East Books – Buy away, you silly people

Method and manipulation: a sales strategy.

Grab the object that you use more than any other. No, it’s not your watch. And it’s not your computer either. It’s there in the pocket of your jacket or maybe your trousers. Or you could be holding it in your hand right now as you read these words. Yes, you’ve got it, it’s your smartphone. This is undoubtedly the object that you use most during the course of the day. Don’t try denying it. Now think of it as an instrument of manipulation that can deceive you every time you turn it on. Welcome to the future, dear fools.

Economists George Akerlof and Robert Schiller are Nobel laureates. The former won the Nobel Prize for his work on asymmetric information in markets, the latter for his empirical analysis of asset prices. And neither are economists in the mould of Joseph Stiglitz or Paul Krugman, who are more interested in fostering debate than generating academic discussion. 

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