Word: defaults
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...impressive bipartisan consensus regarding the power of inertia. For all the disagreements over the public option, almost everyone agrees that making it the default is a big deal, and that the compromise allowing opt-outs is a pretty modest compromise. That's because reams of studies have shown that default settings really, really matter. If Reid's legislation had omitted a default public option but allowed states to opt in if they wanted one, insurers would be ecstatic and liberals would be furious...
...classic example of the power of the default is the opt-out 401(k) savings plan. In a 2001 study, only 36% of the participants signed up for a retirement savings plan when they had to opt in - even though their employers were matching their contributions. Free money, and only 36% took it! But when participants were automatically signed up for the same plan but given the chance to opt out, 86% of them stuck with it. Scholars have found similar status-quo results with organ donations. If we have to sign up, very few of us become organ donors...
...their own best interests. In the real world, human beings are human beings. Sometimes we're too dumb to know our own best interests. Sometimes we're too lazy to slog through the forms to figure out our own best interests. Often we're conformists; we assume the default must be the default because that's what most people do, and we're desperate not to be social deviants...
...some economists believe that a coordinated global exit strategy, especially in regard to monetary policy, will ultimately happen, but by default. The Federal Reserve holds so much influence in the world economy that other central banks might be wary of deviating too far from its policy. "The nature of the coordination is not that bankers sit around a table and do things together," says the University of Leuven's De Grauwe. "The nature is that some of the big guys make a move and force everyone to move." In the global recovery, as in the downturn, everyone may sink...
...pointed to the proliferation of financial engineering techniques—such as credit derivatives and credit default swaps—as methods of “taking bad paper and making it look like good paper...