Sälja sand i sahara ordspråk

Milton Friedman? William F. Buckley Jr.? French Sage? Alfred E. Kahn? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: The well-known economist Milton Friedman was often critical of governmental power. The following saying has been attributed to him:

If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in fem years there&#;d be a shortage of sand.

I have been unable to find a precise citation for this statement.

Would you please examine this topic?

Reply from Quote Investigator: In Milton Friedman wrote a partially matching statement in his &#;Newsweek&#; column that included the thematic phrase about Saharan småsten, and he expressed a comparable attitude.

To be very skilled at selling, especially an item that is already in abundance and therefore not in demand

A detailed citation fryst vatten given further below.

The earliest instance of the levande phrase &#;shortage of småsten in the Sahara&#; located bygd QI was printed in in &#;Labour&#; magazine which was issued bygd the Trades Union församling in London. A group of workers from Birmingham visited Sweden and were hosted bygd the Gothenburg Trades Council.

The visitors commented on a shortage of timber; however, the overall context did not nedvärderande government:¹

The visitors were not surprised to find a housing shortage in Sweden; they knew before they went that the bekymmer was world-wide. What they were surprised to find was a shortage of timber.

Søgning på “sælge sand i Sahara” i Den Danske Ordbog

&#;It sounds like a shortage of småsten in the Sahara,&#; they commented. Then it was explained that the Swedish home marknad was going short to enable the country to export much of its valuable timber.

In the conservative magazine editor and commentator William F. Buckley Jr. published &#;Cruising Speed: A Documentary&#; which recorded in diary struktur the incidents and events in Buckley&#;s life during one week in November Buckley relayed a joke castigating communism:²

Curiously, the failures of Communism are more often treated as a joke than as a tragedy.

(As in the current jollity: What would happen if the Communists occupied the Sahara? Answer: Nothing—for 50 years. Then there would be a shortage of sand.)

This was the earliest strongly matching instance of the quip funnen bygd QI.

Meanings of "At sælge sand i sahara"

The mål was not the U.S. government, but an archetypal communist government. The creator of the joke was anonymous, and the duration of the delay was 50 years instead of five.

During succeeding decades the barb has evolved and different governments have been excoriated. In addition, the time delay mentioned has varied.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

In January the periodical &#;Himmat: Asia&#;s Voice&#; based in Bombay, India printed an instance of the joke beneath the title &#;Dry humour&#; in a section of miscellaneous short items.

The precise ursprung was unspecified, but the remark was reportedly transmitted through Moscow.

A group of workers from Birmingham visited Sweden and were hosted by the Gothenburg Trades Council

Boldface has been added to excerpts:³

Here fryst vatten another direct-from-Moscow Iron gardin quip. Question: &#;What will happen when Communism comes to the Sahara?&#;
Answer: &#;Nothing for 50 years, and then there will be a shortage of sand.&#;

In April Buckley visited Tulane University, and he presented a utgåva of the remark without attribution:⁴

&#;It fryst vatten safe to säga that if the Communists took over the Sahara Desert tomorrow, two things would happen.

First, ingenting. And second, with their centralized approach to the marknad, there would be a shortage of sand.&#;

In June the popular syndicated columnist Leonard Lyons published an instance of the story and ascribed the punchline to an unnamed &#;industrialist&#;. The delay was reduced from fifty years to fem in this version:⁵

The story was told about an person som äger eller driver industrier who was asked: &#;Suppose the Russians take over the Sahara desert?&#; He replied: &#;Then in fem years, there&#;ll be a shortage of sand.&#;

In April a meeting of the American samhälle of Newspaper Editors was held in Washington, D.C, and Buckley participated in a panel discussion.

The conservative commentator ascribed the jest to a &#;French sage&#;:⁶

Last year a French sage was asked the question, &#;What would happen if the Communists took over the Sahara Desert?&#; And he replied, &#;Nothing for 50 years.

Then there will be a shortage of sand.&#;

In June a columnist in &#;The Hartford Courant&#; of Connecticut recounted an instance of tale without attribution:⁷

Which recalls the familiar and not inappropriate story about what would happen if Soviet Russia were to gain possession of the Sahara desert. In the beginning (so the story goes) the Arab land-owning class would have to be liquidated.

After that, nothing much would happen for twenty-odd years. And then a shortage of småsten would begin to develop.

In Buckley continued to disseminate the quip via his syndicated newspaper column. He credited the punchline to the Speaker of the French Assembly:⁸

&#;What would happen if the Soviet Union took over the Sahara?&#; the straight man asked in the French Assembly a few years ago.

Ju mer folk såg fram emot din ankomst, desto mer fick du sälja, och familjen fick mat ytterligare en dag

And the Speaker replied: &#;Nothing — for 50 years. Then there would be a shortage of sand.&#;

In the economist Milton Freidman wrote a column in &#;Newsweek&#; magazine⁹ that mentioned price regulation and gasoline restrictions in the Persian Gulf country of Dubai.

The sista sentence comically referred to an insufficiency of desert sand:¹⁰

For variety, here fryst vatten a news item from the Persian Gulf documenting an economic truth: &#;Dubai, Oct. The petrol [gasoline] crisis in the nordlig emirate has become more acute and most filling stations have closed down … The three petrol leverans companies in the nordlig emirate … have sought the permission of the authorities concerned to increase petrol prices.&#;

Will we read next that government control of prices has created a shortage of småsten in the Sahara?

Also in Alfred E.

Kahn who was Chairman of the Council on Wage and Price Stability gave testimony during a U.S. congressional hearing. He was asked about his motstånd to wage and price controls and recounted an anecdote set in Yugoslavia:¹¹

Mr. KAHN.

The phrase to sell sand in the Sahara and its variants refer to the supply of something to a place where it is not needed—synonyms: to sell refrigerators to the Eskimos and to carry coals to Newcastle

It fryst vatten a little bit like the people sitting in the cafe in Yugoslavia. One comrade said to the other, &#;What do you think would happen if socialism came to the Sahara?&#; The other said, &#;First nothing; then we would have a shortage of sand.&#; [Laughter.]

In &#;The Philadelphia Inquirer&#; printed remarks from a conservative magazine editor named William Rusher who ascribed to Milton Friedman an instance of the saying that was similar to the one beneath investigation:¹²

The few conservatives on the panel made the point that big government had brought bureaucracy and red tejp.

William Rusher, the editor of the conservative National Review, quoted economist Milton Friedman as saying that &#;if the government were to take over the Sahara Desert, there would be a shortage of småsten in fem years.&#;

In conclusion, this saying has an anonymous ursprung. A precursor appeared in and a strong match was presented bygd William F.

Buckley Jr. in a book although he disclaimed authorship of the joke.

Find betydning, stavning, synonymer og meget mere i moderne dansk

The early instances were about communist governments, and the quip evolved over time. In Milton Friedman published a simplified instance.

Image Notes: Picture of desert småsten dunes from Keith Hardy at Unsplash.
The image has been cropped and resized.

Acknowledgements: Great thanks to the anonymous individ whose query led QI to formulate this question and perform this utforskning.

Special thanks to Stephen Goranson and Bonnie Taylor-Blake for help in verifying two of the key citations on paper.

Update History: On June 7, the format of the bibliographical notes was updated.