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lying as normal October 14, 2015

Posted by Bradley in : truth , add a comment

It is surprisingly hard to find a link to this, but there’s a Best Buy ad I have seen a few times recently. A girl is doing a science project and the video of the simulated volcanic eruption isn’t as impressive as she would like so her Dad goes to Best Buy and buys what is probably an expensive screen on which she can display her unimpressive video in a way that looks impressive. The tag li[n]e: “So even small successes can be big triumphs.”
The takeaways: people who have money to burn can do better on school science fair projects than people who don’t and lying is OK. If you can present what you have done as being exceptional [by the application of money] it doesn’t matter that it is merely ordinary.
Obvious, but depressing.

October 21 update: The line is actually “So even small successes can look like big triumphs.” For a few days I saw the ad a couple of times without this line. I just saw it again with that line included. Encouraging a new generation to prepare for work at Volkswagen and other large corporations?

thinking about financial stability October 12, 2015

Posted by Bradley in : financial regulation , add a comment

I’d really like to go to this conference, but don’t think I have the time. Meanwhile I am working on a paper with the title Financial Stability: Regulation and Politics which I plan to present at Law and Society next summer.