Issue 21, Fall 2001

William A. McEachern, Editor

Odds and Ends

Some teachers are always on the lookout for good fiction that comes with a dose of economics. Meet Burke Devore, an unemployed paper company manager and central character in Donald Westlake's novel The Ax (Warner Books, 1998). Frustrated from losing out time after time to more qualified applicants, Devore decides that his best chance of finding his ideal job is to eliminate the competition - literally. By anonymously advertising for a position like the one he seeks, he harvests resumes from job applicants, identifies those most likely to beat him out for the position, and then tries to kill them off one by one. You will have to read the book to find out how all this turns out, but it's rational self-interest at a different level, with a dose of labor economics. And the writing is terrific.

Norman R. Augustine, CEO of Lockheed Martin Corporation, and Kenneth L. Adelman, a syndicated columnist, explain in Shakespeare in Charge: The Bard's Guide to Learning and Succeeding on the Business Stage (Hyperion, 2001) how Shakespeare's knowledge of palace politics and strategic warfare can be applied to the corporate world through what they term "the five acts of business." But the book seems to be a bit of a stretch.

"Let everyone mind his own business, and the cows will be well tended."
- French proverb

"Buyers want a thousand eyes. Sellers only one."
- German proverb

"Custom is stronger than law."
- Russian proverb

"Custom without reason is but ancient error."
- English proverb

"If you ask me the right questions,
I know some good answers."
- " The Family Circus" by Bil Keane

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