Mistakes Were Made

Dear readers, At one time in my early academic life (high school and early college years), I sort of dabbled around with the idea of going to medical school and becoming a doctor of medicine. Am I ever glad I didn’t do that. When doctors of medicine make mistakes, people’s very lives can be endangered or tragically ended. thankfully, for PhD’s (doctors of philosophy in economics or other social science fields) the only danger is to people’s beliefs, values, or practices, although the latter could entail their management of money, I concede.

In any case, if you were reading my column last time on recapitalizations in banking, you perhaps caught my gigantic booboo when I said interest rates would soon be going back up and balance sheets of the banks in question would perhaps look fine again after a couple of years of interest rate increases. of course, I meant to say that interest rates are heading back down again, and that the balance sheets would be improved by a couple of years of interest rate decreases.

God forbid anyone took that as a basis for making financial decisions, please. I am mortified, for I must have read that column draft at least ten times before I sent it in, discussed it with at least three other people (whose careful reading and thoughtful critiques I deeply respect), and then submitted it to the editor, who I know read it as well. None of us caught that mistake. good thing no one’s life was riding on that statement, huh? [At least I hope not.] Like I concluded in that column last week, we all need forgiveness for mistakes, and I am at the front of that line of needy folks. I remember how gleeful my students were when they caught me labeling the IS/LM curves backwards in a macro-economics theory class; or how thrilled the entire class was when I had to throw out an exam question and give everyone five extra points because I set up the scenario completely wrong, so the question I asked on the test made no sense whatsoever. I also recall how exciting it was to find a mistake on an answer key when I was the senior student grader for general chemistry exams for the college’s chemistry department, or when I could correct an error of verb tense or spelling in a draft of a letter of recommendation I was typing for another professor.

Kudos to everyone who contacted Mr. Wick to point out my error. I wish the Record were running a big $100/week prize for finding the most errors in my columns, besides the football pickthe- winners game. And if you found my error then, and want to sign up as another one of my proof-readers for future columns, please let Mr. Wick know, all right? Just remember, everyone who reads the column beforehand and misses the error(s) is still likely to make mistakes, no matter how many mistakes we’ve made in the past: there’s no maximum we reach, and it might even get worse and more frequent with age, I fear.

Happy reading, dear friends, but just remember not to believe every single thing you read [maybe especially if it’s on the internet or social media, but certainly if it’s in the Fayette County Record, in my column.]