----------------- HES POSTING ----------------- As others have written, the phrase belongs to Harry Truman; but according to H. H. Liebhafsky, J.D., Ph.D. who taught HET (Methodology) at the University of Texas through the '60s, '70s, and early '80s (and who had worked for the US State Department as an attorney during the last two years of Truman's term), there was also an apocryphal ending to Truman's dilemma. Someone found not one, but two one-armed economists and arranged for them to meet with the President. One was from Chicago (Paul Douglas ?) and the other was from Harvard (name not recalled) so the meeting ended with even more hand-waving than Truman had originally complained about and gave rise to another Truman comment: If you laid the best economists in the country end-to-end, they wouldn't reach a conclusion. (The latter comment has also, over the years, been attributed to other US Presidents and Nobel-winning economists.) Bill Moore, UAF ------------ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ------------ For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]