A Magician's Eye for Consumer Scams

Byadmin

dasani bottleOne of the themes running through Fooling Houdini that I like the most was the strong connection that Stone made between magic, con artistry, and even common business practices. Magicians have long been known for their ability to spot scams. After all, their profession is based on developing the ability to fool people. That is why Houdini, himself, spent much of the end of his career trying to debunk con artists. But as someone who teaches behavioral economics to business students, and in the process spends lots of time debating the ethics of exploiting consumer weakness, it was refreshing to see this passage from Stone’s book:

“Everywhere I looked, I saw rip-offs. Why do car rental agencies urge you to buy optional insurance when in most cases your own insurance, or credit card, covers any damage? Why does jock itch cream cost more than athlete’s foot medication, even though they’re the same thing? Is it because companies know they can charge a premium for a more embarrassing product? Why do Americans spend $8 billion each year on bottled water, when the two top-selling brands (Aquafina and Dasani) come from municipal sources? Why do so many investors buy mutual funds when most funds underperform the markets they’re supposed to one-up? (There are more funds than stocks. Think about that for a moment.)”
“Cruising down Interstate 15, I came upon a sign that read SPEED LIMIT 70 MPH ENFORCED BY AIRCRAFT and wondered if that, too, was a scam .”

Hard not to be a skeptic once you understand how easy it is to dupe people.

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    Jon Meacham’s best-selling biography, Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power, is at best a solid read, presenting the basic facts of Jefferson’s life competently but with little grace and an almost invisible point of view. Perhaps I have been spoiled by Robert Caro’s amazing series of books on Lyndon Johnson, four volumes so far that not only make Johnson come to life (his ruthless genius as well as his fascinating contradictions) but also illuminate a whole era in U.S. history, all the while enveloping readers in gloriously rhythmic paragraphs. It is not fair, perhaps, to compare any biographer to Caro. Meacham’s book, after all, is just a single volume, so it cannot explore Jefferson in the same depth that Caro portrays Johnson. Meacham also had the disadvantage of writing about a man who lived a couple hundred years ago, whereas Caro could interview people who knew the subject of his biography firsthand. In addition, Meacham is a busy man, running a publishing company and appearing on television shows, whereas Caro lives the life of an obsessive, dedicating the better part of his adult life to understanding the ins and outs of Johnson’s life.
    Nevertheless, if you are going to write a book about an American president and subtitle it “The Art of Power,” you better expect some Caro comparisons.
    As it turns out, however, being compared to Caro is the least of Meacham’s writerly problems. Because there is another great writer that readers won’t be able to ignore when making their way through Meacham’s book. That writer, of course, is Thomas Jefferson.
    I’m going to give you a sprinkling of Jefferson’s prose in a bit, and follow-up later this week with several other great Jefferson quotes. But first, a little bit more on Meacham’s book. I was really disappointed, because in Meacham’s hands, Jefferson rarely comes alive on the page. Time passes by and suddenly the reader realizes: “Jefferson just became governor of Virginia? Was that something he was trying to accomplish? Which of the arts of power did he employ to reach that position?” Meacham never provides answers to these kinds of questions.

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