An Economist Out to Be SuedUniversity of...

An Economist Out to Be Sued

University of Texas economist Stephen Magee says a plague of lawyers has dampened America’s gross national product by at least 10%, or half a trillion dollars. He says each lawyer costs the U.S. economy an average of $1 million a year.

If he’s right, the problem is probably getting worse, because there are more lawyers all the time--about 724,000 in 1988.

Magee assessed the ratio of lawyers to white-collar workers in 34 countries and then correlated those findings to GNP growth. Countries with lower lawyer ratios--Japan, South Korea and Singapore--had high GNP growth. Countries with a higher ratio--the United States, Chile and India--had poorer GNP growth.

If the United States had an average ratio of lawyers, instead of among the highest, GNP would be 10% greater in 1985 than it actually was. Extrapolating conservatively to 1990, Magee says, that’s $500 billion.

Magee’s solution: Close the law schools.

“Every time you turn out one law school graduate, you’ve got a 40-year problem on your hands,” he says. “These guys run around and generate a lot of spurious conflict. They’re like heat-seeking missiles.”

Orlando? It’s Still a Toll Call

Amid a hard-hitting ad campaign to persuade consumers that it’s no Mickey Mouse operation, American Telephone & Telegraph Co. has reintroduced a product that might argue to the contrary.

That’s right. By popular demand, the Mickey Mouse phone is back.

Produced under license with Burbank-based Walt Disney Co., the phone updates an original that has become a collector’s item since AT&T; ceased production seven years ago.

Unlike the old phone, though, Mickey is not an integral part of this one. Instead, he poses optimistically--and, truth be told, decoratively--on a black base that holds a red AT&T; trimline phone.

The long-distance carrier, which has found itself in a furious competitive race since the breakup of the Bell system, says it is aiming Mickey at children and nostalgic adults. But he hits the market at a time when consumers with a sense of whimsy or a yen for the saccharine can already reach out and touch fuzzy bear phones or even a sneaker phone.