<P> In 1949, the phrase appeared in an article by Walter Morrow in the San Francisco News (published on 1 June) and in Pierre Dos Utt's monograph TANSTAAFL: A Plan for a New Economic World Order, which describes an oligarchic political system based on his conclusions from "no free lunch" principles . </P> <P> The 1938 and 1949 sources use the phrase in relating a fable about a king (Nebuchadnezzar in Dos Utt's retelling) seeking advice from his economic advisors . Morrow's retelling, which claims to derive from an earlier editorial reported to be non-existent, but closely follows the story as related in the earlier article in the El Paso Herald - Post, differs from Dos Utt's in that the ruler asks for ever - simplified advice following their original "eighty - seven volumes of six hundred pages" as opposed to a simple failure to agree on "any major remedy". The last surviving economist advises that "There ain't no such thing as free lunch ." </P> <P> In 1950, a New York Times columnist ascribed the phrase to economist (and army general) Leonard P. Ayres of the Cleveland Trust Company: "It seems that shortly before the General's death (in 1946)... a group of reporters approached the general with the request that perhaps he might give them one of several immutable economic truisms that he had gathered from his long years of economic study ...' It is an immutable economic fact,' said the general,' that there is no such thing as a free lunch ."' </P> <P> The September 8, 1961, issue of LIFE magazine has an editorial on page 4, "' TANSTAFL,' It's the Truth," that closes with an anecdotal farmer explaining this slight variant of TANSTAAFL . </P>

Who said no such thing as a free lunch