Economics
The Law of Lightbulbs
Economics / Law / Politics / Psychology / Technology

The Law of Lightbulbs

by Michael Sansbury on May 2, 2013 • 3 Comments

Andrew Sullivan alerted his readers to a new study whose results should come as no surprise to readers of this blog. The study came from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and was picked up by grist.org. Here is how grist.org described the study:

With a fixed amount of money in their wallet, respondents had to “buy” either an old-school lightbulb or an efficient compact florescent bulb (CFL) . . . . Both bulbs were labeled with basic hard data on their energy use, but without a translation of that into climate pros and cons. When the bulbs cost…

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Lunatic Faith, Computer Digits, & the Myth of Money
America / Bible / Books / Economics / Everyday / Money / Radio

Lunatic Faith, Computer Digits, & the Myth of Money

by jason redcay on Jan 15, 2013 • No Comments

This American Life and Planet Money recently produced an episode titled “The Invention of Money.” You can listen to it here.

The story places the concept of money into the framework of faith, mainly due to the fact that money is no longer a physical object with tangible value like gold. Instead, it is fiction, myth, a number generated on a computer, passing through the internet. With just the push of a button, we’ve got the genesis of currency; something they call in the story “Opening the Fed Window.” The only way this money-myth has value is if people have faith…

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The Perils of Bait-and-Switch: or Why do WWII Veterans Still Hate the Red Cross?
Economics / Radio / Theology

The Perils of Bait-and-Switch: or Why do WWII Veterans Still Hate the Red Cross?

by Todd Brewer on Jul 20, 2012 • 8 Comments

Last week’s Planet Money Podcast unknowingly stumbled upon a Law-Gospel goldmine! Exploring the economic dynamics of “free” (see also here!), the podcast specifically looks at what happens when something that was free is now no longer free. What happens when you charge money for something that was once free of charge?

Ask any veteran of WWII about the Red Cross and surprisingly to this day many distrust and despise what most people consider to be a beacon of benevolence (Katrina debacle notwithstanding). Apparently it all goes way back to the Red Cross’s decision during WWII to begin to charge soldiers for…

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Better Off Now Than Ever? A History of Happiness
Economics / Psychology

Better Off Now Than Ever? A History of Happiness

by WB on Jul 11, 2012 • 1 Comment

In a recent New Republic article entitled Happyism: the Creepy New Economics of Pleasure, economist and historian Deirdre McCloskey provides a refreshing historical perspective on the contemporary world’s obsession with happiness. For better or worse, it seems that personal happiness has increasingly become the (explicit) driving force behind human lives. While selfishness is of course nothing new, it’s strange that its vocabulary has largely shed ambition, prestige, virtue, or professional competence as goals independent of ‘happiness’ – though they would still be included under a happiness rubric. Needless to say, the prioritization of happiness over these other components of a…

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Counting Calories (and Human Behavior) in The Social Animal
Economics / Psychology / Social Science

Counting Calories (and Human Behavior) in The Social Animal

by David Zahl on Jun 19, 2012 • 1 Comment

An enlightening (!) little section from David Brooks’ The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement concerning the difference between classical and behavioral economists. And although while describing the caricature of human nature put forward by classical economists, he may fall into caricature himself, the gist is sound. One guess as to which side we find more sympathetic/convincing:

The human being imagined by classical economics is smooth, brilliant, calm, and perpetually unastonished by events. He surveys the world with a series of uncannily accurate models in his head, anticipating what will come next. His memory is incredible; he…

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Creditors, Debtors, Forgiveness, and God
Economics / Forgiveness / Money / Radio / Theology

Creditors, Debtors, Forgiveness, and God

by R-J Heijmen on May 18, 2012 • 10 Comments

Among the podcasts to which I subscribe is NPR’s excellent Planet Money, a program which was born out of the Great Recession and guides listeners through the intricacies of the global financial system, both past and present. Sounds really boring, I know, but it isn’t, and has been very helpful to this New Yorker, living in a finance town with no finance knowledge or experience. And it’s great for sermon illustrations, as you will soon see…

A recent episode caught my attention – “History Is a Battle between Creditors and Debtors” - in which the hosts discuss how the kind of tension…

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Soul Possession: Just How Much Is Your Soul Worth?
Church / Economics / Philosophy / Radio / Theology

Soul Possession: Just How Much Is Your Soul Worth?

by Bryan J. on May 11, 2012 • 2 Comments

The Freakonomics crew put out a new podcast on selling souls this week, and boy was it a doozie. They featured a Christian from Oklahoma who boldly offered any atheist/skeptic/taker $50 for ownership of his soul. Sure enough, through the comments board on the Freakonomics webpage, he found a skeptic seller, and the two exchanged the money for an official contract of soul ownership. This set off a half-hour discussion around the following questions: can somebody sell their soul? Is it ethical? Is $50 a good bargain for a soul? What’s the market value for such a thing, and what does…

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Boomers and Stickers: Wendell Berry’s 2012 Jefferson Lecture
America / Economics / Relationships

Boomers and Stickers: Wendell Berry’s 2012 Jefferson Lecture

by Ethan Richardson on Apr 30, 2012 • 3 Comments

Last Monday, Wendell Berry, widely known as today’s quotable agriprophet, America’s modern man of letters, was given the prestigious honor of presenting the Jefferson Lecture, the nation’s highest prize for “distinguished intellectual achievement.” What he spoke of–beyond his grandfather’s h0meland loyalty and the tragic industrial legacy of James B. Duke, for whom Duke University is named–was an ethic of affection, a turning way from the Diaspora of Modern Mobility–our privatized and lonesome Babylon–a repentance and return to a culture of sympathetic humility to one’s own. Berry’s essay was titled “It All Turns on Affection.”

I am from Kentucky, my family has…

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Another Week Ends: Zeitgeistlichkeit, Atheist Religiosity, Freakonomic Fathers, Ralph Erskine, MJ, Devo’s Paradox, Hunger Games, Deep Blue Sea, and Hoarders
Books / Children / Death / Economics / Film / Humor / Law / Literature / Music / Religion / Theology / Week In Review

Another Week Ends: Zeitgeistlichkeit, Atheist Religiosity, Freakonomic Fathers, Ralph Erskine, MJ, Devo’s Paradox, Hunger Games, Deep Blue Sea, and Hoarders

by David Zahl on Mar 23, 2012 • No Comments

1. A pair of terrific book reviews have appeared in The NY Times over the last couple weeks, the first being Generation X author Douglas Coupland‘s inspiring riff on Hari Kunzu’s opus, Gods Without Men, and the exciting new genre it epitomizes (“Translit”). Ironically enough, he makes a number of Twitter-ready observations:

[We are living in a] “state of possibly permanent atemporality given to us courtesy of the Internet. No particular era now dominates. We live in a post-era without forms of its own powerful enough to brand the times. The zeitgest of 2012 is that we have a lot of…

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Targeted Shopping Habits and Preemptive Diaper Ads
Business / Economics / Psychology / Social Science

Targeted Shopping Habits and Preemptive Diaper Ads

by David Zahl on Feb 21, 2012 • 3 Comments

Yikes! The NY Times ran a lengthy piece by Charles Duhigg this past weekend about absurdly precise, borderline Big Brother market research techniques that companies like Target (pun sort of intended…sigh) are pioneering to capture our dollars. The article doubles as an overview of recent breakthroughs in the study of habit formation, and it’s disconcerting on a number of levels.

For our purposes, the main ‘takeaway’ isn’t exactly news: we are all creatures of enormous habit, much of which is unconscious, and  regardless of how autonomously we like to think of ourselves, it is our painful predictability that unites us –…

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Three Years In, Still Determined, Still Anxious
America / Economics / Money / News

Three Years In, Still Determined, Still Anxious

by Ethan Richardson on Jan 9, 2012 • No Comments

The 11-part Heartland polls came out, and the Atlantic was quick to pick up on the psychological implications this recession has had on Americans, three years in. It turns out–yes, go figure–that we are just as determined in spirit (though with, as they call it, a renewed sense of “reluctant self-reliance”) and maybe a little more anxious, a caustic combination if you ask me. The polls make clear that we are undeterred, resilient in our belief that our efforts are going to make the change, not the institution. I wonder why…

More than three years into the deepest economic downturn since…

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From the NYTimes Mag: The Illusion of Control
America / Economics / Everyday / Identity / Money / News / Psychology / Social Science / Theology

From the NYTimes Mag: The Illusion of Control

by R-J Heijmen on Nov 9, 2011 • 8 Comments

From a very interesting, very comforting piece by Nobel Laureate economics and psychology professor/Mbird fave Daniel Kahneman entitled “The Surety of Fools/Don’t Blink! The Hazards of Confidence”; October 23rd issue of the NYTimes Sunday Magazine.

His thesis, based on years of research, is that much (i.e. all) of what we attribute to good (or bad) decision making is actually the result of chance and/or forces way beyond our control. In his words, “educated guesses are not more accurate than blind guesses.”

He tells the following anecdote to drive home his point, as well as to illustrate people’s discomfort with the idea that…

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Can You Guys Keep It Down Out There? I Can Barely Hear My Self-Condemnation
Economics / Identity / Psychology

Can You Guys Keep It Down Out There? I Can Barely Hear My Self-Condemnation

by NM on Oct 20, 2011 • No Comments

I don’t know about you but I’ve had protesters occupying my mind, off and on, for over 30 years now.  YOU’LL NEVER HAVE A CAREER…YOU’RE NOT THAT SMART…YOU BETTER GET SOBER… SHE’S NEVER GOING TO LOVE YOU… THE PAIN WILL END IF YOU END. Those are the kinds of homemade signs I see, the sort of slogans I hear. Candy corn anyone? Maybe a hug?

I’m continually reminded that I need something bigger than me to sort out my life, to show me the path. Last week, I suddenly found myself getting choked up when a certain infamous trial in Italy…

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American Abundance, Lizard Cores and the Parable of the Pheasant
Addiction / Economics / Psychology / Social Science

American Abundance, Lizard Cores and the Parable of the Pheasant

by David Zahl on Oct 18, 2011 • 2 Comments

Michael Lewis attempts to uncover the why the Californian economy has “cratered,” and why it is the state most at risk of a prolonged crisis, in his Vanity Fair article “California and Bust.” He’s essentially using the golden state as a petri-dish to look at the factors that have led to the current downturn. While this blogger’s eyes glaze over at some of the economic fine print, the interactions with Arnold are interesting, even more so is the brief interview with British neuroscientist Peter Whybrow in which they discuss the psychology behind American abundance, ht CR:

The road out of Vallejo…

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Another Week Ends: Achievement Freaks, St. Jobs, Luxury Disorders, Von Trier’s Obstructions, Self-Made Religion, Boardwalk Empire, and Lactivism
America / Economics / Law / Money / Psychology / Religion / Social Science / Technology / TV / Week In Review

Another Week Ends: Achievement Freaks, St. Jobs, Luxury Disorders, Von Trier’s Obstructions, Self-Made Religion, Boardwalk Empire, and Lactivism

by David Zahl on Oct 7, 2011 • 1 Comment

1. As if we needed another reminder of the frightening heights the achievement curve has reached in recent years, James Atlas attempted to trace the cultural and economic forces contributing to the ‘excellence glut’ in his NY Times op-ed last week, “Meet the New Super People.” Atlas seems less interested in the psychological (and spiritual!) fallout of what he calls the “achievement freak” phenomenon, and more interested in the increasingly egregious disparities this trend is already creating in our country/the world, questioning where it could all possibly be heading:

It’s a select group to begin with, but even so, there doesn’t…

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