A Highly Deplorable, Imaginary Conversation Between
Famous Economists
The following purports to be a secretly recorded conversation between three of the most famous and outspoken economists on the issue of Third World aid.
NOTE: These economists are real.
However, being "imaginary," there is at least a statistical possibility the following conversation did not actually take place.
INTRODUCING: THE SIDES
PRO-AID
(aka "Show them the money!")
 Jeffrey Sachs: Bono-buddy. Harvard prof. Wrote bestselling The End of Poverty, which calls for customized aid for ailing economies. Twice-named one of TIME Magazine's "100 Most Influential People in the World."
ANTI-AID
(aka "Toss 'em to the markets and let God sort 'em out!")
 William Easterly: NYU prof. Wrote charmingly-named books like The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good. Many other high-profile resume points to wow you. (Not related to Walter Becker of Steely Dan.)
 Dambisa Moyo: Newcomer with a bullet, wrote last year's controversial, bestselling Dead Aid. One of TIME's "100 Most Influential People" of 2009. On Oprah's "Power List of 20 Remarkable Visionaries" (comes with complimentary engraved power cuff). Zambian-born, Oxford grad, Ph.D., etc.
THE CONVERSATION
 Bill: But wait, my book's not a bestseller yet. Shouldn't we wait?
Jeff: I don't know. Bono's giving me a hard time about it all. He does have a point about the poor being the most important issue here. He's not as dumb as he looks, you know.
Bill: Who said he looked dumb? It's not a bad look. Anyway, of course we care about the poor.
 Dambisa: But won't the public be confused when we announce we've been talking in circles for essentially no reason?
 Jeff: A lot of people are going to feel betrayed.
Bill: Yes, but most people don't even know who we are. In the words of Bill Murray in Caddyshack, we've got that going for us, which is nice. And the few people who do care only read the books representing the side they think they're on. So that's a 50% reduction in confusion right there.
Dambisa (takes out huge Texas Instruments TI-89 Titanium Graphing Calculator): Have you checked the math on that? Because I think that's still a hundred-percent confusion, from a different statistical base. If we divide the index into quartiles ....
Jeff: See, that's exactly the kind of talk we need to stay away from. We need to focus more on pithy remarks. Like in Dead Aid, when you said Live Aid had "turned public discourse into a disco."
Bill: That was good.
Jeff: Exactly. Or Bill, when you said I'd been spending more time studying the economic thinking of Salma Hayek than [Austrian economist] Friedrich von Hayek.
Bill: Thanks, Jeff. [frustrated silence] Darn it, Jeff. You're the one who got us into this mess. The public is hopeless anyway. Everyone knows they don't care about anything that's not related to the Jolie-Aniston debacle.
Dambisa: But Oprah told me they've both been animatronic since the late-'90s anyway.
Bill: Oh who cares. None of them were ever in love to begin with. Just in celebrity "love-hate" love. Darn it, who am I kidding. I started it. I should never have written that bitchy review of The End of Poverty in The Washington Post.
Jeff: Don't be too hard on yourself, Bill. You're a good writer. And you did a good job going out of your way to hide that we actually agree on most points: microfinance, free trade, piecemeal reforms, evaluation, accountability. The same basic things you believe in, Dambisa.
Bill: I know, and she really caused a stir by calling her book Dead Aid. I mean, the book does mention "aid" only means government-to-government loans and grants, and not emergency and charity aid. But still, that kind of ambiguity is like money in the bank, in terms of getting a buzz going.
Dambisa: Also, the money bank!
Jeff: But that's what I've been trying to explain, Bill. Getting people's attention is what gets people talking. Like calling a book Dead Aid, or getting guys like Bono on board, or writing an over-reactionary review in The Washington Post. We've all got careers to think of, here.
Dambisa: Well since we agree the actual poor are the most important aspect of all this, when are we going to go public that we've been agreeing to disagree, and get together and hammer out a plan? I mean, we see eye-to-eye on most basic stuff anyway. Together, we might be able to get something done. Heck, Bill, you know how I feel about governments footing the cost, but you yourself said our amount of foreign aid is "pathetic" anyway: about a 10th of a penny for every buck of U.S. income. That's a 5,000th of what the average teen spends at Hot Topic on a Monday. I mean, it's not like we can't afford it, if we can establish a plan for investing in the countries' markets responsibly, without creating an aid bureaucracy, bypassing foreign federal governments, and combining it with market reforms we all support anyway. I mean, we're talking work. But certainly not impossible. So who's with me?
Bill (sheepishly): We have done a good job of pretending our ideas are mutually exclusive.
Jeff: Sounds like a plan. But let's give it another week. Put it through the old brain grinder. In the meantime, I have to go pick up that Medal of Recognition from the Sultan of Brunei. And Bill still needs to finish that addition to his deck. A few more book sales wouldn't hurt. Am I right, Bill?
Bill (looking hangdog): I am tired of all the lies.
Dambisa: Don't forget my appearance on the new revamped Dr. Phil. The paperback of Dead Aid is coming out in March 2010. What am I going to say, if I don't have someone high-profile to contradict?
Jeff: Now that's the spirit! You see how great Bono's been for you? And you've never even thanked him. By the way, did you know he goes to sleep at night with a stuffed toy of himself? No, I kid, I kid. He's a great guy. Works so hard. His schedule makes our book tours seem like a walk to the 7-11 for Ben & Jerry's.
Dambisa: Wow, it feels so good to finally get this out in the open. It's like a dream.
Bill: Or like some jackass is making it all up.
Jeff: It doesn't matter. Let's just get out there and have one final, rousing week of sell, sell sell. Then we'll let everyone know we're on the same team, and hammer out a plan.
[all cheer]
Dambisa: Go team!
Bill: Let's just not forget our promise.
Dambisa: Don't worry, Bill. To quote Lost, we're the good guys!
Jeff: I'm confident we'll create an actual level of discourse, eventually.
Paul Avion has written for Publishers Weekly, including advance reviews of Sideways and A Sunday at the Pool in Kigale (about the Rwandan genocide). His father is Austrian-school economist Franklin López Buenaño, who wrote Por Qué y Cómo Dolizar, about the dollarization of Ecuador.
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