First of all, I'm not an economist. I recently discovered your forum and I wanted to share a story that I personally witnessed a few weeks ago. I'm originally from the east coast and was on a holiday with my family in San Diego. We stayed at the Embassy Suites which I understand now was a main hotel for some economics meeting or something of that sort. I always thought economics professors were the most traditional and calm human beings there are. What I saw completely changed my mind.
First, let me explain the hotel setup a bit for those who don't know. Embassy suites in San Diego is a complete waste of space hotel...but in a good way. All the rooms are placed in a rectangular pattern and form the outside walls of the hotel. In the middle of all this, there is a giant hole from the top to the very bottom where there are dining areas. From the bottom you look up and see the skies, from the corridors of each floor you look down and see the dining tables. There are also steel rails with flower pots on every floor.
We were having dinner with the family one evening and at a table next to us there were 3 economist who I think had a bit too much to drink that evening. They were a bit loud and were laughing amongst themselves. I didn't exactly pay attention at what they were talking but I remember one of them saying something about a referee. I think they were speaking about sports or something. Then another guy asked him "did you reject it?" and the first guy started to laugh uncontrollably saying something about destroying a career like that. The next thing I know is these guys jumping up from their table like crazy yelling things that cannot be reproduced here. All the people at the other tables turned around and these guys were all soaking wet in their Armani suits and cursing like crazy. What followed was a 2 hour dispute with the hotel manager where these guys were claiming that a maintenance guy spilled water on them from the upper floors. They claimed that it must've been the guy who waters the flowers, the hotel manager assured them that the flowers are watered by an automated system. Especially the guy who was laughing hard was all soaked and extremely pissed as you can imagine. He was demanding to see a manager, to look at the security tapes and find out who was responsible. We soon left as we didn't want the kids to hear all the words that were spoken between these economists and the hotel people. In the elevator we ran into a younger guy who had been obviously running or something. He was all red and sweaty but looked super happy at the same time. He was speaking with someone on the phone laughing and repeating the words "I did it bro, I did it!"
I'm not sure what to make of all this but maybe you guys know what I'm talking about. What do you guys make of all this?