According to most economists we humans really are extremely rational creatures—hyperrational really, since when we make errors in judgement, such as failing to save enough for retirement, we’re really saving enough to satisfy our expected utility. But as the Economist succintly put it, “Economists make sense of the world by assuming that people know what they want. Advertisers assume that they do not. Who is right?” Good question. And the answer is: the advertisers.

Whew! Just got done cleaning out all the comment spam. I let it go on for WAY too long. While doing it though, I noticed two things about the comments. One, some of them were quite clever and almost tricked me out of deleting them. Two, one of the them was from Citibank! I get that scummy pharma dealers and online casinos have to resort to these insidious tactics, but Citibank!? Read more…