Hello economics comedy fans: In times of grief both public and personal—the pandemic, the war in Ukraine, the end-of-life for my 92-year-old godmother Betty—it can be hard to think about comedy… or for that matter about economics! But Betty always encouraged me to keep at it (“break a leg” was one of her constant refrains) so here’s my news about upcoming shows around the U.S. and maybe in Europe, and about a climate policy grant I got that I’m eager to get your help putting to good use, plus some personal notes about Ukraine and about Betty.
European comedy tour? I’m in discussions about visiting Norway in late October for an economics festival (!) but in order to make the finances and carbon emissions pencil out I need more gigs in or near Europe. So… if you’re in Europe and interested in hiring me in late October or early November for comedy and/or a talk about my new climate idea—see below—please email me ASAP and let’s talk!
U.S. comedy tour: I’ve got definite or possible gigs coming up in Seattle (June 21), Lincoln NE (Sept 8-9), Bend OR (late October? maybe virtual?), and Pennsylvania, New York City, and Boston (maybe in the fall?). And I’m looking to combine comedy and climate action by doing shows—possibly for free—with folks in the following states, listed in order of importance: South Dakota (!), Nebraska, Utah, Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Carolina, Alabama, Arkansas, Rhode Island, Michigan, and New Mexico. I don’t have a ton of funding, and I’m trying to do a lot with it, so if you’ve got some funding that would be great, but even if you don’t: if you’re in those states at a college or other venue that can attract a crowd and you want an economics comedy show with a climate change twist, let me know and let’s try to make it happen. (PS. Gigs in other states would be great, too, so holler if your college or corporate event needs some economics comedy!)
Climate change: I’ve got lots of news here, including my review of Steve Koonin’s book Unsettled, plus we’re two months away from the release of my Cartoon Introduction to Climate Change, Revised Edition (co-authored with and illustrated by the fabulous Grady Klein). Also, I got a $50k ACX grant to fund my work on state-level climate action, specifically a “climate24x7” push for legislation or ballot measure campaigns by 2024 in at least 7 states. That includes the Clean The Darn Air clean-air-and-climate ballot measure effort where I live in Utah (donations are welcome!), plus a Climate Action Tax Cut idea that some colleagues and I have been exploring that could work in all of the states listed above, and in many countries in Europe and elsewhere, the common theme being that these jurisdictions all impose sales taxes (or similar taxes like VAT) on consumption of electricity. The original policy idea was to replace these existing electricity taxes with a carbon tax on electricity, but the Climate Action Tax Cut idea is even simpler: just reduce these existing electricity taxes in line with reductions in carbon intensity by electric utilities, thereby creating incentives to simultaneously sunset electric-sector carbon emissions and regressive electricity taxes. You can see the evolution of the idea in this Philadelphia Inquirer op-ed (co-authored with Will Delavan of Lebanon Valley College) and then this Norfolk (NE) Daily News op-ed (co-authored with Nebraska Republican state Senator John McCollister), but the bottom line is that I think this would be a modest step in the right direction, an approach that could work in red or purple states like South Dakota and Arizona, and a way to create carbon-tax-like incentives without increasing consumer prices. So: If you’re interested in this idea, or if you have other ideas that could lead to legislation or 2024 ballot measures in places like South Dakota (where it only takes 17,000 signatures to get on the ballot) please let me know. Maybe you can get a free or reduced-cost economics comedy show out of it to boot!
Ukraine: I don’t have the personal connections of economists like Greg Mankiw or Tymofiy Mylovanov (of the Kyiv School of Economics), but with Tymofiy’s help I did go to Ukraine on comedy tour in 2014, which is all the more reason for my heart to go out to everyone suffering there. If you are interested in making a donation with an economics twist then check out the humanitarian aid campaign organized by Tymofiy and his colleagues at KSE.
Betty: Shortly before my 4th birthday, my brother and I lost our mother, an inspiring feminist troublemaker, to mental illness. Not too long after that we were lucky enough to meet and be “adopted” by a single woman whom we ended up calling our godmother. But Betty was really our fairy godmother, giving us love and support and (on our weekly Saturday night sleep-overs at her apartment) exposure to things like sloppy joes and toaster waffles and television, all of which were absent from the apartment where we lived with our father. Betty taught me to type (leading to my early jobs as a temp secretary) and she was a strong supporter of my comedy career, attending my open-mic performances at the Brainwash cafe/laundromat in San Francisco, and then—after I had somewhat miraculously managed to make a career out of economics comedy—coming while she was physically able to the Humor Sessions I helped organize at the annual meeting of the American Economic Association. (After one flight to Chicago, I remarked to her that the plane was full of economists, and she replied “I could tell: they all seemed to be kind of mixed up!”) Betty grew up in Georgetown, Illinois, joined the Navy, was stationed in San Francisco, and never left; since she lived in downtown she never needed a car and never learned to drive. She went to stenography school to learn shorthand—because per-page payments meant that women earned the same as men—and traveled the world working on various court cases. (A lawyer once asked her, “Betty, can you be in Tegucigalpa on Thursday?” and she said Yes before turning to a colleague to ask “Where in the hell is Tegucigalpa?”) Eventually she worked as a court reporter in San Francisco City Hall (she was there on the day in 1978 when Harvey Milk and George Moscone were killed) and then retired to enjoy traveling, sewing, classic movies, supporting her favorite charities, and the view from her apartment overlooking the Ferry Building and the Bay Bridge. (She is the original tenant in her one-bedroom apartment, which nobody else wanted in 1966 because of the outrageous rent of $230 per month.) I could tell many more stories—it’s like rummaging through Betty’s purse, which would always turn up some tasty candies—but Betty’s 92nd birthday is this weekend and she’s in hospice with terminal cancer, so she gets the last word:
When we met, you boys had recently lost your mother and were still in shock, and I was caught in a long-lasting depression, having lost my older brother, my father, and my mother some little time before. The three of us were in great need when we met. Your father. too, was still in mourning and doing his best to take care of you. He told me he had posted a notice at the Jewish Community Center seeking to hire someone to serve as a female model for you two boys. He apparently did have a response or two, but they didn’t work out. I surmise the trouble was that it was love that was needed, and you can’t hire or buy love – it’s either there or it isn’t. The fact is I fell in love with you two boys that first evening we met, which I do remember well. I had a cheap camera with me at the time. I recall that you, Yoram, grabbed the camera and ran around the apartment snapping pictures, without, of course, bothering to focus on anything in particular. I do still have some pictures from that evening.
Oh, but we went on to have good times, didn’t we?
Yes we did. Happy birthday, Betty, with love and thanks for everything.
Yoram Bauman PhD
“the world’s first and only stand-up economist”
www.standupeconomist.com
Also @standupecon on Twitter.