At a PR lunch in the States an editor told me how much she liked the articles I had been writing for her.

The conversation turned to racial and national stereotypes and I said there was a reason for the Canadian myth that Newfoundlanders are stupid.

I was going to tell her about traditional Newfoundland humor, in which the person who tells the joke is always the butt. In most North American humor the joker tries to make someone else look stupid but in Newfoundland -- in the old days, at least -- that would be considered bad manners. In Newfoundland humor, the humorist pretends to be stupid.

I saw one classic exchange of wit while I was helping a friend change a flat tire. A couple of local fishermen stopped to watch.

One said we didn't have to change the tire. Couldn't we see that it was only flat on the bottom? Instead of changing it we could just turn it half way round, and ride on the part that was not flat.

The other said that wouldn't work because the tire would just roll down to the flat side again. Besides turning the tire, he said, we would have to jam the wheel so it couldn't turn while we drove. He said we should drive wedges between the brake and the brake drum to stop the wheel from turning.

The first fisherman didn't think that would be enough. If you want to stop a wheel from turning, he said, the best way is to drive nails through the brake drum and into the brakes.

My friend joined in with the joke, asking the fishermen's advice on what size nails to use and so forth. It was a hilarious exchange of outrageously stupid ideas, all offered completely dead-pan and accepted as though they were serious.

I was going to tell the American editor about this and suggest that other national stereotypes might also be based on misconceptions, but I didn't get the chance. When I suggested that there might be a reason for the myth that Newfoundlanders are stupid she left the table. She hasn't talked to me since and she froze me out of the magazine she worked for then, and another that she moved to later.

As I spoke she was listening ahead and guessing what I was going to say. When her guess about what I was going to say conflicted with her fine-honed sense of political correctness she walked out, and she never did find out what I was talking about.

Another time an Ottawa businessman was reacting to a book I had written, and that he said he had read.

"I can see where you're coming from," he said. "You're a socialist."

The book included several examples of mistakes and double crosses by government and it advised small businessmen not to accept either advice or help from government. In fact my position was far to the right of the businessman but, because it was not his position and he was not a socialist, he assumed that I had to be a socialist. Because he assumed that I was a socialist he thought my book -- which was about as far from socialism as you can get -- was a socialist tract.

As John Stuart Mill said in A System of Logic, "the greatest of all causes of non-observation is a preconceived opinion."

This book contains some different ideas but they are neither right, left nor center. If I thought any established view of economics was valid I would not have bothered to write mine. If you have an argument against my ideas I'd like to hear it, but please try to understand my ideas before you decide why they are wrong.

I've never met economist Robert Heilbronner but I owe him thanks because his book The Worldly Philosophers sparked my interest in economics. I've also been awed and inspired by the writing and thoughts of Jane Jacobs, James Burke, Desmond Morris and John Kenneth Galbraith. I never met them either but, by writing books and/or hosting TV series that I found informative and fascinating, they all contributed to this book.

I have met Professors Anatole Rapoporte and Richard Hummel, both retired from the University of Toronto, and to David Smith of Toronto. They all helped shape this book and another that is now in the works.

I owe thanks to my brother Don Turnbull, who read earlier versions of the manuscript for this book and to Caroline Andrews, who put up with me while I wrote it, and to Rob Alexander who designed and set the type. They didn't agree with all the ideas, but their criticisms helped shape the final result.

I owe thanks to Peggi Warner-Lalonde, former editor of MC2, who ran most of my first assault on economics as a serial. Criticisms of that serial helped to develop The Cassandra Papers into The Numbers Game.

I guess I owe apologies to some members of Toronto Mensa who have been dragged into discussions and arguments they would rather have avoided.

I offer thanks to some publishers and pr people who helped with advice and information, but I won't name them because some might not want to be associated with the use I made of their help.

And I thank author Terry Pratchett, who writes about the only truly rational world in the known universe. He does not tell his readers much about economics, but his work does give you a sense of proportion.


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