back to a gold and quantifiable gemstone standard that has its roots in sexual attraction then they are all probably bound to collapse. Supposedly the word jewelry comes from the Latin word 'jocale' meaning plaything but the spelling suggests the ethnic origin of its makers is also likely. What is also interesting is that the word 'plaything' has many sexual connotations for men, the givers of the jewelry.

  The idea of a valuable engagement ring possibly comes from the need for a man to show his interest was genuine by giving a large proportion of his wealth which theoretically would have been 'returnable' once married. Engagement means coming together so it was probably usual for the couples to have sex and if the female was barren then the male could break off the 'engagement' and she kept the ring. As it was known she was no longer a virgin then the sale of the ring could have helped support her in her spinsterhood. When females broke off the engagement the ring was probably returned but possibly only to show that no copulation took place."
  I realize today that most females are 'barren' because they are on the pill which could be the reason so many keep the ring as sort of a payment and why marriage rates have fallen because the women aren't getting pregnant during engagement, and if they do they can abort anyway. For me this all points towards a world female centric. I also noticed eveything is built by men for women. So ponder on this Paul, your daughters may be patronizing you, sweet clever little things doing something nice for daddy while he talks about his boring economics. My two daughters run out of the room as soon as I start talking about it.
  

  Published: October 7, 2005 8:26 PM

• Paul Edwards

  They do like to give me a hard time, and yet at the same time, they will ask me if i am doing my "lecture" tonight and yet complain loudly and get very disruptive and with lots of laughter if i go past my 40 minutes.

  But to give you an idea of how well they follow, i was reading Rothbard’s mes in the chapter of how interest is derived from price spreads in the production structure in the ERE. Rothbard was explaining how price spreads and hence interest paid, must be higher in industries that are less appealing or popular to invest in. He was explaining how this increase in price spread must be derived from lower rent paid on land in those industries because both labour and capital are non-specific factors and would demand market rates or they would move to other industries. I was about to continue on to the next paragraph when my youngest (12) asked "why is land a more specific factor than capital?" Well, i didn't know then, and i still don't know now, and Rothbard didn't elaborate at that point, and i'm still reading to see if he elaborates later. We really have quite a riot while i quiz them on concepts like arbitrage and price spreads, factor prices and selling prices. What a hoot!

  I bet if you forced your girls to listen to you read for 20 minutes a night, after a while they'd start asking you if you were going to read to them. Teaching is also a powerful way to learn. I try to stay 10 or 20 pages ahead of the lecture so i have had a pass at it before pretending i can teach it to them.
  

  Published: October 8, 2005 2:25 AM

• Jeff Lonsdale

  As a side note.. it seems like this study compared national stereotypes of people within their country, not the external stereotypes that people have of the country.
  Personality profiles also as far as I know don't capture what would make the irish drunk or the italians good lovers... Not that the stereotypes are necessarily accurate, but this study doesn't seem to disprove a large majority of them.

  Published: October 10, 2005 2:13 AM

• Wendy

  Jeff, actually the study did measure external stereotypes people have of other countries. I think the article just failed to mention it. Here is another article that's interesting.

  http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10350312

  What I found interesting was that Dr. McRae found Americans created a negative stereotype of themselves. I agree with this. I can't tell you how many times I've read blogs with people saying Americans are stupid, arrogant, selfish ect. and the thing that really bugs me is these people are American. My boyfriend does this at times. If someone disagrees with him politically he automatically says "Americans are just so stupid". LOL, well last time I checked he was an American. I point out that he's basically saying he's stupid. When I hear an American espouse a negative stereotype of themselves I wonder if they realise that it may come back to bite them in the ass. I travel quite a bit for business so I have seen the effects of promoting a negative stereotype. I've been told -too many times to count- that I'm different , not like the "typical american". Wrong, I think I'm just as American as any other American.

  Published: October 15, 2005 5:42 AM