TED Talk: The Paradox of Choice

This is an excellent talk by Barry Schwartz regarding the paradoxical situation we face in the advanced industrial societies. As Americans, we assume that more choice means better options and greater satisfaction. But beware of excessive choice: choice overload can make you question the decisions you make before you even make them, it can set you up for unrealistically high expectations, and it can make you blame yourself for any and all failures. In the long run, this can lead to decision-making paralysis. And in a culture that tells us that there is no excuse for falling short of perfection when your options are limitless, too much choice can lead to clinical depression, a loss of community, and the unraveling of the social fabric of our lives.

In particular, Schwartz states that "Autonomy and Freedom of choice are critical to our well being, and choice is critical to freedom and autonomy. Nonetheless, though modern Americans have more choice than any group of people ever has before, and thus, presumably, more freedom and autonomy, we don't seem to be benefiting from it psychologically."

Schwartz integrates various psychological models for happiness showing how the problem of choice can be addressed by different strategies. What is important to note is that each of these strategies comes with its own bundle of psychological complication.

1. Choice and Happiness. Schwartz discusses the significance of common research methods that utilize a Happiness Scale. He sides with the opinion of psychologists David Myers and Robert Lane who independently conclude that the current abundance of choice often leads to depression and feelings of loneliness. Schwartz draws particular attention to Lane's assertion that Americans are paying for increased affluence and freedom with a substantial decrease in the quality and quantity of community. What was once given by family, neighborhood and workplace now must be achieved and actively cultivated on an individual basis. The social fabric is no longer a birthright but has become a series of deliberated and demanding choices.

2. Freedom or Commitment. Schwartz connects this issue to economist Albert Hirschman's research into how populations respond to unhappiness: they can exit the situation, or they can protest and voice their concerns. While free-market governments give citizens the right to express their displeasure by exit, as in switching brands, Schwartz maintains that social relations are different. Instead, we usually give voice to displeasure, hoping to project influence on the situation.

3. Second-Order Decisions. Law professor Cass Sunstein uses the term "second-order decisions" for decisions that follow a rule. Having the discipline to live "by the rules" eliminates countless troublesome choices in one's daily life. Schwartz shows that these second-order decisions can be divided into general categories of effectiveness for different situations: presumptions, standards, and cultural codes. Each of these methods are useful ways people use to parse the vast array of choices they confront.

4. Missed Opportunities. Schwartz finds that when people are faced with having to choose one option out of many desirable choices, they will begin to consider hypothetical trade-offs. Their options are evaluated in terms of missed opportunities instead of the opportunity's potential. Schwartz maintains that one of the downsides of making trade-offs is it alters how we feel about the decisions we face; afterwards, it affects the level of satisfaction we experience from our decision. While psychologists have known for years about the harmful effects of negative emotion on decision making, Schwartz points to recent evidence showing how positive emotion has the opposite effect: in general, subjects are inclined to consider more possibilities when they are feeling happy.

Elevating Science, Elevating Democracy

I cannot wait for a new era to begin in the United States. Imagine U.S. policy being guided by empirical evidence and scientific findings. What a crazy idea:) Moreover, imagine what would result if our nation was guided by the scientific values of honesty, doubt, respect for evidence, openness, accountability and tolerance and indeed hunger for opposing points of view. As the author points out, "it is no coincidence that these are the same qualities that make for democracy and that they arose as a collective behavior about the same time that parliamentary democracies were appearing. If there is anything democracy requires and thrives on, it is the willingness to embrace debate and respect one another and the freedom to shun received wisdom. Science and democracy have always been twins." Great article and I hope you enjoy.

By DENNIS OVERBYE

To be honest, the restoration of science was the least of it, but when Barack Obama proclaimed during his Inaugural Address that he would “restore science to its rightful place,” you could feel a dark cloud lifting like a sigh from the shoulders of the scientific community in this country.

When the new president went on vowing to harness the sun, the wind and the soil, and to “wield technology’s wonders,” I felt the glow of a spring sunrise washing my cheeks, and I could almost imagine I heard the music of swords being hammered into plowshares.

Wow. My first reaction was to worry that scientists were now in the awkward position of being expected to save the world. As they say, be careful what you wish for.

My second reaction was to wonder what the “rightful place” of science in our society really is.The answer, I would argue, is On a Pedestal — but not for the reasons you might think. Forget about penicillin, digital computers and even the Big Bang, passing fads all of them.

The knock on science from its cultural and religious critics is that it is arrogant and materialistic. It tells us wondrous things about nature and how to manipulate it, but not what we should do with this knowledge and power. The Big Bang doesn’t tell us how to live, or whether God loves us, or whether there is any God at all. It provides scant counsel on same-sex marriage or eating meat. It is silent on the desirability of mutual assured destruction as a strategy for deterring nuclear war.

Einstein seemed to echo this thought when he said, “I have never obtained any ethical values from my scientific work.” Science teaches facts, not values, the story goes.

Worse, not only does it not provide any values of its own, say its detractors, it also undermines the ones we already have, devaluing anything it can’t measure, reducing sunsets to wavelengths and romance to jiggly hormones. It destroys myths and robs the universe of its magic and mystery.

So the story goes. But this is balderdash. Science is not a monument of received Truth but something that people do to look for truth.

That endeavor, which has transformed the world in the last few centuries, does indeed teach values. Those values, among others, are honesty, doubt, respect for evidence, openness, accountability and tolerance and indeed hunger for opposing points of view. These are the unabashedly pragmatic working principles that guide the buzzing, testing, poking, probing, argumentative, gossiping, gadgety, joking, dreaming and tendentious cloud of activity — the writer and biologist Lewis Thomas once likened it to an anthill — that is slowly and thoroughly penetrating every nook and cranny of the world.

Nobody appeared in a cloud of smoke and taught scientists these virtues. This behavior simply evolved because it worked. It requires no metaphysical commitment to a God or any conception of human origin or nature to join in this game, just the hypothesis that nature can be interrogated and that nature is the final arbiter. Jews, Catholics, Muslims, atheists, Buddhists and Hindus have all been working side by side building the Large Hadron Collider and its detectors these last few years...

The Genius of Charles Darwin

To mark the 150th anniversary of Charles Darwin's masterpiece, On the Origin of Species, Richard Dawkins presents the ultimate three-part guide to Charles Darwin. The documentary has just won the award for 'Best Documentary Series' at the British Broadcast Awards 2009. The important issues that are raised in this documentary must be dealt with if we are to understand and solve many important problems in our modern society and political climate. I hope you enjoy!

The Genius of Charles Darwin
by Andrew Pettie

It is almost 150 years since Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species, a treatise which, according to Professor Richard Dawkins, contained ‘the most powerful idea ever to occur to a human mind: the idea of evolution by natural selection’. It would probably startle Darwin to know that, despite overwhelming scientific evidence in his theory’s favour, only four out of 10 Britons currently believe it to be true. Dawkins, a fearless crusader for rationalism and the author of The God Delusion and The Selfish Gene, sounds baffled by this statistic.

‘It’s bewildering,’ he says, ‘and an indictment of our education system. Most children are taught evolution at the age of 15. It should be taught much earlier than that because it’s so incredibly important and interesting: it’s the explanation of why we all exist.’

In the opening episode of Dawkins’s three-part documentary series, The Genius of Charles Darwin, he asks a group of schoolchildren what they think of the theory of evolution. Many insist, despite Dawkins’s patient explanation of the scientific evidence to the contrary, that the world was created in the manner described by the Bible or the Qur’an. ‘I found it rather depressing,’ says Dawkins, ‘when the children said, “It says this in my holy book and so this is what I believe.” I asked them why they believed a holy book rather than the evidence and they said it was the way they’d been brought up, as though that in itself was a self-evidently knockdown argument.’

Although Dawkins doesn’t think that believing in evolution precludes people from believing in God, he says that ‘a full understanding of the world of evolution does tend to push against religion.’...

Money as Debt

What is money? Where does it come from? Very few people have taken courses in monetary theory and understand the complexities of something as simple, and taken for granted, as money. This video sets aside many of the assumptions we all have about money. Most importantly, the video shows how the social construction of money is instituted in modern society and how we become complaisant with our economic system. I hope you enjoy the video and I look forward to any comments:)

Synopsis-

Paul Grignon's 47-minute animated presentation of "Money as Debt" tells in very simple and effective graphic terms what money is and how it is being created. It is an entertaining way to get the message out. The Cowichan Citizens Coalition and its "Duncan Initiative" received high praise from those who previewed it. I recommend it as a painless but hard-hitting educational tool and encourage the widest distribution and use by all groups concerned with the present unsustainable monetary system in used thoughout the world.

Peace, Propaganda, and the Promised Land

Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land provides a striking comparison of U.S. and international media coverage of the crisis in the Middle East, zeroing in on how structural distortions in U.S. coverage have reinforced false perceptions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This pivotal documentary exposes how the foreign policy interests of American political elites--oil, and a need to have a secure military base in the region, among others--work in combination with Israeli public relations strategies to exercise a powerful influence over how news from the region is reported. Specifically, the Media Education Foundation argues that the influence of pro-Israel media watchdog groups, such as CAMERA and Honest Reporting, has led to distorted and pro-Israel media reports. In its response to the movie, the pro-Israel JCRC criticizes the film for not discussing the influence of "the numerous pro‐Palestinian media watchdog groups, including, ironically, FAIR (Fair and Accuracy in the Media, which describes itself as 'A National Media Watch Group'), whose spokesperson played a prominent role in the film". According to LiP Magazine, the movie "offers a great starting point for thinking about media misrepresentation of the Israel-Palestinian conflict, and useful analysis of how language is used to manipulate public opinion," but is short on "solid statistics and facts to back up some of its blanket statements". The film features, among others, Noam Chomsky, Robert Jensen, Hanan Ashrawi, Sam Husseini, and Robert Fisk. Enjoy!

Happiness: It Really Is Contagious

In line with my earlier post, this article by Allison Aubrey points out that misery may not love company — but happiness does.

A new study by researchers at Harvard University and the University of California, San Diego documents how happiness spreads through social networks.

They found that when a person becomes happy, a friend living close by has a 25 percent higher chance of becoming happy themselves. A spouse experiences an 8 percent increased chance and for next-door neighbors, it's 34 percent.

"Everyday interactions we have with other people are definitely contagious, in terms of happiness," says Nicholas Christakis, a professor at Harvard Medical School and an author of the study.

Perhaps more surprising, Christakis says, is that the effect extends beyond the people we come into contact with. When one person becomes happy, the social network effect can spread up to 3 degrees — reaching friends of friends...read more.

Why are we happy? Why aren't we happy?

At Harvard, the social psychologist Daniel Gilbert is known as Professor Happiness. That is because the 50-year-old researcher directs a laboratory studying the nature of human happiness. Dr. Gilbert’s “Stumbling on Happiness” was a New York Times paperback best seller for 23 weeks and won the 2007 Royal Society Prize for Science Books. In this TED talk, Gilbert summarizes the outcomes of his "happiness" experiments. In summary, they found that the best predictor of human happiness is human relationships and the amount of time that people spend with family and friends. They found that it’s significantly more important than money and somewhat more important than health. That’s what the data shows. The interesting thing is that people will sacrifice social relationships to get other things that won’t make them as happy — money. Another thing they found from studies is that people tend to take more pleasure in experiences than in things. So if you have “x” amount of dollars to spend on a vacation or a good meal or movies, it will get you more happiness than a durable good or an object. One reason for this is that experiences tend to be shared with other people and objects usually aren’t. Enjoy the talk and I hope you learn something about happiness:)

Krugman: Forgive and Forget?

I agree with Krugman that we--as an American Society who abide by the Constitution--need to analyze the past and make politicians accountable for their actions. The Bush Administration needs to be accountable for torture, illegal wiretapping, the politicalization of the justice department, and the case for weapons of mass destruction and the Iraq war. Holding politicians and those in power accountable for their behavior and policies is what every American should desire and seek. It is pro-American. I hope President Obama and the Democratic congress make every effort for social and political justice....once the economy has recovered. Enjoy the article:)

Forgive and Forget?
By Paul Krugman

Last Sunday President-elect Barack Obama was asked whether he would seek an investigation of possible crimes by the Bush administration. “I don’t believe that anybody is above the law,” he responded, but “we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards.”

I’m sorry, but if we don’t have an inquest into what happened during the Bush years — and nearly everyone has taken Mr. Obama’s remarks to mean that we won’t — this means that those who hold power are indeed above the law because they don’t face any consequences if they abuse their power.

Let’s be clear what we’re talking about here. It’s not just torture and illegal wiretapping, whose perpetrators claim, however implausibly, that they were patriots acting to defend the nation’s security. The fact is that the Bush administration’s abuses extended from environmental policy to voting rights. And most of the abuses involved using the power of government to reward political friends and punish political enemies...

The Ascent of Money

I just finished Niall Ferguson's recent book The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World and really enjoyed it! This documentary gives a great overview. Enjoy.

Synopsis-

One week before a new President who campaigned on a promise to fix the economy takes office, public media provider WNET.ORG is putting the meaning of money into context – where it came from, where it goes, and why it has always been (and always will be) the fulcrum of civilization. THE ASCENT OF MONEY, a two-hour documentary based on the newly-released book The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World (Penguin Group USA), will premiere on Tuesday, January 13 at 9 p.m. (ET) on PBS (check local listings). The film is written and presented by the bestselling author, economist, historian, and Harvard professor Niall Ferguson. An expanded, four-hour version of THE ASCENT OF MONEY will air on PBS later in 2009.

In THE ASCENT OF MONEY, Ferguson – whose series War of the World garnered critical attention last summer – traces the evolution of money and demonstrates that financial history is the essential back-story behind all history. “Everyone needs to understand the complex history of money and our relationship to it,” he says. “By learning how societies have continually created and survived financial crises, we can find solid solutions to today’s worldwide economic emergency.” As he traverses historic financial hot spots around the world, Ferguson illuminates fundamental economic concepts and speaks with leading experts in the financial world.

Funding for THE ASCENT OF MONEY is provided by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, The Smith Richardson Foundation, James and Merryl Tisch, and PBS. Additional funding for educational materials is provided by the Calvin K. Kazanjian Economics Foundation, Inc.

THE ASCENT OF MONEY is a co-production of Chimerica Media Limited and THIRTEEN in association with WNET.ORG. Series writer and presenter is Niall Ferguson. Series producer is Melanie Fall. Series director is Adrian Pennick. Executive producer is Simon Berthon. For WNET.ORG, William R. Grant is executive producer. Stephen Segaller is executive-in-charge.

Colleges Profit as Banks Market Credit Cards to Students

This article and the series about the surge in consumer debt in America is disconcerting. It is a little shocking to know that the more students who take out banks’ credit cards on college campuses and events, the more money the schools get. Under certain circumstances, colleges and universities even stand to receive more money if students carry a balance on these cards.

Colleges Profit as Banks Market Credit Cards to Students
By Jonathan D. Glater

When Ryan T. Muneio was tailgating with his parents at a Michigan State football game this fall, he noticed a big tent emblazoned with a Bank of America logo. Inside, bank representatives were offering free T-shirts and other merchandise to those who applied for credit cards and other banking products.

"They did a good job," Mr. Muneio, 21 and a junior at Michigan State, said of the tactic. "It was good advertising."

Bank of America's relationship with the university extends well beyond marketing at sports events. The bank has an $8.4 million, seven-year contract with Michigan State giving it access to students' names and addresses and use of the university's logo. The more students who take the banks' credit cards, the more money the university gets. Under certain circumstances, Michigan State even stands to receive more money if students carry a balance on these cards.

Hundreds of colleges have contracts with lenders. But at a time of rising concern about student debt — and overall consumer debt — the arrangements have sounded alarm bells, and some student groups are starting to push back.

The relationships are reminiscent of those uncovered two years ago between student loan companies and universities. In those, some lenders offered universities an incentive to steer potential borrowers their way.

Here at Michigan State, the editors of the student newspaper wrote this fall that "it doesn't take a giant leap for someone to ask why the university should encourage responsible spending when it receives a cut of every purchase."

At Arizona State University, students set up a table on campus last spring to warn of the danger of debt and urge students to support limits on on-campus marketing.

The contracts, whose terms vary but usually involve payments to colleges or alumni associations that agree to provide lists of students' names, have come under harsh criticism in Washington.

"That is absolutely outrageous, the sharing of students' information with the banks," Representative Carolyn B. Maloney, Democrat of New York, who oversaw a June hearing on campus credit card marketing, said in a recent interview. "That should be outlawed."

College campuses are one place that young Americans are introduced to credit and the possibility of spending beyond their means, a problem now confronting the nation as a whole. For banks, the relationships are a golden marketing opportunity. For colleges, they are a revenue source at a time of declining public funding. And for students, they help pay the bills and allow more shopping.

But debt incurred in college becomes a serious burden at graduation, especially in a recession in which jobs are scarce. A survey of more than 1,500 college students by US PIRG in Washington found that two-thirds had at least one credit card. Seniors with balances had an average debt of $2,623 on their cards...

Colleges Profit as Banks Market Credit Cards to Students

This article and the series about the surge in consumer debt in America is disconcerting. It is a little shocking to know that the more students who take out banks’ credit cards on college campuses and events, the more money the schools get. Under certain circumstances, colleges and universities even stand to receive more money if students carry a balance on these cards.

By JONATHAN D. GLATER-NYT

EAST LANSING, Mich. — When Ryan T. Muneio was tailgating with his parents at a Michigan State football game this fall, he noticed a big tent emblazoned with a Bank of America logo. Inside, bank representatives were offering free T-shirts and other merchandise to those who applied for credit cards and other banking products.

“They did a good job,” Mr. Muneio, 21 and a junior at Michigan State, said of the tactic. “It was good advertising.”

Bank of America’s relationship with the university extends well beyond marketing at sports events. The bank has an $8.4 million, seven-year contract with Michigan State giving it access to students’ names and addresses and use of the university’s logo. The more students who take the banks’ credit cards, the more money the university gets. Under certain circumstances, Michigan State even stands to receive more money if students carry a balance on these cards.

Hundreds of colleges have contracts with lenders. But at a time of rising concern about student debt — and overall consumer debt — the arrangements have sounded alarm bells, and some student groups are starting to push back.

The relationships are reminiscent of those uncovered two years ago between student loan companies and universities. In those, some lenders offered universities an incentive to steer potential borrowers their way.

Here at Michigan State, the editors of the student newspaper wrote this fall that “it doesn’t take a giant leap for someone to ask why the university should encourage responsible spending when it receives a cut of every purchase.”

At Arizona State University, students set up a table on campus last spring to warn of the danger of debt and urge students to support limits on on-campus marketing.

The contracts, whose terms vary but usually involve payments to colleges or alumni associations that agree to provide lists of students’ names, have come under harsh criticism in Washington.

“That is absolutely outrageous, the sharing of students’ information with the banks,” Representative Carolyn B. Maloney, Democrat of New York, who oversaw a June hearing on campus credit card marketing, said in a recent interview. “That should be outlawed.”

College campuses are one place that young Americans are introduced to credit and the possibility of spending beyond their means, a problem now confronting the nation as a whole. For banks, the relationships are a golden marketing opportunity. For colleges, they are a revenue source at a time of declining public funding. And for students, they help pay the bills and allow more shopping.

But debt incurred in college becomes a serious burden at graduation, especially in a recession in which jobs are scarce. A survey of more than 1,500 college students by US PIRG in Washington found that two-thirds had at least one credit card. Seniors with balances had an average debt of $2,623 on their cards.

University officials say that their agreements with card issuers comply with the law and bring in valuable revenue.

“It provides money for scholarships and other programs,” said Terry R. Livermore, manager of licensing programs at Michigan State. He said that the program was aimed primarily at alumni and the university would not include sharing student information in future credit card contracts. “The students are such a minuscule portion of this program.”

Jennifer Holsman, executive director of the alumni association at Arizona State, said the association tried to teach students about responsible uses of credit. “We work closely with Bank of America to provide educational seminars to students in terms of being able to get information about how to pay off credit cards, how not to keep balances,” she said.

Credit card issuers say that they try to educate students to use cards responsibly and that the cards they offer on campus have more restrictive terms than cards offered to alumni.

“The available credit for undergraduates is capped at $2,500,” said Betty Riess, a spokeswoman for Bank of America. “We want to take a fair and responsible approach to lending because we want to build the foundation for a longer-term banking relationship.”

Ms. Riess said the bank had agreements with about 700 colleges and alumni associations, making it one of the biggest, if not the biggest, card issuer on campuses. She said that only 2 percent of the open accounts under those agreements belonged to students, but also said it was not possible to determine what percentage of program revenue resulted from fees and charges on those student cards.

Stephanie Jacobson, a spokeswoman for JPMorgan Chase, wrote in an e-mail message that the bank had fewer than 25 contracts with colleges or alumni associations and that while some of the contracts gave it the right to ask for and use lists of student names and addresses, the bank had not done so since 2007.

That may be because football games present a marketing opportunity that requires no address information. Abigail D. Molina, a second-year law student at the University of Oregon, applied in 2007 for a Chase Visa offered at a tent outside a football game. In exchange, she received a blanket.

“I mostly wanted the blanket,” Ms. Molina said. She added that this was her second university credit card. In 1994, when she was an undergraduate at the university, she applied for a card at a booth on campus and then accumulated about $30,000 in debt, almost all of it on the card. In 2001 she filed for bankruptcy. Looking back, she said it was “shockingly easy” to get the card, even as a first-year student.

Mr. Muneio, the Michigan State student, said he did not apply for a Bank of America card because he already had two Visa cards. “The last thing I need is another account to keep track of.”

Many students are unaware of the contracts that universities have with credit card issuers and do not question the presence of marketers on campus or applications in their mailboxes, despite recent protests on a few campuses.

Sometimes, the contracts have confidentiality provisions. Universities may try to distance themselves, stating that the contracts are only between alumni associations and banks. But the universities provide alumni groups with lists of current students’ names, addresses and telephone numbers, which the groups pass on to banks.

The New York Times obtained information about and, in some cases, copies of contracts between lenders, public colleges and their alumni associations using open records requests. Because private colleges are not subject to open records laws, they are not included.

While most universities contacted for this article did not provide detailed financial information on the contracts — the University of Pittsburgh, for example, confirmed only that it had an agreement — two did share numbers.

The alumni association of the University of Michigan is guaranteed $25.5 million over the term of its 11-year agreement with Bank of America. Under the agreement, the association agreed to provide lists of names and addresses of students, alumni, faculty, staff, donors and holders of season tickets to athletic events.

Much of the money goes toward scholarships, said Jerry Sigler, vice president and chief financial officer of the alumni association. He was unsure what students were told about the program.

“Students are generally told how they can opt out of having their information publicly displayed in directories or provided in response to requests like this,” Mr. Sigler added. “But it’s not to my knowledge specific to the credit card program.”

Michigan State University gets $1.2 million a year but is guaranteed at least $8.4 million over seven years, according to its agreement. The contract calls for a $1 royalty to the university for every new card account that remains open for at least 90 days, $3 for every card whose holder pays an annual fee, and a payment of a half percent of the amount of all retail purchases using the cards.

For cards that do not have an annual fee, the bank pays $3 if the holder has a balance at the end of the 12th month after opening an account, a provision that appears to give the university an incentive to get cardholders into debt.

A few schools have adopted policies that prohibit sharing student contact information.

Ball State University’s alumni association, which has a contract with JPMorgan Chase, does not provide information on students, said Ed Shipley, executive director of the association. “Who we market to is our alumni because that’s our purpose,” he said. However, the bank is permitted to set up marketing tables at athletic events.

The University of Oregon, whose alumni association also has a marketing agreement with Chase, stopped providing student addresses as concern grew about student debt, according to Julie Brown, a university spokeswoman. The university still permits marketing booths at athletic events.

Some research suggests that students may be using credit cards less frequently, in favor of debit cards linked to their bank accounts. A survey last spring by Student Monitor, a Ridgewood, N.J., company that tracks trends on campus, found that 59 percent of undergraduate students had debit cards, up from 51 percent in 2000.

But universities have arrangements with banks that offer debit cards too, perhaps raising some of the same issues that the credit card deals do.

At New Mexico State University, for example, students are given the option of opening a bank account with Wells Fargo if they want to convert their campus identification into a debit card.

The accounts are not mandatory, said Angela Throneberry, assistant vice president for auxiliary services at the university. But, she said, “There’s some revenue sharing that happens as part of this.”

A Fistful Of Dollars: The Story of a Kiva.org Loan

A Fistful Of Dollars: The Story of a Kiva.org Loan from Kieran Ball on Vimeo.

This video follows the path of a $25 loan from London, England to Preak Tamao village, Cambodia. Kiva.org is a website that allows internet users like you or I to lend money to people that need it in developing countries, with the aim of empowering them to lift themselves out of poverty.

Kiva is the world's first person-to-person micro-lending website, empowering individuals to lend (interest free) directly to unique entrepreneurs in the developing world. The people you see on Kiva's site are real individuals in need of funding - not marketing material. When you browse entrepreneurs' profiles on the site, choose someone to lend to, and then make a loan, you are helping a real person make great strides towards economic independence and improve life for themselves, their family, and their community. Throughout the course of the loan (usually 6-12 months), you can receive email journal updates and track repayments. Then, when you get your loan money back, you can re-lend to someone else in need. Kiva partners with existing expert microfinance institutions. In doing so, they gain access to outstanding entrepreneurs from impoverished communities world-wide. Their partners are experts in choosing qualified entrepreneurs. I hope you contribute.

A War on Science

In recent years, the theory of evolution is under attack from a controversial idea called intelligent design. What is intelligent design and does it have any scientific legitimacy? This video, produced by the BBC, gives a brief overview of the conflict that is taking place in modern society.

When Charles Darwin published his theory of evolution nearly 150 years ago, he shattered the dominant belief of his day – that humans were the product of divine creation. Through his observations of nature, Darwin proposed the theory of evolution by natural selection. This caused uproar. After all, if the story of creation could be doubted, so too could the existence of the creator. Ever since its proposal, this cornerstone of biology has sustained wave after wave of attack. Now some scientists fear it is facing the most formidable challenge yet: a controversial new theory called intelligent design.

In the late 1980s Phillip Johnson, a renowned lawyer and born-again Christian, began to develop a strategy to challenge Darwin. To Johnson, the evidence for natural selection was poor. He also believed that by explaining the world only through material processes was inherently atheistic. If there was a god, science would never be able to discover it.

Johnson recruited other Darwin doubters, including biochemist Professor Michael Behe, mathematician Dr William Dembski, and philosopher of science Dr Stephen Meyer. These scientists developed the theory of intelligent design (ID) which claims that certain features of the natural world are best explained as the result of an intelligent being. To him, the presence of miniature machines and digital information found in living cells are evidence of a supernatural creator. Throughout the 90s, the ID movement took to disseminating articles, books and DVDs and organizing conferences all over the world.

To its supporters, intelligent design heralds a revolution in science and the movement is fast gaining political clout. Not only does it have the support of the President of the United States, it is on the verge of being introduced to science classes across the nation. However, its many critics, including Professor Richard Dawkins and Sir David Attenborough, fear that it cloaks a religious motive – to replace science with god.

Throughout the 20th century Christian groups resisted the theory of evolution. Many US states did not teach it until 1968 when the Supreme Court ruled that banning the teaching of evolution contravened the first amendment of the constitution of America, the separation of church and state. It was however still legal to teach religion as part of science class until the Edwards vs. Aguillard case in 1987, where mentioning a theory called 'creation science' in biology lessons was also deemed unconstitutional. This left evolution as the only theory of biological origin that science teachers were allowed to teach.

In 2005, the school board of Dover, a small farming community in western Pennsylvania, became the first in America to adopt the theory of intelligent design. The move divided the community and the small town became the centre of national attention. The school board voted to teach the ninth grade biology class that there are gaps and problems with the theory of evolution and to present intelligent design as an alternative.

Dover science teacher Bryan Rehm and his wife Christy believed that this new policy was not only anti-science, but religious and therefore unconstitutional. By promoting religion it was a violation of the law passed in 1987. The Rehms and nine other parents and teachers filed a law suit against the school board. Neighbor was pitted against neighbor in the first legal challenge to intelligent design.

After 40 days of trial, Judge John E Jones III ruled against the school board, stating: "We have addressed the seminal question of whether ID is science. We have concluded that it is not, and moreover that ID cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents."

Evolution supporters heralded this victory as the damning blow to the intelligent design movement. However, as history shows, law suits have little effect on the support for creationism in a country where over 50% of citizens believe that God created humans in their present form, the way the bible describes it.

A War on Science

In recent years, the theory of evolution is under attack from a controversial idea called intelligent design. What is intelligent design and does it have any scientific legitimacy? This video, produced by the BBC, gives a brief overview of the conflict that is taking place in modern society.

When Charles Darwin published his theory of evolution nearly 150 years ago, he shattered the dominant belief of his day – that humans were the product of divine creation. Through his observations of nature, Darwin proposed the theory of evolution by natural selection. This caused uproar. After all, if the story of creation could be doubted, so too could the existence of the creator. Ever since its proposal, this cornerstone of biology has sustained wave after wave of attack. Now some scientists fear it is facing the most formidable challenge yet: a controversial new theory called intelligent design.

In the late 1980s Phillip Johnson, a renowned lawyer and born-again Christian, began to develop a strategy to challenge Darwin. To Johnson, the evidence for natural selection was poor. He also believed that by explaining the world only through material processes was inherently atheistic. If there was a god, science would never be able to discover it.

Johnson recruited other Darwin doubters, including biochemist Professor Michael Behe, mathematician Dr William Dembski, and philosopher of science Dr Stephen Meyer. These scientists developed the theory of intelligent design (ID) which claims that certain features of the natural world are best explained as the result of an intelligent being. To him, the presence of miniature machines and digital information found in living cells are evidence of a supernatural creator. Throughout the 90s, the ID movement took to disseminating articles, books and DVDs and organizing conferences all over the world.

To its supporters, intelligent design heralds a revolution in science and the movement is fast gaining political clout. Not only does it have the support of the President of the United States, it is on the verge of being introduced to science classes across the nation. However, its many critics, including Professor Richard Dawkins and Sir David Attenborough, fear that it cloaks a religious motive – to replace science with god.

Throughout the 20th century Christian groups resisted the theory of evolution. Many US states did not teach it until 1968 when the Supreme Court ruled that banning the teaching of evolution contravened the first amendment of the constitution of America, the separation of church and state. It was however still legal to teach religion as part of science class until the Edwards vs. Aguillard case in 1987, where mentioning a theory called 'creation science' in biology lessons was also deemed unconstitutional. This left evolution as the only theory of biological origin that science teachers were allowed to teach.

In 2005, the school board of Dover, a small farming community in western Pennsylvania, became the first in America to adopt the theory of intelligent design. The move divided the community and the small town became the centre of national attention. The school board voted to teach the ninth grade biology class that there are gaps and problems with the theory of evolution and to present intelligent design as an alternative.

Dover science teacher Bryan Rehm and his wife Christy believed that this new policy was not only anti-science, but religious and therefore unconstitutional. By promoting religion it was a violation of the law passed in 1987. The Rehms and nine other parents and teachers filed a law suit against the school board. Neighbor was pitted against neighbor in the first legal challenge to intelligent design.

After 40 days of trial, Judge John E Jones III ruled against the school board, stating: "We have addressed the seminal question of whether ID is science. We have concluded that it is not, and moreover that ID cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents."

Evolution supporters heralded this victory as the damning blow to the intelligent design movement. However, as history shows, law suits have little effect on the support for creationism in a country where over 50% of citizens believe that God created humans in their present form, the way the bible describes it.

Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey

One of the best scientific documentaries in recent years. The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey is based on the book by Spencer Wells, an American geneticist and anthropologist, in which he uses techniques and theories of genetics and evolutionary biology to trace the geographical dispersal of early human migrations out of Africa.

Synopsis-

According to the recent single origin hypothesis, human ancestors originated in Africa, and eventually made their way out to the rest of the world. Analysis of the Y chromosome is one of the methods used in tracing the history of early humans. Thirteen genetic markers on the Y-chromosome differentiate populations of human beings.

It is believed, on the basis of genetic evidence, that all humans in existence up to 60,000 years ago lived in Africa. The earliest groups of humans are believed to find their present-day descendants among the San people, a group that is now found in western southern Africa. The San are smaller than the Bantu. They have lighter skins, more tightly curled hair, and they share the epicanthal fold with the people of East Asia, such as the Chinese and Japanese.

Southern and eastern Africa are believed to originally have been populated by people akin to the San. Since that early time much of their range has been taken over by the Bantu. Skeletal remains of these ancestral people are found in Paleolithic sites in Somalia and Ethiopia. There are also peoples in east Africa today who speak substantially different languages that nevertheless share the archaic characteristics of the San language, its distinctive repertoire of click and pop sounds. These are the only languages in the entire world that use these sounds in speech.

As humans migrated out of Africa, they all carried a genetic feature on the Y chromosome known as M168.

The first wave of migration out of Africa stayed close to the oceans shores, tracing a band along the coastal areas of the Indian Ocean including parts of the Arabian Peninsula, the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent and into South East Asia, down into what is now Indonesia, and eventually reaching Australia. This branch of the human family developed a new marker, M130.

This first wave appears to have left dark-skinned people along its path, including isolated groups of dark-skinned people in south east Asia such as the aboriginal population of the Andaman Islands (around 400 km off the west coast of Thailand), the Semang of Malaysia, and the Aeta of the Philippines.

The second wave of migration took a more northerly course, splitting somewhere in the area around what is now called Syria to sweep to the northwest into the area of the Balkans and to the east, where it split several more times in Central Asia, north of Afghanistan. The current that flowed into southern Europe east of Italy is characterized by M174, and the current that flowed into Central Asia carries M9. The other nine markers were added after the migration paths went on in several different directions from Central Asia.

The African diaspora is believed to have begun some 50,000 years ago, long enough for many changes to have occurred in humans remaining in Africa. The genetic trends reported involve humans who left Africa, and their genetic histories. The diversity found outside of Africa may well have been accentuated since populations migrating to new hunting grounds would rarely have had individuals moving backwards into previously settled regions. But within Africa, isolation would have been geographically aided primarily by the Sahara Desert, leaving people in areas not separated by the desert to travel and migrate relatively freely.

Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey

One of the best scientific documentaries in recent years. The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey is based on the book by Spencer Wells, an American geneticist and anthropologist, in which he uses techniques and theories of genetics and evolutionary biology to trace the geographical dispersal of early human migrations out of Africa.

Synopsis-

According to the recent single origin hypothesis, human ancestors originated in Africa, and eventually made their way out to the rest of the world. Analysis of the Y chromosome is one of the methods used in tracing the history of early humans. Thirteen genetic markers on the Y-chromosome differentiate populations of human beings.

It is believed, on the basis of genetic evidence, that all humans in existence up to 60,000 years ago lived in Africa. The earliest groups of humans are believed to find their present-day descendants among the San people, a group that is now found in western southern Africa. The San are smaller than the Bantu. They have lighter skins, more tightly curled hair, and they share the epicanthal fold with the people of East Asia, such as the Chinese and Japanese.

Southern and eastern Africa are believed to originally have been populated by people akin to the San. Since that early time much of their range has been taken over by the Bantu. Skeletal remains of these ancestral people are found in Paleolithic sites in Somalia and Ethiopia. There are also peoples in east Africa today who speak substantially different languages that nevertheless share the archaic characteristics of the San language, its distinctive repertoire of click and pop sounds. These are the only languages in the entire world that use these sounds in speech.

As humans migrated out of Africa, they all carried a genetic feature on the Y chromosome known as M168.

The first wave of migration out of Africa stayed close to the oceans shores, tracing a band along the coastal areas of the Indian Ocean including parts of the Arabian Peninsula, the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent and into South East Asia, down into what is now Indonesia, and eventually reaching Australia. This branch of the human family developed a new marker, M130.

This first wave appears to have left dark-skinned people along its path, including isolated groups of dark-skinned people in south east Asia such as the aboriginal population of the Andaman Islands (around 400 km off the west coast of Thailand), the Semang of Malaysia, and the Aeta of the Philippines.

The second wave of migration took a more northerly course, splitting somewhere in the area around what is now called Syria to sweep to the northwest into the area of the Balkans and to the east, where it split several more times in Central Asia, north of Afghanistan. The current that flowed into southern Europe east of Italy is characterized by M174, and the current that flowed into Central Asia carries M9. The other nine markers were added after the migration paths went on in several different directions from Central Asia.

The African diaspora is believed to have begun some 50,000 years ago, long enough for many changes to have occurred in humans remaining in Africa. The genetic trends reported involve humans who left Africa, and their genetic histories. The diversity found outside of Africa may well have been accentuated since populations migrating to new hunting grounds would rarely have had individuals moving backwards into previously settled regions. But within Africa, isolation would have been geographically aided primarily by the Sahara Desert, leaving people in areas not separated by the desert to travel and migrate relatively freely.

The War on Democracy by John Pilger

The War on Democracy, directed by John Pilger & Chris Martin, has won Best Documentary at the prestigious One World Media Awards in London. Focusing on the political state of Latin America, the film is a rebuke of both the United States' intervention in foreign countries' domestic politics, and its war on terrorism.

Production-

The film was produced over a 2-year period. Carl Deal, chief archivist on the Michael Moore films Fahrenheit 9/11 and Bowling for Columbine provided the archive footage used in the film, which is mastered in high-definition video.

Synopsis-

Set both in Latin America and the United States, the film explores the historic and current relationship of Washington with countries such as Venezuela, Bolivia and Chile. Pilger claims that the film "...tells a universal story... analysing and revealing, through vivid testimony, the story of great power behind its venerable myths. It allows us to understand the true nature of the so-called war on terror".

The films message is that the greed and power of empire is not invincible and that people power is always the "seed beneath the snow".

Pilger interviews several ex-CIA agents who took part in secret campaigns against democratic countries and who are profiting from the war in Iraq. He investigates the School of the Americas in the U.S. state of Georgia, where General Pinochets torture squads were trained along with tyrants and death-squad leaders in Haiti, El Salvador, Brazil and Argentina.

The film uses archive footage to support its claim that democracy has been wiped out in country after country in Latin America since the 1950s. Testimonies from those who fought for democracy in Chile and Bolivia are also used.

Segments filmed in Bolivia show that for the last five years huge popular movements have demanded that multinational companies be refused to access the country's natural reserves of gas, or to buy up the water supply. In Bolivia, Pilger interviews people who say that their country's resources, including their water and rainwater, were asset stripped by multinational interests. He describes how they threw out a foreign water consortium and reclaimed their water supply. The narrative leads to the landslide election of the country's first indigenous President.

In Chile, Pilger talks to women who survived the pogroms of General Augusto Pinochet, in remembrance of colleagues who perished at the hands of the dictator. He walks with Sara de Witt through the grounds of the torture house in which she was tortured and survived. Pilger also investigates the "model democracy" that Chile has become and claims that there is a facade of prosperity and that Pinochets legacy is still alive.

The film also tells the story of an American nun, Dianna Ortiz, who tells how she was tortured and gang raped in the late 1980s by a gang led by a fellow American clearly in league with the U.S.-backed regime, at a time when the Reagan administration was supplying the military regime with planes and guns. Dianna Ortiz asks whether the American people are aware of the role their country plays in subverting innocent nations under the guise of a "war on terror". Former CIA agent and Watergate scandal conspirator Howard Hunt, who describes how he and others overthrew the previously democratically elected government. Hunt describes how he organized "a little harmless bombing". Duane Clarridge, former head of CIA operations in South America is also interviewed.

Pilger traveled through Venezuela with its president, Hugo Chavez, who he regards as the only leader of an oil-producing nation who has used its resources democratically for the education and health of its people. The Venezuelan segment of the film features the coup of 2002, captured in archival footage. The film holds that the 2002 coup against Chavez was backed by rich and powerful interests under U.S. support and that Chavez was brought back to power by the Venezuelan people. Pilger describes the advances in Venezuela's new social democracy, but he also questions Chavez on why there are still poor people in such an oil-rich country.

The War on Democracy by John Pilger

The War on Democracy, directed by John Pilger & Chris Martin, has won Best Documentary at the prestigious One World Media Awards in London. Focusing on the political state of Latin America, the film is a rebuke of both the United States' intervention in foreign countries' domestic politics, and its war on terrorism.

Production-

The film was produced over a 2-year period. Carl Deal, chief archivist on the Michael Moore films Fahrenheit 9/11 and Bowling for Columbine provided the archive footage used in the film, which is mastered in high-definition video.

Synopsis-

Set both in Latin America and the United States, the film explores the historic and current relationship of Washington with countries such as Venezuela, Bolivia and Chile. Pilger claims that the film "...tells a universal story... analysing and revealing, through vivid testimony, the story of great power behind its venerable myths. It allows us to understand the true nature of the so-called war on terror".

The films message is that the greed and power of empire is not invincible and that people power is always the "seed beneath the snow".

Pilger interviews several ex-CIA agents who took part in secret campaigns against democratic countries and who are profiting from the war in Iraq. He investigates the School of the Americas in the U.S. state of Georgia, where General Pinochets torture squads were trained along with tyrants and death-squad leaders in Haiti, El Salvador, Brazil and Argentina.

The film uses archive footage to support its claim that democracy has been wiped out in country after country in Latin America since the 1950s. Testimonies from those who fought for democracy in Chile and Bolivia are also used.

Segments filmed in Bolivia show that for the last five years huge popular movements have demanded that multinational companies be refused to access the country's natural reserves of gas, or to buy up the water supply. In Bolivia, Pilger interviews people who say that their country's resources, including their water and rainwater, were asset stripped by multinational interests. He describes how they threw out a foreign water consortium and reclaimed their water supply. The narrative leads to the landslide election of the country's first indigenous President.

In Chile, Pilger talks to women who survived the pogroms of General Augusto Pinochet, in remembrance of colleagues who perished at the hands of the dictator. He walks with Sara de Witt through the grounds of the torture house in which she was tortured and survived. Pilger also investigates the "model democracy" that Chile has become and claims that there is a facade of prosperity and that Pinochets legacy is still alive.

The film also tells the story of an American nun, Dianna Ortiz, who tells how she was tortured and gang raped in the late 1980s by a gang led by a fellow American clearly in league with the U.S.-backed regime, at a time when the Reagan administration was supplying the military regime with planes and guns. Dianna Ortiz asks whether the American people are aware of the role their country plays in subverting innocent nations under the guise of a "war on terror". Former CIA agent and Watergate scandal conspirator Howard Hunt, who describes how he and others overthrew the previously democratically elected government. Hunt describes how he organized "a little harmless bombing". Duane Clarridge, former head of CIA operations in South America is also interviewed.

Pilger traveled through Venezuela with its president, Hugo Chavez, who he regards as the only leader of an oil-producing nation who has used its resources democratically for the education and health of its people. The Venezuelan segment of the film features the coup of 2002, captured in archival footage. The film holds that the 2002 coup against Chavez was backed by rich and powerful interests under U.S. support and that Chavez was brought back to power by the Venezuelan people. Pilger describes the advances in Venezuela's new social democracy, but he also questions Chavez on why there are still poor people in such an oil-rich country.

John Pilger's The War on Democracy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXNRr3HBeIw

John Pilger's The War on Democracy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXNRr3HBeIw

The Hidden Costs of Money

by Peter Singer

PRINCETON – When people say that “Money is the root of all evil,” they usually don’t mean that money itself is the root of evil. Like Saint Paul, from whom the quote comes, they have in mind the love of money. Could money itself, whether we are greedy for it or not, be a problem?

Karl Marx thought so. In The Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, a youthful work that remained unpublished and largely unknown until the mid-twentieth century, Marx describes money as “the universal agent of separation,” because it transforms human characteristics into something else. A man may be ugly, Marx wrote, but if he has money, he can buy for himself “the most beautiful of women.” Without money, presumably, some more positive human qualities would be needed. Money alienates us, Marx thought, from our true human nature and from our fellow human beings.

Marx’s reputation sank once it became evident that he was wrong to predict that a workers’ revolution would usher in a new era with a better life for everyone. So if we had only his word for the alienating effects of money, we might feel free to dismiss it as an element of a misguided ideology. But research by Kathleen Vohs, Nicole Mead, and Miranda Goode, reported in Science in 2006, suggests that on this point, at least, Marx was onto something.

In a series of experiments, Vohs and her colleagues found ways to get people to think about money without explicitly telling them to do so. They gave some people tasks that involved unscrambling phrases about money. With others, they left piles of Monopoly money nearby. Another group saw a screensaver with various denominations of money. Other people, randomly selected, unscrambled phrases that were not about money, did not see Monopoly money, and saw different screensavers. In each case, those who had been led to think about money – let’s call them “the money group” – behaved differently from those who had not.

• When given a difficult task and told that help was available, people in the money group took longer to ask for help.

• When asked for help, people in the money group spent less time helping.

• When told to move their chair so that they could talk with someone else, people in the money group left a greater distance between chairs.

• When asked to choose a leisure activity, people in the money group were more likely to choose an activity that could be enjoyed alone, rather than one that involved others.

• Finally, when people in the money group were invited to donate some of the money they had been paid for participation in the experiment, they gave less than those who had not been induced to think about money.

Trivial reminders of money made a surprisingly large difference. For example, where the control group would offer to spend an average of 42 minutes helping someone with a task, those primed to think about money offered only 25 minutes. Similarly, when someone pretending to be another participant in the experiment asked for help, the money group spent only half as much time helping her. When asked to make a donation from their earnings, the money group gave just a little over half as much as the control group.

Why does money makes us less willing to seek or give help, or even to sit close to others? Vohs and her colleagues suggest that as societies began to use money, the necessity of relying on family and friends diminished, and people were able to become more self-sufficient. “In this way,” they conclude, “money enhanced individualism but diminished communal motivations, an effect that is still apparent in people’s responses today.”

That’s not much of an explanation of why being reminded of money should make so much difference to how we behave, given that we all use money everyday. There seems to be something going on here that we still don’t fully understand.

I am not pleading for a return to the simpler days of barter or self-sufficiency. Money enables us to trade – and thus to benefit from each other’s special skills and advantages. Without money, we would be immeasurably poorer, and not only in a financial sense.

But now that we are aware of the isolating power that even the thought of money can have, we can no longer think of money’s role as being entirely neutral. If, for example, a local parents’ organization wants to build a children’s playground, should it ask its members to do the work on a voluntary basis, or should it launch a fundraising campaign so that an outside contractor can be employed?

Harvard economist Roland Fryer’s proposal to pay poor students for doing well at school is another area where using money is open to question. If money were neutral, this would be just a question of whether the benefits of using money outweigh the financial costs. Often, they will – for example, if the parents lack the skills to build a good playground. But it would be a mistake to assume that allowing money to dominate every sphere of life comes without other costs that are difficult to express in financial terms.

--

Peter Singer is Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University and the author of Animal Liberation,, and other books. He is currently working on a book about philanthropy and world poverty. Practical Ethics

The Hidden Costs of Money

by Peter Singer

PRINCETON – When people say that “Money is the root of all evil,” they usually don’t mean that money itself is the root of evil. Like Saint Paul, from whom the quote comes, they have in mind the love of money. Could money itself, whether we are greedy for it or not, be a problem?

Karl Marx thought so. In The Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, a youthful work that remained unpublished and largely unknown until the mid-twentieth century, Marx describes money as “the universal agent of separation,” because it transforms human characteristics into something else. A man may be ugly, Marx wrote, but if he has money, he can buy for himself “the most beautiful of women.” Without money, presumably, some more positive human qualities would be needed. Money alienates us, Marx thought, from our true human nature and from our fellow human beings.

Marx’s reputation sank once it became evident that he was wrong to predict that a workers’ revolution would usher in a new era with a better life for everyone. So if we had only his word for the alienating effects of money, we might feel free to dismiss it as an element of a misguided ideology. But research by Kathleen Vohs, Nicole Mead, and Miranda Goode, reported in Science in 2006, suggests that on this point, at least, Marx was onto something.

In a series of experiments, Vohs and her colleagues found ways to get people to think about money without explicitly telling them to do so. They gave some people tasks that involved unscrambling phrases about money. With others, they left piles of Monopoly money nearby. Another group saw a screensaver with various denominations of money. Other people, randomly selected, unscrambled phrases that were not about money, did not see Monopoly money, and saw different screensavers. In each case, those who had been led to think about money – let’s call them “the money group” – behaved differently from those who had not.

• When given a difficult task and told that help was available, people in the money group took longer to ask for help.

• When asked for help, people in the money group spent less time helping.

• When told to move their chair so that they could talk with someone else, people in the money group left a greater distance between chairs.

• When asked to choose a leisure activity, people in the money group were more likely to choose an activity that could be enjoyed alone, rather than one that involved others.

• Finally, when people in the money group were invited to donate some of the money they had been paid for participation in the experiment, they gave less than those who had not been induced to think about money.

Trivial reminders of money made a surprisingly large difference. For example, where the control group would offer to spend an average of 42 minutes helping someone with a task, those primed to think about money offered only 25 minutes. Similarly, when someone pretending to be another participant in the experiment asked for help, the money group spent only half as much time helping her. When asked to make a donation from their earnings, the money group gave just a little over half as much as the control group.

Why does money makes us less willing to seek or give help, or even to sit close to others? Vohs and her colleagues suggest that as societies began to use money, the necessity of relying on family and friends diminished, and people were able to become more self-sufficient. “In this way,” they conclude, “money enhanced individualism but diminished communal motivations, an effect that is still apparent in people’s responses today.”

That’s not much of an explanation of why being reminded of money should make so much difference to how we behave, given that we all use money everyday. There seems to be something going on here that we still don’t fully understand.

I am not pleading for a return to the simpler days of barter or self-sufficiency. Money enables us to trade – and thus to benefit from each other’s special skills and advantages. Without money, we would be immeasurably poorer, and not only in a financial sense.

But now that we are aware of the isolating power that even the thought of money can have, we can no longer think of money’s role as being entirely neutral. If, for example, a local parents’ organization wants to build a children’s playground, should it ask its members to do the work on a voluntary basis, or should it launch a fundraising campaign so that an outside contractor can be employed?

Harvard economist Roland Fryer’s proposal to pay poor students for doing well at school is another area where using money is open to question. If money were neutral, this would be just a question of whether the benefits of using money outweigh the financial costs. Often, they will – for example, if the parents lack the skills to build a good playground. But it would be a mistake to assume that allowing money to dominate every sphere of life comes without other costs that are difficult to express in financial terms.

--

Peter Singer is Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University and the author of Animal Liberation,, and other books. He is currently working on a book about philanthropy and world poverty. Practical Ethics

The Triumphant Return of John Maynard Keynes

by Joseph E. Stiglitz

NEW YORK – We are all Keynesians now. Even the right in the United States has joined the Keynesian camp with unbridled enthusiasm and on a scale that at one time would have been truly unimaginable.

For those of us who claimed some connection to the Keynesian tradition, this is a moment of triumph, after having been left in the wilderness, almost shunned, for more than three decades. At one level, what is happening now is a triumph of reason and evidence over ideology and interests.

Economic theory had long explained why unfettered markets were not self-correcting, why regulation was needed, why there was an important role for government to play in the economy. But many, especially people working in the financial markets, pushed a type of “market fundamentalism.” The misguided policies that resulted – pushed by, among others, some members of US President-elect Barack Obama’s economic team – had earlier inflicted enormous costs on developing countries. The moment of enlightenment came only when those policies also began inflicting costs on the US and other advanced industrial countries.

Keynes argued not only that markets are not self-correcting, but that in a severe downturn, monetary policy was likely to be ineffective. Fiscal policy was required. But not all fiscal policies are equivalent. In America today, with an overhang of household debt and high uncertainty, tax cuts are likely to be ineffective (as they were in Japan in the 1990’s). Much, if not most, of last February’s US tax cut went into savings.

With the huge debt left behind by the Bush administration, the US should be especially motivated to get the largest possible stimulation from each dollar spent. The legacy of underinvestment in technology and infrastructure, especially of the green kind, and the growing divide between the rich and the poor, requires congruence between short-run spending and a long-term vision.

That necessitates restructuring both tax and expenditure programs. Lowering taxes on the poor and raising unemployment benefits while simultaneously increasing taxes on the rich can stimulate the economy, reduce the deficit, and reduce inequality. Cutting expenditures on the Iraq war and increasing expenditures on education can simultaneously increase output in the short and long run and reduce the deficit.

Keynes was worried about a liquidity trap – the inability of monetary authorities to induce an increase in the supply of credit in order to raise the level of economic activity. US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has tried hard to avoid having the blame fall on the Fed for deepening this downturn in the way that it is blamed for the Great Depression, famously associated with a contraction of the money supply and the collapse of banks.

And yet one should read history and theory carefully: preserving financial institutions is not an end in itself, but a means to an end. It is the flow of credit that is important, and the reason that the failure of banks during the Great Depression was important is that they were involved in determining creditworthiness; they were the repositories of information necessary for the maintenance of the flow of credit.

But America’s financial system has changed dramatically since the 1930’s. Many of America’s big banks moved out of the “lending” business and into the “moving business.” They focused on buying assets, repackaging them, and selling them, while establishing a record of incompetence in assessing risk and screening for creditworthiness. Hundreds of billions have been spent to preserve these dysfunctional institutions. Nothing has been done even to address their perverse incentive structures, which encourage short-sighted behavior and excessive risk taking. With private rewards so markedly different from social returns, it is no surprise that the pursuit of self-interest (greed) led to such socially destructive consequences. Not even the interests of their own shareholders have been served well.

Meanwhile, too little is being done to help banks that actually do what banks are supposed to do – lend money and assess creditworthiness.

The Federal government has assumed trillions of dollars of liabilities and risks. In rescuing the financial system, no less than in fiscal policy, we need to worry about the “bang for the buck.” Otherwise, the deficit – which has doubled in eight years – will soar even more.

In September, there was talk that the government would get back its money, with interest. As the bailout has ballooned, it is increasingly clear that this was merely another example of financial markets mis appraising risk – just as they have done consistently in recent years. The terms of the Bernanke-Paulson bailouts were disadvantageous to taxpayers, and yet remarkably, despite their size, have done little to rekindle lending.

The neo-liberal push for deregulation served some interests well. Financial markets did well through capital market liberalization. Enabling America to sell its risky financial products and engage in speculation all over the world may have served its firms well, even if they imposed large costs on others.

Today, the risk is that the new Keynesian doctrines will be used and abused to serve some of the same interests. Have those who pushed deregulation ten years ago learned their lesson? Or will they simply push for cosmetic reforms – the minimum required to justify the mega-trillion dollar bailouts? Has there been a change of heart, or only a change in strategy? After all, in today’s context, the pursuit of Keynesian policies looks even more profitable than the pursuit of market fundamentalism!

Ten years ago, at the time of the Asian financial crisis, there was much discussion of the need to reform the global financial architecture. Little was done. It is imperative that we not just respond adequately to the current crisis, but that we undertake the long-run reforms that will be necessary if we are to create a more stable, more prosperous, and equitable global economy.

--

Joseph E. Stiglitz, professor of economics at Columbia University, and recipient of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics, is co-author, with Linda Bilmes, of The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Costs of the Iraq Conflict.

The Triumphant Return of John Maynard Keynes

by Joseph E. Stiglitz

NEW YORK – We are all Keynesians now. Even the right in the United States has joined the Keynesian camp with unbridled enthusiasm and on a scale that at one time would have been truly unimaginable.

For those of us who claimed some connection to the Keynesian tradition, this is a moment of triumph, after having been left in the wilderness, almost shunned, for more than three decades. At one level, what is happening now is a triumph of reason and evidence over ideology and interests.

Economic theory had long explained why unfettered markets were not self-correcting, why regulation was needed, why there was an important role for government to play in the economy. But many, especially people working in the financial markets, pushed a type of “market fundamentalism.” The misguided policies that resulted – pushed by, among others, some members of US President-elect Barack Obama’s economic team – had earlier inflicted enormous costs on developing countries. The moment of enlightenment came only when those policies also began inflicting costs on the US and other advanced industrial countries.

Keynes argued not only that markets are not self-correcting, but that in a severe downturn, monetary policy was likely to be ineffective. Fiscal policy was required. But not all fiscal policies are equivalent. In America today, with an overhang of household debt and high uncertainty, tax cuts are likely to be ineffective (as they were in Japan in the 1990’s). Much, if not most, of last February’s US tax cut went into savings.

With the huge debt left behind by the Bush administration, the US should be especially motivated to get the largest possible stimulation from each dollar spent. The legacy of underinvestment in technology and infrastructure, especially of the green kind, and the growing divide between the rich and the poor, requires congruence between short-run spending and a long-term vision.

That necessitates restructuring both tax and expenditure programs. Lowering taxes on the poor and raising unemployment benefits while simultaneously increasing taxes on the rich can stimulate the economy, reduce the deficit, and reduce inequality. Cutting expenditures on the Iraq war and increasing expenditures on education can simultaneously increase output in the short and long run and reduce the deficit.

Keynes was worried about a liquidity trap – the inability of monetary authorities to induce an increase in the supply of credit in order to raise the level of economic activity. US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has tried hard to avoid having the blame fall on the Fed for deepening this downturn in the way that it is blamed for the Great Depression, famously associated with a contraction of the money supply and the collapse of banks.

And yet one should read history and theory carefully: preserving financial institutions is not an end in itself, but a means to an end. It is the flow of credit that is important, and the reason that the failure of banks during the Great Depression was important is that they were involved in determining creditworthiness; they were the repositories of information necessary for the maintenance of the flow of credit.

But America’s financial system has changed dramatically since the 1930’s. Many of America’s big banks moved out of the “lending” business and into the “moving business.” They focused on buying assets, repackaging them, and selling them, while establishing a record of incompetence in assessing risk and screening for creditworthiness. Hundreds of billions have been spent to preserve these dysfunctional institutions. Nothing has been done even to address their perverse incentive structures, which encourage short-sighted behavior and excessive risk taking. With private rewards so markedly different from social returns, it is no surprise that the pursuit of self-interest (greed) led to such socially destructive consequences. Not even the interests of their own shareholders have been served well.

Meanwhile, too little is being done to help banks that actually do what banks are supposed to do – lend money and assess creditworthiness.

The Federal government has assumed trillions of dollars of liabilities and risks. In rescuing the financial system, no less than in fiscal policy, we need to worry about the “bang for the buck.” Otherwise, the deficit – which has doubled in eight years – will soar even more.

In September, there was talk that the government would get back its money, with interest. As the bailout has ballooned, it is increasingly clear that this was merely another example of financial markets mis appraising risk – just as they have done consistently in recent years. The terms of the Bernanke-Paulson bailouts were disadvantageous to taxpayers, and yet remarkably, despite their size, have done little to rekindle lending.

The neo-liberal push for deregulation served some interests well. Financial markets did well through capital market liberalization. Enabling America to sell its risky financial products and engage in speculation all over the world may have served its firms well, even if they imposed large costs on others.

Today, the risk is that the new Keynesian doctrines will be used and abused to serve some of the same interests. Have those who pushed deregulation ten years ago learned their lesson? Or will they simply push for cosmetic reforms – the minimum required to justify the mega-trillion dollar bailouts? Has there been a change of heart, or only a change in strategy? After all, in today’s context, the pursuit of Keynesian policies looks even more profitable than the pursuit of market fundamentalism!

Ten years ago, at the time of the Asian financial crisis, there was much discussion of the need to reform the global financial architecture. Little was done. It is imperative that we not just respond adequately to the current crisis, but that we undertake the long-run reforms that will be necessary if we are to create a more stable, more prosperous, and equitable global economy.

--

Joseph E. Stiglitz, professor of economics at Columbia University, and recipient of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics, is co-author, with Linda Bilmes, of The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Costs of the Iraq Conflict.