"In 1949, Phillips actually built a sort of Rube Goldberg machine in his garage, with water flowing back and forth between different tubs and chambers. He said it was a model of the British economy."
"Phillips showed how water flowed from the Treasury tank to chambers representing health and education as the government spent money and then got pumped back to the Treasury more or less rapidly as you pulled a lever to tweak the taxation rate."
"His obsession was figuring out how to make life in a market economy less chaotic. Economic history is a story of booms and busts. Bubbles and bursts."
Bill Phillips, a New Zealand-born economist, created a unique model of the British economy using a Rube Goldberg machine in 1949. This model demonstrated the flow of government spending and taxation. Initially ridiculed at the London School of Economics, Phillips eventually impressed the staff with his insights, leading to a job offer. His work focused on understanding economic cycles and reducing chaos in market economies, contributing to the development of the Phillips Curve, which remains influential in economic discussions today.
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