Did my wife write this?
I knew I was in love when I allowed my future husband to use the word "heteroskedastic" as if it were a real word, even though real words don't have k's in the middle of them. But economists don't just make up words; they make up entire universes in which everything that they do can be perfectly rationalized.
During what one might call my beloved's gradual student years, he purchased an expensive stereo system, although his income at the time hardly covered the local phone bill. When I cried out accusations such as "blowing money you don't have," he calmly explained that the procurement of such an item is nothing more than "consumption smoothing," in which one purchases something unaffordable now with the security of knowing that shortly thereafter, in what might be called the professorial years, one would have the money to own that very stereo.
Yes, that article is definitely in my utility space. Via John Whitehead.