The Wall Street Journal: Barry Ritholtz at The Big Picture riffs today on how meaningless he finds the National Retail Federation surveys of how much consumers expect to spend at holiday time. His table of year-over-year changes in expected vs. actual spending is an eye-opener. The same phenomenon has been More
International Business Times: The Stanford marshmallow delayed gratification test is one of the most influential behavior studies in modern history. Conducted by Stanford psychologist Walter Mischel in 1972, it has proven to be a solid predicator of success in life and is used by elite preschools to screen their young More
Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahnman pioneered the study of behavioral economics, making note of some bizarre disparities between how different elements of the human brain process emotions. This lecture focuses mainly on the “cognitive traps” the mind sets for itself — a phenomenon most people never even realize in their lifetimes. More
WIRED: Inequality is inevitable; life is a bell curve. Such are the brute facts of biology, which can only evolve because some living things are better at reproducing than others. But not all inequality is created equal. In recent years, it’s become clear that many kinds of wealth disparity are More
Süddeutsche Zeitung: Staaten sind von der Pleite bedroht, Banken stehen nach nur drei Jahren vor der nächsten Rettungsaktion durch die resignierenden Steuerzahler – aber die Boni fließen weiterhin, vor allem die für Banker, die mit ihren Derivate- und sonstigen Wettgeschäften unbehelligt wie eh und je vor allem ihre eigenen Taschen More
LiveScience: Protesters in the Occupy Wall Street movement, which began in New York City’s financial district and has since spread to hundreds of cities around the country, call themselves “the 99 percent”: They say they’re protesting on behalf of all but the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans. The protesters object More
