Episode 14: The World’s Only Stand-Up Economist

Tracy Alloway (0:06)

Welcome to another episode of Odd Lots. I'm Tracy Alloway, executive editor of Bloomberg Markets.

Joe Weisenthal (0:11)

And I'm Joe Weisenthal, managing editor of Bloomberg Markets.

Tracy Alloway (0:14)

I want to let our listeners in on a little secret. This isn't widely known outside the Bloomberg office, but Joe abhors fun in all its forms.

He hates whimsy, he hates photos of cute animals, and anything related to General Merriman.

Joe Weisenthal (0:29)

That's not true. No, no, yeah, you're right, that's pretty much true.

I like having fun. I just don't like most people's definition of it, I guess.

Tracy Alloway (0:39)

You have your own definition of fun.

All right. Well, on that note, I thought today, in an effort to change Joe's mind about fun and humor in general, we might embark on something a little different. Something fun, but obviously it still needs to be markets related. So Joe, I'm really excited to say that we're going to have today someone who bills himself as the world's first and only stand up comedian economist.

Joe Weisenthal (1:04)

Wait, stand up economist? That's a thing?

Tracy Alloway (1:08)

Yeah, it is.

Joe Weisenthal (1:09)

I'm skeptical.

Tracy Alloway (1:12)

So we're having Yoram Bauman on, he has a PhD in economics from the University of Washington. He also travels the country doing comedy gigs at universities and economic conferences, making jokes about yield curves and supply and demand and all that fun stuff.

Joe Weisenthal (1:27)

I'm even more skeptical right now. There's actually a circuit of going around making jokes at comedy conferences and universities.

Tracy Alloway (1:35)

I swear there is. If you look at his website, he has a list of every show that he's done. And he's, as economists would say, very much in demand.

Joe Weisenthal (1:43)

Okay. I can see you need convincing.

Tracy Alloway (1:50)

Just to give you an idea, we're going to have Yoram come on. And at the beginning, he's going to do a short set for us. And I've also brought in some of our Bloomberg colleagues to be our guinea pigs and his audience.

Joe Weisenthal (2:00)

All right, well, I'm looking forward to being convinced.

SPEAKER_4 (2:11)

Ladies and gentlemen, Yoram Bauman.

Yoram Bauman (2:18)

Thank you very much, it's a pleasure to be with all of you. Today, my name is Yoram Bauman. I appear before you as the world's first and only stand-up economist. Yes, it's a niche market. I really only have one thing going for me as a stand-up economist, and that's low expectations. When I told my father that I was going to be a stand-up economist, he said, Yoram, he said, you can't be a stand-up economist. And I said, why not? And he said, because there's no demand. Boom, that was the first joke I ever told on stage. I said, don't worry, dad, I'm a supply-side economist. I just stand up and let the jokes trickle down.

I believe in the Laffer curve.

Those are actually just my jokes to test how much economics everybody knows, and then I kind of arrange the rest of the routine accordingly. You know, I'm happy to say that it's been a good couple of years for economics comedy. A few years ago, I got to be on the PBS NewsHour. Now, I don't know how much you all know about the world of stand-up comedy, but let me just tell you this, in the world of stand-up comedy, it does not get any bigger than the PBS NewsHour. It was pretty amazing. They interviewed three economists on the show. They interviewed Robert Schiller, who won the Nobel Prize. They interviewed Joseph Stiglitz, who won the Nobel Prize. And they interviewed me. I felt like kind of a self-aware version of Sarah Palin. And what did they ask in my moment of TV fame when the PBS NewsHour, they asked me if I had ever bombed on stage. A couple of things about this. First of all, I am not afraid of failure.

Secondly, I'm a professional comedian, right? So if a joke doesn't work, you just start to keep throwing stuff out there until you find something that sticks. It's basically the same thing that the Fed and the Treasury did for the last six or seven years. And finally, I had to admit, on the PBS NewsHour, in fact, I had bombed on stage. The worst show I ever did was in October of 2008 I'm sure you remember what was happening to the global economy and the stock market in October of 2008 October of 2008, I did a show in Colorado Springs for a group of bankers. And comedy is kind of a violent business, right? Like, if you're doing well, then you're killing. If you're doing badly, then you're bombing. And I totally bombed that show. And I actually did so poorly that I spent a fair amount of time afterwards, sort of soul-searchingly, trying to figure out where had I lost the connection with this audience of bankers in Colorado Springs in October of 2008 And I finally realized that I lost them on my opening line. That my opening line was, hey, how's it going? Maybe I'll close this set with some, you might be an economist, if jokes. So you might be an economist if you think that America's next top model should be an endogenous growth model.