Kenny Malone

And you are Professor Goodhart of Goodhart's Law.

I am indeed.

Do you proudly wear that moniker?

Slightly mixed feelings.

Mm-hmm.

And about 50 years ago, Charles Goodhart wrote a paper about monetary policy that included in the introduction a fateful little line.

Okay, hard to understand.

But he was making a very narrow point about how measuring one tiny slice of the economy seems to mess up that slice of the economy.

For example, once you target a measure, it ceases to be a good measure, I think is one of them.

Hospitals started kind of gaming the statistics.

And one of the most outrageous examples was this practice where patients would be asked to wait inside an ambulance until the hospital was absolutely sure that patient could be seen within the four-hour time limit.

Then the patient came in.

When you first introduced Goodhart's Law, you had a very specific application.

That's correct.

This is not exactly the same.

How do you feel about these broader formulations?

And so, Sarah, I feel like we should introduce a corollary to Goodhart's Law here.

If you decide to name a law, it will become a law, and you may not like what it does to your legacy.

Hello, hello, Check One Two, Kenny Malone here, walking up to the desk of Sarah Gonzalez.

OK, so it's like what?