*Phishing for Phools*

The authors are Nobel Laureates George A. Akerlof and Robert J. Shiller and the subtitle is The Economics of Manipulation and Deception.  It’s a popular take on how markets trap you and your preferences in places you don’t want to be.  Self-recommending of course.

There are chapters on advertising, tobacco, alcohol, junk bonds, credit cards, pharmaceuticals (some), and yes government.  My main complaint about the book is that its chooses easy targets and doesn’t puncture enough sacred cows.  For instance the chapter on government criticizes spending money on lobbying, whereas I would have preferred an attempt to show that an apparently beneficial and popular institution is in fact bad and appealing to the weaker elements in our preferences.  I wonder to what extent what the authors call “The Resistance and its Heroes” is in fact another example of…phishing for phools.  In other words, I wish this book were more Hansonian.

By the way, I have never eaten too much ice cream.

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