Dr. Harold Pemberton-Voss

Professor of Economics · The University of Chicago · Hyde Park, Chicago, Illinois

EN · EndangeredThreat score 0.4 / 100Basis: SINGLE UTTERANCE

CONFIRMED

Evidentiary basis

A 2011 op-ed arguing that eleven contested parking spaces should be allocated by price rather than by seniority. The subject has never, in thirty-five years of observation, used the word "conservative" of himself or of anyone else.

SINGLE UTTERANCE — One statement on file. Undisputed. Also the only one.

In the subject’s own words

None on file. Asked at a 2004 panel to place himself politically, the subject said "I am an economist" and moved on to the next question.

On the criteria published in the Methodology, this confirmation does not stand. The criteria are under review.

Field record

Discipline: Economics. Price theory, monetary history, and a seminar on the allocation of scarce goods that has run for thirty-one years.
Habitat: A fourth-floor office with a radiator he is known to prefer. The Hyde Park field office is four hundred metres away and predates his confirmation by seventeen years.
Range: Campus, a diner on 57th Street, and one conference in Arlington, Virginia, in 2004.
Status: Tenured. Emeritus track. Has declined emeritus status twice, in writing.
Pattern of life: Arrives 7:40. Office hours Monday and Wednesday, attended by no one since 2019. Departs 4:15.
Identifying marks: Bow tie, always. A briefcase repaired with tape. Refers to the library as "the stacks."
Call: "Well, now — that depends what you mean by efficient."
Diet: Faculty dining hall. Egg salad on Tuesdays, without variation for thirty-seven years.
Known associates: One colleague in Mathematics, deceased 2021, not replaced. Eleven co-authors, all cleared.
Capabilities: One op-ed in a neighbourhood paper, 2011, regarding parking. Cited zero times.
Intent: Assessed as "to be left alone." The assessment has not been revised since 1993.
Signature: Laissez-faire, high confidence. Conservative, disputed.
Reproductive success: None. No known conservative offspring in thirty-seven years of teaching. 4,180 students taught; 4,180 accounted for.

Subject 0001 has been under observation for thirty-five years, longer than anyone else in the monitored population, and in that time has said one thing. It concerned eleven parking spaces behind a university building. His position was that they should go to whoever would pay most for them.

A review of the confirmation was convened in 2021 and adjourned without a finding. A second review was convened in 2024 to review the first. Its report observes that the subject is seventy-one.

He has been asked for comment twice, by journalists. On both occasions he replied that he had a class.

Surveillance log

1991-05-08	Confirmed. Basis recorded as an op-ed the subject had not yet written. It was published in 2011.
2011-04-02	Op-ed published, regarding parking. Copy obtained. Filed under Evidentiary Basis, retroactively.
2019-10-08 15:12	Office hours. No attendees. Subject read for two hours. Title of book not established from the corridor.
2021-02-11	Confirmation flagged for review against the published criteria. Adjourned without finding.
2024-03-19 12:04	Faculty dining hall. Egg salad. Consistent with pattern of life.
2026-06-30	National population declined to four (see Subject 0005). No change to subject’s posture. No change expected.

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