I’m Not Pavlov’s Dog!

Nudge me and I bite! The Mutt and his mangy pack are tryin’ to pass this Orwellian monstrosity off as creative genius. Now that they’ve got the ignorant masses hooked on free cell phones and cable, they’re ready to start moldin’ their minds. (Cue swirly spiral thingy here.)

AHM: Like this?



Aarrrrrrrrgah!

The federal government is hiring what it calls a "Behavioral Insights Team" that will look for ways to subtly influence people's behavior,… Critics warn there could be unintended consequences to such policies, while supporters say the team could make government and society more efficient.

The document praises subtle policies to change behavior that have already been implemented in England, which already has a "Behavioral Insights Team."

Remind me again why we fought that pesky Revolution?

[Richard] Thaler [a professor from the University of Chicago], who is also an adviser to the British Behavioral Insights Team, said that his research also supports automatically enrolling people in retirement savings plans.

Aha! Here comes the REAL reason for the “nudge squad”—money.

"Many people have struggled to save enough to provide for an adequate retirement. ... Two simple design changes can dramatically improve the situation ... automatic enrollment (default people into the plan with the option to easily opt out) and automatic escalation, where workers can sign up to have their contributions increased annually," he said.

In case anyone’s forgotten—which they probably have—that’s what your Social Security deduction was supposed to be—your (mandatorily-deducted) retirement fund. ‘Course those big-brained gumment types decided they needed all that money to help pay for their special programs and yanked it outta’ that “lockbox” account. Now they’re tryin’ to do it again! How long before they grab the new fund?

And how dumb do you think we are?!

Oh…wait…

posted by Harrison at 7:30 PM