Mark Witte Quotes

I have had a lot of amusing professors in my educational history.   Rarely have I had one as consistently funny as my macro professor, Mark Witte.   It should be noted that I got a C in that class, which had a lot to do with my general inability to grasp the subject material.  However, it was a quotes mine, and at least I passed.  All quotes from spring quarter of 2001.

   "We'll leave that for micro, and it's probably not true anyway."
    --- on upward-sloping demand curves

    "Well, I paid for it - I'm gonna stay!   Plus, it's great to see Seagal working again!"
    --- on some Steven Seagal movie, probably Exit Wounds

    "What if unicorns were $1,000?  Ah, you gotta be nuts to want a unicorn!  I'd rather have a dodo bird or one of those rabbits with antlers."

    "You guys graduate and are not replaced by other students because... our logo's so tacky, who'd come here?"

    "Good x: ask for it by name."

    "What's a substitute for crappy beer?  Good beer... gin... study time, yes..."

    "Should substitutes be the same price range?   Well, I'd say getting a history degree from Northwestern is similar to... watching the History Channel?"

    "I read the Daily Northwestern religiously... that's my penance."

    "I wonder, how do they change the lights in here?   Do they bring in Spiderman?"
    --- on the high ceilings in Coon Forum

    "Can I have somebody volunteer their favorite revenue figure?"

    "How many of you make many dozens of cookies at once?  How about you all do that and bring them in tomorrow?  And I'll inspect them."

    "How am I going to write it?  I'm going to pull up the first midterm from last quarter and change all the numbers!  And some of the words... maybe the dates."

    "Say somebody were to put something awful on Orrington, near the Plex... the Plex would lose value. [stifles laugh]"

    "My mother turned 65 yesterday, and she's like, 'I can't wait to retire, so I can start getting Social Security.'  And I'm like, 'Damn you!  Those are my tax dollars!'"

    "Some people say, 'If I earn any more I'll go bankrupt,' because the tax rate is so high.  And what you do is say to these people, 'I'll be your investment counselor, just put your finances in my hands.'  Then just embezzle from them like crazy."

    "What about a tax on beer?  Progressive?   Proportional?  Regressive?  ... What kind of beer?  King Cobra."

    "It's all about the luck of the president.   Carter?  Unlucky, bad economy.  Clinton?  That guy got lucky all over the place!"

    "The CIA is like, nominal GDP is 10%, and we asked the Russians, 'What's your inflation rate?'  And they say, [puts on Russian accent] 'It's zero!  We get money catching Moose and Squirrel!'"

    "They put a radio in a can and shot it into the sky."
    --- on Sputnik

    "I unloaded all my dot-coms and used the proceeds to buy a soda."

    "'That's so unhealthy...'  That's not the point!  It's Krispy Kreme, dammit!"

    "Unplanned investment?  What the hell?   We're familiar with the notion of unplanned children... not, 'Oops, I did it again, I built a factory.'"

    "What do bachelors eat?  They eat Prego spaghetti sauce."

    "Let's talk about old guys who are dead."

    "I know you guys hate simplicity, so I'll satisfy your desire for extreme complexity in just a moment."

    "If you're really curious, come and ask me about it and I can show you some cool, cool examples... all right, some examples, anyway."

    "The technical term is 'too damn high.'"

    "It's now five o'clock and, this being Evanston, everything closes."

    "I haven't drawn a graph today, and a day without graphs is like a... meal without sunshine, or something."

    "On Monday, I'm going to come in and distribute cigarettes."
    --- after passing out Krispy Kreme donuts

    "Mmm... sticky chalk."
    --- licking his fingers after finishing a donut

    "Number Two, it's a way to impress... no, no, no."
    --- enumerating the functions of money

    "Another funny experiment we could have done if I didn't feel like getting fired... more than I currently feel like getting fired..."

    "Have you ever gone to a bank and said, 'I want some money out of my savings account,' and they go, 'Come back in 30 days?'  I've known people who've known people to whom that's happened... then, on the way home, they parked in a park, and something was messing with the car, so they took off, and then they found a hook for a hand!"

    "It was probably not the most exciting invention ever by Italian geniuses."
    --- on accounting

    "Parking lots, American flags, guard uniforms, vaults, pens with chains, tacky art."
    --- naming physical capital of banks

    "Krugman is just a mean, mean man who makes me laugh."

    "What a great way to meet Russian-speaking gangsters who wouldn't like me."

    "So Bono goes to see Jesse Helms... since Elvis met Nixon, there's no meeting I'd rather see."

    "Econ can suck the joy out of anything."
    --- on the fact that The Wizard of Oz was about William Jennings Bryan's monetary policy

    "If he were to die, I'd put sunglasses on him and prop him up like Weekend at Bernie's!"
    --- imitating John McCain's reliance on Alan Greenspan had McCain been elected president

    "Two nations I can spell!"
    --- after asking for the names of two countries and getting Uruguay as a suggestion

    "Let's jump him after class - he's got two bucks!"
    --- Jordan, to me, after Professor Witte took two singles out of his pocket for an example

(complete and not getting any completer as of 15 July 2002)