Krugman links to some donnish jokes about subprime-backed and commercial real-estate-backed securities.

“And The Lord Ben said, “Let there be helicopters!”
greenlander | 01.22.08 - 5:04 pm | #

"Helicopters? Try B-52s. Rolling Thunder II."
ugh | 01.22.08 - 5:13 pm | #

That's the whole joke. I read these remarks several times, looking for the ‘much needed comic relief’ which Krugman says they provide, but my sides remained unsplit. This is what happens if you spend all your life in universities. You start finding stuff like that funny.

Or maybe these economists fall about laughing every time someone says ‘helicopters’. I don’t know.

All comedy has the same deep structure, which is essentially a fat man falling over. If there is no fat man falling over, there is no comedy. And you, sir, are no fat man falling over.