The Best of Captain Capitalism - Dear Penthouse Forum

This was arguably the most popular post and taught me a great lesson in the economics of blogs;

Smut and sex sells and ain't none of you honyakers interest in economics as much as you are dirt on people's dating lives.

Alas, what am I to do, a true capitalism responds to the market.

It was several weeks ago I was sitting at one of my favorite jazz clubs. And as always I was reading the most recent issue of The Economist. I had set it down on the table and turned my attention to do some tax work when an rather attractive Asian woman walked by. But while I was looking at her, I noticed that she was looking at the cover of The Economist.

At first I was hopefully impressed, thinking that somehow this may be the legendary "video-game-playing, Economist-reading, sexy-lingerie-wearing, totally hot babe capitalist economist that likes to serve Irish economist men martinis while they listen to Frank Sinatra." The one that the Holy and Sacred Elder Economists of Yore spoke so much of. But when I saw what was on the cover of The Economist, "China and the Key to Asian Peace" I realized she must be Chinese and was naturally just looking at the cover.

She proceeded to sit down at a table about 10 yards from me and ordered a glass of wine. She was dressed provocatively enough that I figured she had a date or was meeting some friends, so I just left it at that and returned to doing some tax work. However, 20 minutes had passed and I noticed that she was still sitting by herself.

Did her date fail to show up?

Were her friends the tardy types?

Or...could she be like me! A Napoleon Solo type character who is actually secure and cool enough with themselves to go to clubs and read The Economist?!?!

Realizing that my finite resource of time was being used up, I decided to gather up the courage and ask her if she was alone. Upon asking her, she said she was waiting for friends, but they were very late. And in my politest, least forward and non-threatening way, I asked her if she would like to join me so that I may keep her company until her friends arrived.

She agreed.

Happily we sat down at the couch I had previously ornamented with my papers and files and started talking. A very nice and attractive woman, but what impressed me the most was that she was not bashful about asking me about myself, alleviating me of the typical male duty of keeping the conversation going. And within one minute of asking me questions, it seemed the prophecy of the Holy and Sacred Elder Economists of Yore were to come true. For in that brief minute of conversation it was established that;

1. She reads The Economist
2. She was a financial manager at a money management firm
3. She had her undergraduate in finance
4. She was getting her masters in economics

The next hour of conversation was tantilizing and insanely intelligent. We talked about econometric modeling. We talked about efficient frontier theory. We talked about Miller-Modigliani. And then she talked about her specialty, behavioral economics.

I love it when chicks talk dirty to me.

And thinking that the night could not get better, it did. Her friends showed up. All of them finance majors and all of them just as capable of holding intelligent conversation which lasted the next hour.

But I knew inevitably I would have to make my play. And at a table full of economists and finance majors you're not really going to impress anybody by quoting correlation coefficients between GDP growth rates and unemployment figures because that’s just par for the course for them. So I decided to play my trump card. My master stroke of genius. My coup d'etat.

I can dance.

Fortunately for me there was a jazz band. And fortunately there was a dance floor. So sitting there patiently, engaging in conversation, I waited for the perfectly timed song to play and then asked, "do you know how to dance?"

The expression on her face could not be repeated.

"No, but I would love to learn how!"

So I said, "I can teach you."

"Well, not now, but I'd certainly love to go dancing sometime later."

And boom! There was my in.

The scenario could not have been more perfect;

* I established we had insane amounts in common.
* We established we could have that insanely rare thing called "intelligent conversation"
* I mingled well with her friends
* I established that I was unique and could offer her something fun that would make for one hell of a date.
* She wanted me to take her out dancing.

And like George Castanza, knowing that he should exit at the top of his game, I proceeded to give the woman my card, said I would love to take her out dancing, and bid her and her friends farewell.

Leaving the jazz club I had a smile on my face. I was supremely confident she would call.

Which reminded me of a theory I had developed back in my college days;

“If you are supremely confident a girl will call, she won’t.”

Sure enough, time had passed, and no call.

Alas, I concluded she must not have been too smart, for how stupid do you have to be not to call a dancing, video-game-playing economist? Especially one with his very own subscription to The Economist! I mean come on, ladies, how can you resist?

But don’t cry for me Argentina, for there is good news to this story. For immediately after I had left the jazz club, and while I was still riding high on the prospects of meeting a potential intellectual equal, I felt it necessary to share my experiences with those who I thought at the time were at least in part responsible for making this meeting happen; the kind ladies and gentlemen at The Economist. In a drunken stupor, I had sent off a letter to London detailing my exploits that night, not expecting what would happen two weeks later.

For two weeks later, at the insanely early hour of 10AM, I was awoken by a call from none other than the chief editor of The Economist asking if I had taken her out yet! It seems the good blokes and dames at The Economist had a running wager on me and whether I’d be successful in getting her out on a date. The chief editor, recognizing the obvious fact that anybody who subscribes to The Economist and who is in fact an economist himself, is so studly that they would practically be guaranteed of getting a date, wisely bet on me. Sadly, perhaps he is too wise, for he is 72 years of age and perhaps still subscribes to the romantic notions of the 1940’s; chivalry, tradition, romance, and other such BS. Whereas his younger, less senior counterparts are fully aware of the insanity of modern day women and their incapability to appreciate the concept of carpe diem, and thus bet against me.

But regardless of the outcome, as an economist, one must think. For while girls that shoot me down are a dime a dozen, how often is it that you get a call from the chief editor of The Economist?

As far as my econometric models tell me, that’s worth getting shot down at least 348 times with a 2.5% margin of error.