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How Bankers Use Other People’s Money
ByadminI came across an interesting quote in the New Yorker recently, reflecting on the US banking system. It reads: The power and the growth of power of our financial oligarchs comes from wielding the savings and credit capital of others. The fetters which bind the people are forged from the people’s own gold. Pretty timely thoughts,…
What is depression treatment worth?
ByadminHere is a news story on a new study I collaborated on with Dylan Smith, which shows that even when people realize how terribly awful it can be to suffer from depression, they don’t want to spend much money on treatments that would rid them of depression. A strange and disturbing finding!
More….Great Writing from Charles C. Mann in the Atlantic Monthly
ByadminFollowers of this blog, and I mean both of you, know by now that I am a fan of getting the word out about good writing. Here’s a nice example from the May issue of the Atlantic Monthly. It is from the cover article, titled “We Will Never Run Out Of Oil.” The whole article…
The Availability Heuristic
ByadminAs someone who has been working in the field of behavioral economics for a couple decades now, I have long been aware of what psychologists call “the availability heuristic.” This was a phenomenon described by Kahneman and Tversky in some of their seminal research from the early 1970s. I recently came across a nice example…
DOCTOR FILES: When the Unknown Is Not So Bad
Byadmin“DOCTOR FILES: When the Unknown Is Not So Bad” – Los Angeles Times
Is The Golden Era of Pharmaceutical Profits Over?
ByadminFor decades, the pharmaceutical industry has been highly profitable. The recipe for such profits has been pretty simple for most of the last half-century–discover a chemical or molecule that treats a common problem, like hypertension or diabetes or erectile dysfunction, and make billions of dollars while that product is still under patent protection. But of…

