[DrC]

Who will protect us from Obama?

[PORD]

“the human animal is hard-wired to make errors when it comes to decision-making, and therefore people need a little “nudge” to make decisions that are in their own best interests.”

Now I understand, the Obamaites are not human and therefore their decisions are infallible, even if the facts say different?????

[R. Scott]

The main point of contention, says Thaler, was the suggestion that humans are less than perfectly rational when it comes to decision-making. For the majority of the 20th century, and for the most part even today, the human beings imagined by economists and placed at the center of their economic models have had a Spock-like rationality.

I believe it. If I had been perfectly rational all my life I'd be a wealthy man by now - if I hadn't died of boredom. I spent a lot of money on wine, women and song. I don't regret a dime of it.

[TimSkalaBim]

Fascinating stuff, in the sense that NPR spells out another variant in a long line of agenda-driven rationalizations for totalitarianism wearing the cloak of "economics". One of the most annoying misdirections this school of thought employs is the following:

For the majority of the 20th century, and for the most part even today, the human beings imagined by economists and placed at the center of their economic models have had a Spock-like rationality.

Never. No real economist has ever imagined any such thing. There is a difference between irrationality and not having perfect information which neither the NPR author or the subjects of this article mention or even demonstrate awareness of, and might just provide an explanation for why people (gasp!) sometimes make bad decisions.

[Condor51]

Mw thinks Cass Sunstein and his 'mentor', Daniel Kahneman, the 'inventor' of behavioral economic, need to go play with Schrödinger's cat.

That'll keep em busy for a while.

[dead]

"Merely accepting the fact that people do not necessarily make the best decisions for themselves is politically very explosive. The moment that you admit that, you have to start protecting people," Kahneman says.

In other words, if the human brain is hard-wired to make serious errors, that implies all kinds of things about the need for regulation and protection.

This article makes me want to punch somebody from the Obama Administration in the mouth.

Seriously, these pompous arrogant asses make me sick.

[wendy1946]

The city of Greensboro, N.C., has experimented with a program designed for teenage mothers. To prevent these teens from having another child, the city offered each of them $1 a day for every day they were not pregnant. It turns out that the psychological power of that small daily payment is huge. A single dollar a day was enough to push the rate of teen pregnancy down, saving all the incredible costs — human and financial — that go with teen parenting.

I'm convinced we're looking at that one the wrong way and have been for the past 80 years. Germany and Russia are presently in danger of collapse due to staggeringly low birth rates and the only thing keeping our own birth rate above water at present is immigrants, many if not most of whom are detrimental to the economic health of the country.

None of them are terribly worried about birth rates or teen pregnancies. In real life, the only choice we seem to have is WHOSE teens will be having kids, theirs or ours, and under what conditions and circumstances. The conclusion I'm coming to is that we actually need some sort of a conservative welfare system which would again make it both economically feasible and respectable for our own people to marry and start families at 17 or 20 as we are biologically programmed to do, and not at 35 or 40 when careers stand in the way and it's basically too late to have any more than 1.4 children.

[jazminerose]

Behavior psych as taught by BF Skinner was hot stuff in the 1970’s & pretty much deemed useless shortly after that.

It works fine when teaching a chicken to play the piano but gets a bit more complex with humans as it’s impossible to control enough extraneous variables.

Of course, Obamanutz aren’t much brighter than chickens & they can at least be taught a job.

[Oceander]

Behavioural Econ does have some very good insights, as people do have certain innate tendencies that violate the traditional conception of the rational decision-maker (funny, however, that no-one's noticed, least of all the liberals, that this is the same thing as an inborn, fixed human character, which is something conservatives have always argued existed).

However, that cannot logically be the grounds on which one group of people decides to take over making decisions for another group of people because the group that would attempt the takeover suffers from precisely the same decision-making flaws and would therefore be unable, in general, to make decisions for someone any better than that person could make for themselves.

Furthermore, behavioural econ doesn't say that the traditional conception is totally invalid, just that it needs tweaking, which means that most of the theories based on that traditional conception are still valid, including the fact that the closer one is to the facts and circumstances, the better a decision-maker one is, and that one has to have some skin in the game to make a really economically efficient decision. As such, any group of strangers, no matter how much they may have deluded themselves into thinking they can make decisions for us better than we could for ourselves, is simply wrong. Period.

That is the essential conceit of socialism, and the basic, fundamental, unalterable reason why it cannot logically work. Given that, it is, in essence, nothing more than thievery and fraud, no matter how much nice altruistic-sounding rhetoric its proponents dress it up in. To paraphrase our most infamous socialist right now, no matter how much lipstick you put on that pig, it's still just a pig, and an ugly one at that.

[dubyagee]

Explains alot...just damn.

[wbill]

And that is exactly what Obama administration officials plan to do: By taking account of human psychology, they hope to save you from yourself.

This is likely the most terrifying sentence that I'll read all day today.

"I'm from the government and I'm here to save you from yourself!"

(shudder)

[Red Boots]

Who the hell do these people think they are to make all our decisions for us ?

That's some kind of sick and twisted God complex.

The only hope I can see in it is that these type of programs always fail, because the foundation of them involves the coercion of another, and thus are spiritually bankrupt.

How is it that these supposedly so smart people have missed that part ?

Didn't they study Gandhi's nonviolence/ sarcasm.

[Uncle Miltie]

The only thing worse than stupid people making decisions for themselves is government bureaucrats making decisions for them.

At least the stupid people can learn from their mistakes, because they suffer the consequences.

The bureaucrat can persist in his mistakes, because he is not punished by the bad consequences of his decisions.

[GailA]

This is from a 2007 contact list of congressional aides. Some might not be there any longer, but worth a try. The ones on the one post are senate aides, a few have bounced back, it’s worth the effort to clog up their email system along with the phones, and 1/3rd of these senators are up for re-election.

Contact congressional aides.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1857768/posts
U.S. Senate switchboard: (202) 224-3121
U.S. House switchboard: (202) 225-3121
White House comments: (202) 456-1111
Find your House Rep.: http://www.house.gov/writerep
Find your US Senators: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
Toll free to the US Senate:
1-800-882-2005. (Spanish number)
1-800-417-7666. (English number)

Courtesy of a pro-amnesty group, no less!!

Defeat Obamacare call list: List now contains the new MAYBES culled from FR posts. Be sure to call KNOWN RINOS too.THEY ARE ANSWERING THEIR LOCAL NUMBERS

Here is one of the ones Rush gave out on the radio that I’m calling. So far it’s been busy but I’m going to burn it up till I get to tell my congress critter to vote NO!
Join me?..... 1-877-762-8762

Good idea from the bloggers at Hillbuzz:
http://hillbuzz.org/2010/03/17/action-items-march-17th-2010/
They offer specifics and links on how to put pressure on Dem DONORS, who have private numbers for legislators who may have taken their phones off the hook.
Congress may not want to hear from us, but they’ll listen to the money men.

KEEP THE CALLS UP! DC OFFICE LOCAL OFFICE

CODE RED Contact list http://www.nrcc.org/CodeRed/targets/
Remember they are all being offered BRIBES for their votes. Ask them how much their bribe price is.
The National Republican Congressional Committee has published a target list on health care. In addition to continuing to contact the five Tennessee Democrat Congressmen, you can go http://www.votervoice.net/link/clickthrough/ext/94697.aspx to contact some of these targets. Much of the talk following Obama’s announcement has focused on how to defeat this second bill through reconciliation, but that is misleading because the first step to defeating Obamacare is not by concentrating on defeating the “fixer” bill but by defeating the Senate bill in the House when it goes to the floor for an up-or-down vote on Thursday, March 18th.

New FLIPPERS
Dennis Kucinish, Lakewood 216)228-8850, Fax (216)228-6465,
Parma. 440)845-2707, Fax (440)845-2743, DC (202)225-5871
Dennis Cardoza DC (202) 225-6131, Fax: 225-0819, 800-356-6424, Merced, (209) 383-4455 Fax: 726-1065 Modesto 209) 527-1914 Fax: 527-5748 Modesto, (209) 527-1914
Fax: 527-5748
Jim Costa Fresno 559-495-1620, Fax:559-495-1027, Bakersfeld, 661-869-1620 Fax: 661-869-1027 DC Phone:202-225-3341 Fax: 202-225-9308
Fax (202)225-5745
James Oberstar (202) 225-6211, Duluth (218) 727-7474,

Chisholm (218) 254-5761, Brainerd (218) 828-4400, North Branch, (651) 277-1234
Gabrielle Giffords (202) 225-2542 (520) 881-3588 AZ 8th District
Rep. Lincoln Davis 202-225-6831 Columbia office: 931-490-8699
Rep. Jim Cooper 202-225-4311 Nashville office: 615-736-5295
Rep. Bart Gordon 202-225-4231 Murfreesboro office: 615-896-1986
John Tanner (202) 225-4714, Union City, (731) 885-7070, Jackson Phone: (731) 423-4848, Millington (901) 873-5690 TN (MAYBE)
Rep. Steve Cohen 202-225-3265 Memphis office: 901-544-4131
Harry Mitchell (202) 225-2190 (480) 946-2411 AZ 5th District
Ann Kirkpatrick (202) 225-2315 (928) 226-6914 AZ 1st District
Jerry McNerney (202) 225-1947 925-833-0643 CA 11th District
John Salazar 202-225-4761 970-245-7107 CO 3rd District
Jim Himes (202) 225-5541 (866) 453-0028 CT 4th District
Alan Grayson (202) 225-2176 (407) 841-1757 FL 8th District
Bill Foster (202) 225-2976 630-406-1114 IL 14th District
Baron Hill 202 225 5315 812 288 3999 IN 9th District
Mark Schauer (202) 225-6276 (517) 780-9075 MI 7th District
Gary Peters (202) 225-5802 (248) 273-4227 MI 9th District
Dina Titus (202) 225-3252 702-256-DINA (3462) NV 3rd District
Carol Shea-Porter (202) 225-5456 (603) 743-4813 NH 1st District
Tim Bishop (202) 225-3826 (631) 696-6500 NY 1st District
John Hall (202) 225-5441 (845) 225-3641 x49371 NY 19th District
Bill Owens (202) 225-4611 (315) 782-3150 NY 23rd District
James Matheson Toll-Free Number 1 (877) 677-9743 (202) 225-3011Mike Arcuri (202)225-3665 (315)793-8146 NY 24th District
Dan Maffei (202) 225-3701 (315) 423-5657 NY 25th District
Earl Pomeroy (202) 225-2611 (701) 224-0355 ND At-Large District
Steven Driehaus (202) 225-2216 (513) 684-2723 OH 1st District
Mary Jo Kilroy (202) 225-2015 (614) 294-2196 OH 15th District
Zach Space (202) 225-6265 (330) 364-4300 OH 18th District
Kathy Dahlkemper (202) 225-5406 (814) 456-2038 PA 3rd District
Patrick Murphy (202) 225-4276 (215) 826-1963 PA 8th District
Christopher Carney (202) 225-3731 (570) 585-9988 PA 10th District
Paul Kanjorski (202) 225-6511 (570) 825-2200 PA 11th District
John Spratt (202) 225-5501 (803)327-1114 SC 5th District
Tom Perriello (202) 225-4711 (276) 656-2291 VA 5th District
Alan Mollohan (202) 225-4172 (304) 623-4422 WVA 1st District
Nick Rahall (202) 225-3452 (304) 252-5000 WVA 3rd District
Steve Kagen (202) 225-5665 (920) 437-1954 WI 8th District
Bart Stupak (202) 225 4735 MI (MAYBE)
Brian Baird (202) 225-3536, Vancouver, (360) 695-6292. Olympia, (360) 352-9768, (MAYBE)
senator mark begich (202) 224-3004 toll free. (877) 501 - 6275 just became a MAYBE

Jason Altmire 202-225-2565, Aliquippa, 724-378-0928,
Natrona Heights, 724-226-1304 (MAYBE)
On the Bubble (Major developments from the “yes” and “no” columns in the House)

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2467046/posts
Congressional Dems on Twitter
http://www.arrghpaine.com/congressional-dems-on-twitter
And here are toll-free numbers we can use to call any Senators or Reps.

At the first number below you must wait through a tape recording urging you to tell your Rep or Senator to vote “yes” for the health care bill. Just hang on and when the recording is over, you will get the Capitol operator. Just ask for your Rep or Senator’s office. Then you will either talk to an aid or have the chance to leave a message for him/her to vote NO on the health care bill.

When you use the second number and the Capitol operator comes on, just ask for your Rep or Senator’s office. Every time I use this number I get the Rep or Senator’s answer machine, so it may be set up that way all the time...to go to their answer machine. Either way you can leave a message to vote NO on the health care bill!

We need to use these toll free numbers that have been set up for the health care/ BO supporters and illegals to use! After all they are FREE!

1-866-220-0044, 1-866-338-1015, 877-851-6437, 877-210-5351