{"id":3867,"date":"2010-12-27T16:06:37","date_gmt":"2010-12-27T16:06:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zmetro.com\/?p=3867"},"modified":"2010-12-27T16:06:37","modified_gmt":"2010-12-27T16:06:37","slug":"lessons_in_scro","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/?p=3867","title":{"rendered":"Lessons in Scroogenomics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Martin Wolf:<\/a><\/p>\n

Ebenezer Scrooge came into the room slowly. He was, to my surprise, much as Charles Dickens had described him. How, I wondered, could he have changed so little over 170 years? It must be the benefit of being a literary character, I decided.
\n“Good morning, Mr Scrooge,” I remarked politely. “I have come to interview you about your best-selling new book Scroogenomics – or How to Do Well out of Doing Good.”
\nScrooge smiled. “Yes,” he responded, “I had to show that Joel Waldfogel’s Scroogenomics, cleverly reviewed by your John Kay, merely portrayed my unenlightened self. But Dickens, albeit a talented writer, was just a sentimental fool. He never understood what my change over that Christmas was about. I learnt, above all, to appear benevolent. That, with my business acumen, turned Marley & Scrooge into a global enterprise. Fortunately, that philanthropy has become less painful, since my charities are tax deductible. What can be less painful for a miser than state-subsidised charity?”
\nI was shocked by his candour. He must have drunk too much at the book party earlier. After the abstinence described by Dickens, one drink would have a big effect.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Martin Wolf:<\/a><\/p>\n

Ebenezer Scrooge came into the room slowly. He was, to my surprise, much as Charles Dickens had described him. How, I wondered, could he have changed so little over 170 years? It must be the benefit of being a literary character, I decided.
\n“Good morning, Mr Scrooge,” I remarked politely. “I have come to interview you about your best-selling new book Scroogenomics – or How to Do Well out of Doing Good.”
\nScrooge smiled. “Yes,” he responded, “I had to show that Joel Waldfogel’s Scroogenomics, cleverly reviewed by your John Kay, merely portrayed my unenlightened self. But Dickens, albeit a talented writer, was just a sentimental fool. He never understood what my change over that Christmas was about. I learnt, above all, to appear benevolent. That, with my business acumen, turned Marley & Scrooge into a global enterprise. Fortunately, that philanthropy has become less painful, since my charities are tax deductible. What can be less painful for a miser than state-subsidised charity?”
\nI was shocked by his candour. He must have drunk too much at the book party earlier. After the abstinence described by Dickens, one drink would have a big effect.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,39,35,9,17],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3867"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3867"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3867\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}