This has been going around the Internet for the past couple of days…(HT to Gizmodo and others…)
My first thought was “the guy on the right must be an economist.” Also, I’m surprised that no one popped up to offer $52. The comments on the sites that were running this, however, got me thinking [...]
Tags: Buyer Beware · Incentives · Just For Fun
You know, I was previously worried that Goldman Sachs had Washington just a tad too much in its back pocket…good thing then, I suppose, that Greece has allowed me to take an “at least I’m not THAT guy” stance and feel much better.
If you’ve been paying attention to the news, you at the very least [...]
Tags: Finance · Incentives · Macroeconomics · Markets
Dear Readers: I try to consistently make the point that understanding how incentives work is a super useful skill to have in daily life. For example, you might be thinking “hmm, why does my boss not seem as upset as I am by the size of my year-end bonus?” Okay, maybe that [...]
Tags: Incentives
I came across the following picture yesterday with the caption “When PCs Stand Out…”
(HT to Business Pundit.) Upon seeing this, my cynical economist mind went to a different potential caption of “Incentives: They Work, B*tches.” (In fairness, monetary incentives don’t ALWAYS work, but it’s important to know when they do and when they [...]
Tags: Buyer Beware · Incentives
I’ll start with a brief history lesson, which is basically a parable on unintended consequences…back in the 1980’s, the U.S. imposed “voluntary export restraints” (yes, the word voluntary in there is meant to be ironic) on Japanese cars. (Actually, the export restraints were placed on a number of different countries, but the one on [...]
Tags: Incentives · Policy