When I go into town I often stop at Cafe Nero. Today someone left a tabloid paper behind on the table.

There was a cartoon with a crowd holding banners. One said “Save our Savouries”…

They’re making fun of David Cameron again.

That started me thinking. And remembering.

One day in Buenos Aires I found a second-hand copy of Samuelson’s Economics in a bookshop there and started to work through it. I had always been poor at math but the charts and graphs and figures fascinated me.

You tweak something in a complex abstract model and six weeks later the numbers change as people are “led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his (or her) intention”.

David Cameron and his finance minister, George Osborne, must have wanted more private spending. So they introduce tax cuts for rich and poor.

But this may take a while. So they find some “anomalies” in the tax system to fill the gap.

One of the “anomalies”, it seems, is that pastries reheated for sale as takeaways or in fast-food places do not incur a sales tax, unlike other takeaway items. They put a sales tax, on these.

This gets picked up in the tabloids. One calls it a “pasty tax”. (A Cornish pasty has a filling, is  wrapped in dough and then baked).

David Cameron is asked whether he likes pasties and where he last had one. He says Leeds Railway Station. But there is no seller there. They’ve caught him out. He just made it up.

In Argentina politics and economics is a morality play. Here it is generally accepted by most people that running an economy is just too complicated but they like to poke fun at their leaders. However, especially since the “expenses scandal” a few years back, they have become more cynical about them.

If things seem to be working they mainly tolerate them and give them little further thought.

From Samuelson I learned about Maynard Keynes and got a copy of The Economic Consequences of the Peace and realised what a great writer he was.

In fact he became one of my heroes. When I met Henry and found his dog was called Maynard, I knew we were going to be friends.