MODERATOR: Tonight, our guest: Thomas Sargent, Nobel laureate in economics and one of the most-cited economists in the world. Professor Sargent, can you tell me what CD rates will be in two years? SARGENT: No. And that’s it. As the Ally announcer points out, “If he can’t, no one can”—thus the need for an adjustable-rate CD. The ad is a work of comic genius. Why? Because Sargent, in giving the only correct answer to a virtually unanswerable question, shows how absurd it is that so many of us routinely fail to do
