What Homer Wanted

Tyler Cowen discovers the express 7-11. He brings to mind the immortal words of Homer Simpson:

Isn't there anything faster than a microwave?

You're No Sancho Panza

It’s movie-marketing time, so no real surprise that the (London) Times has a profile up of the world’s favorite cartoon character, Homer Simpson (link). It’s fun in its way, but it has the stink of deadline pressure about it. Either that or the author has never read any one of the great books he cites in his lede. How else to explain a howler like this:

He has a distinguished ancestry. There was Shakespeare’s fat, lying but ultimately fabulous drunkard Sir John Falstaff. There was Sancho Panza, another fat, worldly character, the foil to Cervantes’s crazed Don Quixote. And there was Wilkins Micawber, the hopeless but hopeful spendthrift in Dickens’s David Copperfield. Every age needs its great, consoling failure, its lovable, pretension-free mediocrity. And we have ours in Homer Simpson, the greatest comic creation of our time.

Okay, fat funnymen. I guess, but in every case, I would say that the differences are far more interesting than the similarities. Falstaff, for starters is far wilier and far nastier than Homer—and ends, in a kind of tragedy which Homer, so far, has entirely avoided. Sancho, except for the paunch (=panza?) is unlike him in almost every way. Indeed Homer’s guileless good sense is far closer to Sancho’s companion, the Don, than anything in the squat sidekick. Micawber may be closer—“loveable” enough, but certainly not “pretension-free.” And Micawber is wittier and more imaginative, and for most of his career, far more of a calamity to those so unfortunate to depend upon him.

I suppose you could put together a compare-and-contrast chart here, but it would be pretty complex. Crafty: Sancho and Falstaff, but not Micawber and certainly not Homer. Saintly idiots: Homer and Micawber (and Don Quixote?) but not Sancho or Falstaff. Pungent wit: Falstaff and Micawber and Sancho but not Homer. I think I’m talkin’ “dissertation” here, but certainly not something you can blow off in 322 words (word count: 322).

Hoisted from the Comments: TigerHawk on the 50s

TigerHawk, offering a comment on my Bill Bradley post, recalls a rule of political thumb:

"Republicans want to go home in the 1950s, and Democrats want to work there."

Within the limits of the genre, that strikes me as fair comment. The 50s were the one decade in human history when someone as dumb as Homer Simpson could support three kids in a detached home with garage. And it worked through a grand conspiracy in restraint of trade: closed markets allowed managers and labor to capture and divvy out economic rents, while we all drove crap cars.

But then it gets more complicated. Seems to me one reason for the Goldwater Revolution of the 60s was southern/western resentment against the Northeastern Establishmen t, and in particular, against unresponsive capital markets and the high costs of imports. Establishment candidates like Nelson Rockefeller and Bill Scranton were happy to play along with the dirigiste consensus. How it must have blown Goldwater’s gasket to see Henry Ford and Walter Reuther on the podium together in opposition against him.

And Speaking of Investor Discipline

Managers and investors are natural enemies. Investors want high returns. Managers want backdated options and gold keys to the washroom.

I've long thought my favorite bit of investor discipline is Episode 15, Season 2 of The Simpsons, "Oh Brother Where Art Thou?" That's the one where Homer finds his long-lost half-brother, Herb Powell (who sounds suspiciously like Danny DeVito). Herb is deep in megabucks as the president of Powell Motors. Stunned and smitten by his newly-discovered family, Herb turns to Homer for advice on designing his new model called, appropraitely enough "The Homer."

Of Course it is a disaster. Herb loses everything and is last seen boarding the bus with, if memory serves me rightly, a cardboard suitcase. "His life was an unbridled success," laments Lisa, "until he found out he was a Simpson."

Now, that was my idea of investor discipline. Until this. Hat tip: Tyler Cowen.