UW's 'stand-up economist' answers demand for laughs

You know you might be an economist if you adamantly refuse to sell your children because you think they'll be worth more later. That's according to Yoram Bauman, the environmental economist for the University of Washington's Program on the Environment and a part-time teacher at Lakeside High School, who bills himself as the world's first and only "stand-up economist."

He's also co-author of the new graphic novel, "The Cartoon Introduction to Economics" (Hill and Wang, $17.95).

The book is a sort of Microeconomics 101 in comic form. It's got all the chapters you'd expect in a textbook (risk, taxes, supply and demand), just with a lot more drawings of cavemen, cheerleaders and medieval torturers.

Does Bauman, 36, explain derivatives in a humorous way, or is his humor just derivative? I sat down with him until the conversation reached diminishing returns.

Q: When it comes to the economy, the tragedy mask seems more appropriate than the comedy one now.

A: There's not a whole lot that's funny about the macroeconomy right now. I sort of make jokes about economics and economic concepts, so mostly what I do is try to teach people about economics through comedy. So I'm not specifically trying to say, like, "Ha! Unemployment! Hilarious!" But rather, I'm an environmental economist, so I work on climate-change economics. There's not a whole lot that's funny about that either. But I try to explain the idea of why economists care about climate change through humor.

Q: What led you to stand-up economics? Was there much of a — to use your terminology — demand?

A: Yes, but I didn't realize that until later. So I started out while I was in grad school, which was here at UW. I wrote a parody of an economics textbook and just kind of passed it around the department and joked about it with people. And then it got published in this science humor journal, The Annals of Improbable Research.

Q: Who's an intro-to-economics graphic novel for: remedial college students or precious younger nerds?

A: I sort of see two markets for it. One is just the general public, somebody who wants to learn something about economics but doesn't want to pick up a 600-page textbook. And the other is kind of a supplemental book in high-school classes, college classes. I actually think there's a bunch of deep stuff in the book, like you can pick it up and read it superficially in an hour and get some jokes and learn something about economics, or you can sit down and spend a couple of weeks on it and really learn a lot of economics from it.

Q: Do you work blue when it comes to the stimulus package?

A: No. I never work blue. The closest I get is an "invisible hand" joke.

Q: Kids love an Adam Smith joke.

A: Yeah. The bluest I get is, you might be an economist if you write a romance novel that includes the language, "I put my left hand on the small of her back, I put my right hand on the curve of her hip, I put my invisible hand on her thigh."

Q: Nice. What's it like to bomb in front of a group of economists — and can you even tell?

A: I've never bombed in front a group of economists. I've bombed in front of bankers and I've bombed in front of the general public, but I've never bombed in front of economists.

Q: So they only found you — to use your terminology again — marginally funny.

A: Uh, not quite the right use of the word "marginally," but that's OK.

Q: Well, help me out.

A: Welllll, OK, I take it back, it's a reasonable use of "marginally." I mean you're thinking of "marginally" as meaning close to zero. And economists think of "marginally" as meaning a small change from wherever you happen to be. So you could be at zero, in which case "marginally" is a small change from zero. Let's say you're selling something for 20 bucks apiece. A marginal change would be selling it for 21 bucks apiece or 19 bucks apiece.

Q: Bearing in mind that you apparently barely made these people laugh, that might apply, right?

A: Uh, that's correct. I do have an excuse, though. When I bombed in front of the bankers, it was in the midst of the financial crisis in October of 2008. I spent some time afterward soul-searching trying to figure out where I'd gone wrong. And I eventually decided that I lost this audience on my opening line, which was, "Hey, how's it going?"

Mark Rahner: 206-464-8259 or mrahner@seattletimes.com