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Q: Why did God create economists?
A: In order to make weather forecasters look good.

An experienced economist and a novice economist are walking down the road. They come across a pile of dog shit lying on the asphalt. The experienced economist says to the novice, "If you eat it I'll give you $20,000!" The novice economist runs his optimization problem and figures out he's better off eating the shit so he does and collects money.
Continuing along the same road they almost step into yet another pile of dog shit. The novice economist says to his friend, "Now, if you eat this pile of shit I'll give you $20,000."
After evaluating the proposal, the experienced economist eats the dog shit and collects the money.

They continue on. The novice economist starts thinking and finally says to his friend, "Listen, we both have the same amount of money we had before, but we both ate shit. I don't see us being better off."

The experienced economist answers, "Well, that's true, but you overlooked the fact that we've been just involved in $40,000 of trade."