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‘If You Get Too Cold, I’ll Tax The Heat’
Nobody likes the taxman. Even those who in principle believe in spreading the wealth—even they get a twinge of fear at the mention of the IRS, April 15th and—worst of all—the dreaded audit. Don’t deny it. That’s because the IRS has been pretty heavy-handed over the years, relying on the threat of audits and liens and seizures and harsh fines to scare citizens into compliance. These punitive tactics are based on classical economic theory, which says that we are all essentially self-interested, motivated only by the drive to maximize our own financial interests. Without such deterrents, according to this reasoning, there would be rampant cheating.
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“I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled”
What do those words evoke for you? For me, because I still have fragments of T.S. Eliot’s poetry bouncing around my neurons, those lyrical words trigger the idea of growing old, with all its associated aches and pains and slowing down. Other words might do the same for you—Florida, lonely, RV, Social Security—depending on your experiences. Mere words have the power to shape our thinking and our judgments in hidden ways every day. And not just our thinking—our actions as well.
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The Poor and the Heartless
Last year, the top 10 percent of American earners took home more than half of the country’s total income. The top 1 percent took home a fifth. That’s the greatest income disparity ever recorded, and it’s getting worse. Indeed, the income of the wealthiest has grown dramatically during the recession that began in 2008, while the less fortunate have seen their incomes stagnate. This inequality has all sorts of consequences for the poor, besides the obvious financial burden of everyday living. As Maia Szalavitz reported in Time magazine this week, the poor also suffer from poorer health and higher mortality.
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Are you okay? You smell like cytokines.
Nurses and hospice workers say they can smell the final approach of death. Not with sudden death, but with the slow march toward the grave, the body’s systems begin to shut down and metabolism changes, so that breath and skin and fluids give off a distinctive odor that signals the end is near. This is not surprising. In fact it’s more perplexing that deadly diseases don’t announce their presence earlier. From an evolutionary perspective, it would be more advantageous if we could all detect early warning signals, olfactory cues that the immune system is gearing up to ward off a new and threatening disease. Psychological scientists call this the behavioral immune response.
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No Conflict: Transparency and Morals
Consider this scenario: You have been sick for some time, more debilitated by the month, and doctors are scratching their heads. Finally, in pain and exhausted, you find a specialist who figures it out. Your ailment is very serious, but the good news is that it can be treated with a new drug. The doctor writes a prescription, but as he hands it to you, he says: “Just so you know, the company that makes this drug also funds a research project of mine.” This is a classic conflict-of-interest, and most people would applaud this physician for voluntarily disclosing his personal interest here.
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Sirens in the Grocery Aisles
On his long sea journey back home following the fall of Troy, the Greek war hero Odysseus sailed perilously close to the Sirens. The Sirens were beautiful and seductive creatures who used their enchanting songs to lure sailors into shipwrecks on the rocky coast. Odysseus yearned to hear the Sirens’ song, but he also knew that his weak will was no match for their potent temptation, so he ordered his crew to plug their ears and lash him to the ship’s mast—and never to untie him no matter what he pleaded. He did plead to be released, and his crew did ignore his pleas as ordered—and only in that way did Odysseus control his desires and avoid destruction.
