Knowledge V Flashcards

Question

The heart/mind is pure spirit compacted into thoughts and feelings.

Answer 1

Parable of the talents - if you buy you talents.... (parable of the talents)

Answer 2

Jeff diagrams his 30-second and 60-second commercials, a habit he picked up from his mentor, Hal Riney. As Jeff says, Riney had impeccable timing when it came to writing commercials. Part of this had to do with his methodology of creating a diagram that shows exactly where dialogue and action will be, how long each individual moment will last, and, ultimately, how the story arc will deliver on the brand message in the perfect time. Preparation is crucial, and keeping things compelling in their most minimal form will really help the director, producer, editor, and creatives understand how the end product should ultimately feel.

Answer 3

St. Augustine

Answer 4

Try doing a second annotation pass, but this time writing your comments, ideas, and notes down as if they were being delivered to the screenwriter and producer. This will be good practice for communicating your vision when you begin to enlist others in the process of making your short.

Answer 5

Marcus Aurelius

Answer 6

In the same way that people experience personality shifts over the course of their lives, company brands also go through phases of personality. As the world changes and people decide what they do or do not want from that brand, it’s important for the company to adjust its messaging. On a philosophical level, that’s the whole point of advertising: knowing how and when to change the public perception of a brand by reestablishing the brand’s value systems. One way to do this is through heritage, which can be valuable or disadvantageous for a company. Jeff and Rich talk about how the “got milk?” campaign was partly aboutditching milk’s most popular selling point—its health benefits—because it was no longer an effective part of the brand message. As new health crazes started entering the culture, the simple message that “it’s healthy” felt dated, which is why the “got milk?” campaign pursued new avenues rather than relying on old ideas.

Answer 7

As you have learned, Martin envisions a great deal of the editing of any film on paper in drawings, and Thelma Schoonmaker, his trusted editor, knows how to translate those original ideas and concepts into edited sequences. She is also able to decipher the feedback Martin’s films receive from advance screenings and won’t argue with Martin about what feedback to listen to and what to disregard. Her loyalties lie with Martin and his vision, and Martin values her like-mindedness. You will always have to kill some of your darlings, as Martin learned when making After Hours. While there were many funny scenes, Martin realized that much of the humor was lost because the film was so long. Though cutting some of his favorite scenes was painful, it improved the movie and made it funnier. The experience taught Martin about script construction—he began shooting without a satisfactory ending—and that the length of scenes might feel vastly different on paper than on screen. Once the first cut is done, Martin screens the film for himself and a few trusted members of his team

Answer 8

• Start thinking about how much money you are comfortable spending to make your short film. Once you have a number in mind, answer the questions below: • How many actors does your short require? • How much are you able to pay them? (If you’re working with amateur actors or friends and family, you might be able to get them to work for free, especially if you feed them.) • How many crew members do you anticipate using, and what are you willing to pay them? (Again if you’re working with friends or family, you may not need to pay them, especially if you are willing to help them on their own projects.) • What and how many times a day will you feed your actors and crew? (This will, of course, depend on how many hours you plan to shoot each day.) • Does your short film require costumes for actors? • Does your film require any specific props or production design elements? • Do you need any equipment? (Ideally your low-budget film is shot with a camera you already own or with your smartphone, but you might require extra equipment like an external microphone or lighting gear. To the best of your ability, take into account the things you’d need to buy for production.) • Where will you be shooting? Lay out a complete list of locations at which you hope to shoot. (If you’re planning on shooting in a public location for your short, keep in mind that there may be costs related to location fees and permits. Even if you’re able to film for free in a given location, it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to prevent outside people from walking through your shot or talking over your actors. If you’re set on using a specific location, look into any associated fees and add that to your calculations.) • Finally, total the amount you’ve calculated so far and compare it to the number you came up with before going through this list of questions. If the cost is too high, start paring it down, item by item, until you’ve reached a number that is affordable or reasonable for you. This process might seem difficult, overwhelming, or even impossible, but remember, Martin started with no outside funding and minimal help.

Answer 9

Language and writing are hugely important to Neil, partly because he uses his books and essays to work out ideas he’ll use elsewhere. “Ninety percent of the sentences that come out of my mouth [are ones that] I have previously written down,” he says. Writing allows you to organize and rework ideas, to play with structure in a way that spoken language doesn’t. If you’re unfamiliar with the practice of writing, start by creating a habit you can stick to. Maybe that means keeping a daily journal in which you jot down your personal observations of the world; maybe it means starting a blog where you can practice the actual craft of writing (syntax, grammar, word choice). However you pursue the written word, keep at it—writing will only serve you well when speaking.

Answer 10

Kierkegaard

Answer 11

Thomas Aquinas

Answer 12

Honing your craft as a creative director means taking all of your observations of design, language, and the world around you and using them to understand and take care of people you work with. Because of this, the craft of creative direction is hard to develop (and, honestly, even harder to explain). Just as great writers become great by reading voraciously, great creative directors become great by studying their contemporaries. The more you learn about the field, the better equipped you’ll be to live it out. That being said, creative direction isn’t a skill that can be entirely taught. The role is an amalgam of many skills, including leadership and management: The best creative directors listen to people, interpret their behavior, then help them progress in their creative careers. Your biggest concern should be empowering the creative you’re leading to do the work by himself or herself. Good creative directors know what has and has not worked on previous projects, but they also recognize that all projects present unique issues. Like most facets of advertising, creative direction is about communicating with other people in the way you would like to be communicated with. As a creative director, youshould talk to a junior- or mid-level copywriter in the way that you would have wanted to be spoken to at that point in your career. Try to remember what you didn’t know and how you eventually learned, then help creatives get to that point on their own by mentoring them.

Answer 13

Sound design has to come from one vision—yours. You can combine your vision with those working in concert with you to achieve it, but you must stand by what you want as a director. Sometimes simple sound design is best. Martin contends that though choices in sound design have multiplied because of technological advances, this doesn’t mean you should use every sound effect possible. In fact, Martin prefers to go into the mixing room with the express objective of stripping sounds away instead of adding them. Some sound designers, enamored of the many tools at their disposal, add layers of effects that sound good but get in the way of the storytelling. In the pre-digital era, Martin was often warned against making the sound too loud and thus pushing it into the “red” (i.e. past the threshhold of distortion). At such times, Martin has had to insist on his own instincts and impulses: while he has known that the designers and mixers are technically correct, he has insisted on pushing the sound as far as it will go before it distorts. Creating mood and atmosphere should be a main goal of your sound design. Martin received criticism from the sound technicians about the quality of Taxi Driver’s dialogue tracks because they contained city noise—sirens, horns, people screaming in the streets. However, this effect was precisely what Martin wanted: the sounds under and around the dialogue were part of the character of the film. Martin and his sound editor on Raging Bull, Frank Warner, got imaginative with sound design. Warner used a variety of sounds— elephant trumpets and wild animal sounds, for example—to mix into the punches in the ring.

Answer 14

We need cultural evolution. We need to evolve purposely.

Answer 15

Kierkegaard

Answer 16

Thomas Aquinas

Answer 17

Marcus Aurelius

Answer 18

God is a Designer

Answer 19

When you’re pitching for new business, you aren’t just pitching ideas. You’re pitching a long-term relationship. Because of this, a big part of the pitching experience is taking a look in the mirror and deciding how you and your agency want to be perceived throughout the course of the pitch. Every agency has its own personality and its own message for what it is and how it wants to function. You don’t always have the chance to focus on this part of the business, so when these big pitches come up, you suddenly get to consider your own brand perception and whether that will work for the business you are trying to get.

Answer 20

Working with a script is a process of discovery. Martin reads the draft and reacts to it in terms of what he sees in his mind, working with the writer to build on or alter anything that sparks an image or idea. The next draft sparks something else and so on and so on. This discovery process is particularly true of documentary films in which the script, such as it is, is truly just the beginning, especially if one doesn’t have a visual, structural concept already in place.

Answer 21

In order to make the road map for a compelling commercial, you need to know where you’re ultimately going to end up. Jeff and Rich suggest starting with the ending so that you know what the commercial’s payoff will be. Then you can build everything around delivering on that payoff. You have a finite amount of time, which means that the development of the narrative is entirely built to serve the conclusion

Answer 22

Martin’s scripts continue to evolve in the rehearsal process, as was the case during the making of The Wolf of Wall Street (2013). The goal was to find truth for the characters, so that if something developed that diverged from the script, the actors would know how to adapt and remain in character. However, at a certain point, Martin had to grab the reins and tell the actors to save it for the cameras. Even with strongly scripted projects, there is always room to open up scenes, as illustrated in the famous mirror scene in Taxi Driver. The production was over schedule, so filming these moments in front of the mirror was tense. The script instructed Travis, played by Robert De Niro, to practice with guns and devices in front of the mirror, but it didn’t include any dialogue. Martin wanted Travis to say something, but didn’t have specific direction to give De Niro, so what you see on screen is De Niro finding the character in the moment. These scenes were shot within two hours, pushing against the end of the day.

Answer 23

Martin encourages you to take an active role in your film’s promotion. When Martin made his first films, he did his best to promote them himself, doing interviews and a few television appearances. Once his films were picked up for distribution, their promotional campaigns were designed by others. Strong images and an open mindset are essential to film promotion. Several posters were designed for Taxi Driver, but the one that most effectively sold the film featured a simple still from the movie—a shot of Robert De Niro walking up Eighth Avenue. The poster’s text reads, “On every street in every city of this country there’s a nobody who dreams of being somebody. He’s a lonely forgotten man desperate to prove that he’s alive.” Martin had no idea that this would be the poster that would really sell the film.

Answer 24

Even Rich finds it tough to explain how a designer might hone his or her craft. It’s complicated because, as he says, the best thing you can do is look at the world around you and observe how good things are already designed. But what exactly is “good design?” Well, first of all, that’s subjective. But if there was one word to sum up Rich’s take on what makes for good design skills, or at least refined design craft, it would be informed. That doesn’t mean your only skill should be making typefaces, concert posters, and billboard ads look nice with the Adobe Suite. While it’s important to know how to do those things in the same way that it’s important for a writer to have a handle on grammar, what Jeff means when he says you need to be “informed” is that you should be able to recognize and understand how visual cues and representation are used to explain something’s identity. Everything in the world was designed to look the way it looks, whether it was for tactical reasons, creative reasons, or, in many cases, neither. When Rich says “design is everything,” he isn’t only trying to pitch his craft in a friendly competition against his fellow chairman. Design informs the relationship that the world’s objects have with one another (and yes, people, too). So Rich’s advice to “observe the world around you”means to see it as a constant expression of design. So how do you become a better designer (other than learning how to use the hot keys in Photoshop)? A big part of it is understanding how you express your own design sensibilities and creating a personal environment that nurtures that perspective (i.e., the way in which you choose to decorate your desk, studio, or office). You should also be constantly consuming design inspiration, whether that means following incredible visual artists on Instagram, holing up in a library with a stack of design tomes, or sitting on a street corner and committing the architecture there to memory. Adopt a posture of curiosity, and allow yourself to use that curiosity in ways that make you feel good

Answer 25

The genesis of the tagline “got milk?”—now one of the most famous taglines of all time—is pretty unremarkable. Jeff suggested it as a placeholder for the pitch presentation, and it just stuck. The first lesson here is that the best solution isn’t always the most complicated one. The tagline’s success stems from its colloquial nature. And because it was rife with so much punchy personality, it was clear to Jeff and Rich that it needed an equally punchy aesthetic sensibility. That’s where Rich came in with the typographic treatment. This campaign is one example of a very successful relationship between copy and art direction.

Answer 26

Practice how you would audition actors. Make a list of qualities that define each major character in your short and the character traits the actor will need to embody in order to make the film come to life. Do you know there’s going to be a feisty protagonist or a down-on-his-luck supporting actor? Once you have this list for each major character, find monologues for actors to use to audition. Either pull from your rough script or, if you’re not that far along yet, use existing monologues. If your short film is dramatic and unhappy, try looking for a monologue from a tragedy. If it’s upbeat and light, pull a humorous monologue from a comedy you enjoy. Share the monologues you’ve selected, as well as character descriptions, with your classmates in The Hub. Provide insight into why you wrote or chose these specific passages as future audition pieces

Answer 27

THE INSIGHT What says recklessness, overabundant energy, and youth? Loud sounds, fast movement, and indiscernibility. THE IDEA What can SEGA say and do to articulate its entire brand in five seconds or less? THE EXECUTION Rich tasked an animation house with making the most expressive three- to five-second commercial possible, which resulted in a funny visual ad and snippet of audio that features one of the most iconic screams (“SEGA!”) in pop culture history

Answer 28

If you, like Jeff, are a writer, you’re going to do a lot of writing. But if you don’t have a boots-on-the-ground mentality—meaning you don’t get out of your cubicle, experience the world, and take the time to refuel your cultural curiosity—you’re going to run out of things to write about. So it’s important to take the time to surf the internet, see movies, travel to foreign lands, and get beat up at punk shows. It may sound crazy, and good luck ever explaining it to your parents, but living your life is as much of your job as your craft.

Answer 29

As you explore how to create a clear brand identity for companies, particularly as you’re trying to create a portfolio of work that might land you a career at an advertising agency, it’s important to remember that you yourself are a brand, too. Whether you have tattoos, wear thick black glasses, or rep that Death Cab for Cutie 2003 tour shirt, you’re telling people something about your value system. For other people who spent their high school years listening to Transatlanticism, they see your brand and immediately feel like you’re speaking to them. You’re relatable on an intimate level that feels inviting and kindred. You present yourself as someone worth investing in to those specific people who share that brand identity. The more you can think about your own brand as a communication device, the easier it will be to consider a company’s brand in the same way.

Answer 30

``` Mean Streets (1973), Taxi Driver, and After Hours (1985) required costume design that was less theatrical and more in touch with the worlds the characters inhabited. In these kinds of productions, you need a costume designer that has a deep understanding of character. He or she needs to know where a character would shop for clothes and what kind of clothes a character might inherit. ``` A costume designer must know which colors look right on a character, and then reconcile this with the colors suited to the actor playing the part and the color palette of the production design. Martin says that costume designers of modern film need a thorough comprehension of contemporary expression in dress. Martin took his actors along to search for costumes for Mean Streets. Because he grew up on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in a neighborhood near Martin’s, Robert De Niro already had an understanding of the people and culture of the area. His personal experience informed Johnny Boy’s look.

Answer 31

``` Rather than stand behind a podium, Neil prefers to communicate on stage with a handheld mic so that he can roam the room and use his whole body for effect. The mic can also do double duty as a prop if need be. ```

Answer 32

If you’ve been in the industry for a long time, you might be tempted to let your work speak for itself. But the creative field is deeply competitive, not to mention filled with people who would commit more than a few crimes for the chance to work at a place like Goodby Silverstein & Partners. Your work alone might not be enough to get you an interview, particularly if you’re just starting out. So use your portfolio as a piece of work itself to advertise the brand that is you. When Jeff tells the story of how he got his first job in advertising, he talks about how he created a fake autobiography. Don’t be afraid to do something similar—as long as it’s a sincere expression of the way you look at the world

Answer 33

Thomas Aquinas

Answer 34

If cinematography is not your area of expertise, don’t be intimidated—it’s something you can learn. Martin encourages you to have the passion and bravery to tackle the vision you see for your film. Martin identifies lighting as one of his weaknesses. He thinks this might have to do with where he grew up—the tenements on Elizabeth Street—where, other than lightbulbs in a hallway, day and night were his only compass. Though these forms of light had their own beauty, they didn’t teach Martin much about the logic of light. Moreover, his impulse to make movies came from New York independent filmmakers like John Cassavetes and Shirley Clarke, who would very often use only available light, drawing from the aesthetic of the French New Wave. Martin has learned to work very closely with his directors of photography over the years. The two work together to modify and rework the shots he has designed. Through this collaborative process, Martin has gained a better understanding of lighting and cinematography. He advocates the importance of asking questions; don’t be afraid to ask your DP about something you don’t know. Try everything, learn as much as you can on each production, and work with your DP to realize the image and story you want on the screen.

Answer 35

One of the things you need to know as a science communicator—or any communicator—is how to generate curiosity in your audience. Sometimes this means giving your audience less instead of more. Take the shape of the Earth, for example, which Neil can describe with varying degrees of nuance and specificity. How he describes it, though, is dictated by the audience to whom he is speaking. Earth is not just a sphere, as Neil explains, unless it is. “In a first pass, the shape of the Earth is a sphere,” he says. “Do you want to know more? Okay. Earth is not actually a perfect sphere—it’s slightly flattened pole to pole, a little wider at the equator. We have a word for this in mathematics. It’s called an oblate spheroid.” (He could go on and on.) So you need to ask yourself: What is the interest level of my audience and what topics matter most in my conversation with them? Neil calls this a “pedagogical approximation.” He says: “Where is my pedagogical approximation going to be? If [the audience doesn’t] know anything about an established subject, you don’t give them the full hammer of details. They’re likely to get lost in the complexity.” On the other hand, if your audience contains specialists or people who are well educated on the subject, give them more. But heed Neil’s wisdom: “Being as effective as you possibly can doesn’t mean telling someone everything you could possibly know about something.”

Answer 36

Thomas Aquinas

Answer 37

—Martin Scorsese

Answer 38

Visual literacy is an important skill for filmmakers, but for Martin, it all boils down to simple literacy, regardless of whether one is dealing with words or images. Martin cites Socrates as an example of someone who took issue with the importance of verbal literacy. Socrates worried that writing and reading would actually lead to not truly knowing. If people were to stop memorizing and start writing and reading, Socrates thought, they’d be in danger of cultivating the appearance of wisdom as opposed to developing the real thing. Martin draws a parallel between Socrates’s argument and contemporary criticism of television or the internet. Martin reminds you that as a filmmaker, you should be able to distinguish between images created to sell something, to merely entertain, to inform, or to tell a story. These skills might appear abstract to you right now, but remember that Martin was once in your position. Lacking the equipment to make a movie but possessing ideas and a dream, Martin drew scenes from his imaginary films on paper. He attempted to tell his stories frame by frame, explaining to friends that they had to imagine the movement between frames. Using the techniques he had seen at the movie theater and on television, Martin selected medium shots, close-ups, wide shots, and indicated cuts and aspect ratios, sketching his aesthetic decisions on paper. This visual orientation served Martin well when he started to make films.

Answer 39

When Jeff talks about the vandalistic spirit that shapes his perspective on advertising, part of what he’s saying is that disruption and chaos are exciting. They encourage new thinking, experimentation, and, most importantly, emotional reactions. If you’re not trying to make advertising that elicits an emotional reaction out of your audience, then you’re adding to the stream of interruptions that consumers hate. If you explore the things that most people are too afraid to explore, you’re going to find insights and ideas that could be both novel and transformative. Don’t be boring. Be dangerous

Answer 40

Neil watches a lot of stand-up comedy—not just because he likes to laugh, but because he considers comedians to be engaging performers who hold their audiences in the palms of their hands. From watching stand-up, Neil has learned a lot about riffing on news headlines and pop culture, not to mention spotting things the rest of us normally miss. Using rhythm, tone, and powers of observation, comics are excellent communicators, and Neil thinks you can learn a lot from them, too—particularly when it comes to humor. “Humor matters,” Neil says. “If you can get people to laugh while they’re learning, you’ve got ’em. You can feed ’em everything. And that’s why humor is a fundamental part of how I communicate.”

Answer 41

—Martin Scorsese

Answer 42

George F. Kennan, Vietnam strategist

Answer 43

Research is the bedrock of a film; it lends richness and informs the rules of the film’s world. However, you mustn’t let research lead you away from the original idea or concept that sparked the film in the first place. Martin experienced this when researching The Age of Innocence, Gangs of New York, and Silence (2016). The research led him in many fascinating directions, but at times, these directions threatened to overwhelm the entire picture. Martin mentions another important caveat regarding research: there’s nothing more boring than 100 percent accuracy in a film. The question should always be: How does historical accuracy serve the film and the story?

Answer 44

Marcus Aurelius

Answer 45

Ordinary white light breaks into an array of colors when sent through a prism. Each color—red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet—has a slightly different wavelength than the one next to it. The full electromagnetic spectrum also contains gamma rays, X-rays, ultraviolet light, infrared, microwaves, and radiowaves, all of which are invisible to our eyes.

Answer 46

Beneath anger there is fear.

Answer 47

When working in advertising as a creative, it’s your job to come up with good ideas that solve business problems. But don’t fall into the trap of thinking that ideas are your responsibility exclusively. Instead, think of your job as maximizing the potential of any idea, whether it was your idea or not. This might mean taking a verbal insight from a client and turning it into something creative. When Jeff and Rich say that good ideas can come from anywhere, they certainly mean that ideas can come from coworkers, bosses, and clients. But those people can’t—and shouldn’t—be your only creative resource. As an advertising creative, you need to always be on what Jeff and Rich call “the listening side” of life, meaning you actively look for inspiration in any and all scenarios. For instance, Jeff mentions the genesis of the NBA’s “I Love This Game” campaign; a member of his team overheard a fan say the line in real time during a basketball game. Sometimes simple statements can be the genesis of a huge idea

Answer 48

were all evolving toward toward the god head.

Answer 49

Neil speaks to a wide range of crowds: The general audience that watches mainstream television news, the students (and parents, and faculty) at New York City public high schools where he delivers commencement speeches, the rap-savvy viewership that follows the television show Desus & Mero, political conservatives, military audiences driven by a sense of mission, and the left-leaning crowd that enjoys newsdriven, comedy-infused late-night TV. He never approaches one audience the same way as another. You may not be bending the ears of thousands of people the way Neil is, but every interaction you have—even small-scale ones—is a chance to communicate science effectively. But to do that, you need to know your audience. Real communication comes partly from being able to read the room. Are the people you’re addressing engaged with what you’re saying? Drifting off? What’s their body language and eye contact like? How are they reacting to the content? Paying attention to these things will give you a better shot at getting there. Here are a few of Neil’s audience-specific pointers to keep in mind: 0 Speaking to children can be difficult if you’ve never had children or are accustomed to addressing adults. Your vocabulary and syntax needs to be different, and you’d be smart to brush up on recent family-friendly movies or music that can act as reference points. 0 Senior audiences are typically easier to reach: They respond well to references from the past, especially to time periods they’ve lived through (a war, for instance). Adding historical context will help your subject feel connected to you. 0 For hipper audiences, try leaning heavily on pop culture references.

Answer 50

Generally, when you’re trying to get someone to see your side of a matter, it’s better to ask questions than to tell people they’re wrong or call them names. Neil’s general aim is to describe his own point of view in terms that are as close to objective truth as possible and then bring others on board. Over time, this helps to build an informed democracy. Documentaries typically book on-screen experts—otherwise known as “talking heads”—to share their erudition on a subject. But their ability to communicate is not always equal to their expertise: Often they don’t understand techniques that help get complicated ideas across. Emotion and humanity—smiling, expressing sadness, using hands or eyebrows or body language—help frame the words you use. They’re as critical as language when it comes to communication.

Answer 51

Republic Book VIII, 35 min

Answer 52

Kierkegaard

Answer 53

As a director, your goal for the crew is simple: to establish an effective and rewarding working relationship among them. As much as possible, hire people you trust, and let them in on your drive and vision for the film. Make it known that everyone’s work is essential. If you’re working with a very large crew, the situation changes slightly but the goal remains the same. The most important relationships are between you and the director of photography, your assistant director, and coproducers. They are your inner core team—your lifeline. This key group should understand what you want based on conversations that took place before you started shooting, and from their knowledge of the script and preproduction designs. As you work on set, interacting with people, eating together, and otherwise bonding as a group, you begin to get a sense of who you can depend on. While teamwork and a sense of camaraderie are crucial, Martin says that it is essential that you remember your duties as director. Humility has its place, but you must also assume the responsibility that comes with being the decision-maker. Always remind yourself of your original vision. At times, you will have to block out everything and everyone around you to get back to the idea you had in your head when you first embarked on making the film. However, you must also remember that every single person on your set plays a role in making your film. You absolutely need them, and you should trust their expertise. You have to find this balance

Answer 54

No one can talk about any alternatives to capitalism without being condemned as a heritic in the religion of capital.The end goal of Neoliberalism is to homogenize all countries economic systems for the pursuit of gain and to destroy and counter system.

Answer 55

St. Augustine

Answer 56

``` Political and religious tenets often get repeated—for emphasis, for intensity, for effect. This tactic is actually a form of brainwashing wherein you begin to think that something is true simply because you’ve heard it so many times. Neil calls it one of many “weaknesses in the human sensory system.” It’s also how dictatorships and cults operate. Listen for repetition, and be especially skeptical of what powerful people tell you again and again and again. ```

Answer 57

—Martin Scorsese

Answer 58

Like Jeff says, the “got milk?” campaign, crafted for the California Milk Processor Board in 1993, is a perfect example of an idea that stems from research. There was an interesting conundrum with milk in the early ’90s: Sales were on the decline despite a general consensus that milk was good for you. This was problematic since the beverage’s health benefits had always been its primary selling point. Jeff and Rich had to figure out how to get consumers to reengage with it. Enter Jon Steel. Steel was the planner (or strategist) on the campaign, and he was holding focus groups to gauge the public’s perception of milk. One woman said something that stuck with him: She only noticed milk when she was out of it. Milk had become such a ubiquitous part of the American consumer landscape that the absence of the product was actually the thing that sold the product. Steel found that idea so unique that it essentially became the strategy of the campaign rather than a strategy informing an idea.

Answer 59

Story telling is the reverse of the 5 paragraph essay. You dont open with the thesis you close with it . This helps you allow for surprise.

Answer 60

Neil sometimes uses this term to describe the instant responses he gets from his tweets. It’s ideal feedback in that it provides Neil with a quick cognitive idea of what readers make of his thoughts and phrasings, helping him to hone the way he expresses himself.

Answer 61

Maybe you’ve made a whole library of zines and comic books, or maybe you’re in a Star Trek–themed rockabilly band. All of those things sound super fun, and you can definitely put that sort of info in your portfolio. But don’t bury the lede. Your first priority is to prove that you were born to be an advertising creative. Remember that when a company hires you, they’re investing in you, and investing in any person is a lot of work that shouldn’t be taken for granted.

Answer 62

his is not an issue of credit rating, the United States can pay any debt it has because we can always print money to do that. So, there is zero probability of default." This is not the same for poor nations. They may face punishment or sanctions if they default. Once again it is socialism for the rich and brutal capitalism for the rich and powerful.

Answer 63

If you’re a copywriter trying to get a job in advertising, your portfolio is the ultimate opportunity to show off how you write. Be expressive. Have a personality. For the love of God, use proper grammar and spell-check your work. Show that you’re capable of writing headlines and that you can create compelling copy that will capture even the most disinterested customer’s attention. If you’re a designer, make a logo for yourself. Illustrate characters that interact within the thumbnails of your work. Use an interesting color palette and a custom typeface. Be interesting. People in advertising like that

Answer 64

How do you get a single message to resonate with 1 million people from different countries, socioeconomic backgrounds, and cultures? First, it’s important to understand what you want to see when you look at an ad and—maybe even more importantly—what you don’t want to see. You’ll always be the best case study of what does or doesn’t work, meaning mass intimacy starts with you. Second, you must understand that traditional advertising is almost always uninvited. The least effective advertising in the world is the advertising that doesn’t respect the individuality of the consumer on the other side. So when Jeff and Rich discuss mass intimacy, they’re talking about respecting the consumer by giving them something that adds value, not annoyance.

Answer 65

Old chinese curse

Answer 66

Limited Vantage

Answer 67

You should want people to see the things you’re proud of. When they do, it’s good for your career, it’s good for the health of the agency, it’s probably good for your clients, and it will open up more doors to help you do the kind of work that you want to do. Granted, you shouldn’t ignore your clients’ goals in favor of fame (which does happen in advertising from time to time), but good work should be shared, publicized, and envied. Plus, when you seek out fame and recognition, it pushes you to find the opportunities to create rare ideas that would then generate that kind of notoriety, ultimately making for a more interesting body of work.

Answer 68

Just because something is a great idea—and maybe the right idea—doesn’t mean that it’s the best idea for a client. It’s important to understand the short- and long-term strategy for how to sell a client on the kinds of bold ideas that make brands famous. It’s also important to understand why the best idea isn’t always the right idea.

Answer 69

Kierkegaard

Answer 70

Kierkegaard

Answer 71

BUDWEISER, “WEIRD WITHOUT BEER” You probably have fond memories of a few specific beer ads (Dos Equis’ “Most Interesting Man in the World,” Budweiser’s “Wassup,” Bud Light’s “Real Men of Genius”), but the rest of them are almost identical. The “Weird Without Beer” ads created a very strange, very unpredictable commercial that poked fun at the category’s biggest brand THE INSIGHT All beer ads basically resolve in a completely expected shot of ice cold beer. They’re so predictable now (“now” being 1996) that they’re basically a genre in themselves. If you’re going to show people that you’re not just another beer, you need to change up the format. THE IDEA What if we took the most stereotypical ad for beer and replaced the final glorious product shot with a different product? THE EXECUTION The final ad was a prototypical beer commercial with an absurdist twist. The dialogue was so mindless and masculine that you may not have even realized that the narrator was reading off boilerplate facts like, “The more you earn, the more you keep.” Then, right when the beer reveal was set to occur, the mariners are all toasting over...corn. As a viewer, you feel the absence of the beer, even though you’ve seen that beer ad a million times. In effect, the commercial is highlighting the fact that even if beer commercials are played out, they’re still weird without beer

Answer 72

Martin’s advice regarding location scouting is simple: don’t trust stills or recorded videos of a space, go see it for yourself. It might take a long time to get there, and upon arriving you might not be satisfied, but take solace in the fact that this is all part of the process. Martin also says that you must spend time in the space at all hours of the day, so that you can understand how the space will work in changing light. Creative problem-solving is a must when it comes to locations, especially when you are planning to shoot in multiple places. Martin shot The Age of Innocence in Boston, Philadelphia, and Troy, New York, piecing it together in one coherent world. Dante Ferretti, his production designer, worked with him to create the impression of 1870s New York. In Taxi Driver, Martin used one apartment building for several locations. Because the building was going to be torn down, they were able to cut through the ceiling to create a track for the elaborate overhead shot at the end of the film. The process took over three months, but ultimately, Martin and crew had only 20 minutes to shoot this scene. Bottom line: no matter the obstacle or limitations, you can figure out a location and capture what you need. No matter how strange or seemingly absurd a suggestion sounds, follow it through and see what you can do. Alfred Hitchcock offered François Truffaut some words of wisdom regarding locations that Martin takes to heart: “The only thing that matters is what it looks like on screen.” While the feeling and mood of a place are important, the image viewers will see eclipses everything else.

Answer 73

For Martin, the edit room is just as sacred as the set. It’s where the film truly comes to life. Martin contends that when people talk about cinema and refer to the image, what they’re really talking about is sequences of images. Editing images together creates the impression of continuous action, and this is how we tell stories in time. Because of Martin’s comprehensive formal filmmaking education, he already had editing experience by the time he started making features. Martin and his classmates participated in all aspects of the filmmaking process and made their films without outside financing. When he transitioned to studio filmmaking, he sought a loyal editor whom he could trust.

Answer 74

``` The monotone is not a winning way to get ideas across. It’s better to modulate your voice to add emotion or drama to your language—not gratuitously but genuinely. Your delivery should demonstrate your joy ```

Answer 75

St. Augustine

Answer 76

1) The Button-Up Shirt 2) Jeans 3) Leather Motorcycle Jacket 4) White Sneakers 5) A Suit

Answer 77

Not everyone has an hour in the morning to blow out their hair or even an hour to let long locks air dry naturally. Once you’ve figured out what works with your hair texture and face shape, think about the limitations in your schedule and work around those—your hair (and your sanity) will thank you. Not everyone has an hour in the morning to blow out their hair or even an hour to let long locks air dry naturally. Once you’ve figured out what works with your hair texture and face shape, think about the limitations in your schedule and work around those—your hair (and your sanity) will thank you. Just as the items in your wardrobe should help you feel like who you are, your hair should, too. While it’s fun to experiment with different hairstyles over the years, once you’ve nailed down something that works for you, it can become as essential and statement-making as everything else in your signature look

Answer 78

``` “Style is for literally every person. If you are not a nudist, style is for you.” ```

Answer 79

``` “When you don’t dress like everyone else, you don’t have to think like everyone else.” ```

Answer 80

``` “What I love is this idea of a wardrobe, the idea that we’re establishing certain signatures and updating them, that a change in colour or fabric is enough.” PHOEBE PHILO Fashion designer (Independent, 2011) ```

Answer 81

``` “Knowing who you really are and dressing the part—with an air of amused recklessness— is life-affirming for you and life-enhancing for other people.” ```

Answer 82

“To me, fashion is ceaselessly fascinating because it is an expression of self.”

Answer 83

``` “Stick to the classics, and you can’t ever go wrong. I see old ladies on the street who have fabulous style and realize it’s because they are probably wearing really classic items that they’ve had for years and years. I think if you find something that suits you, you should just stick to it.” ```

Answer 84

``` “The coolest thing is when you don’t care about being cool any - more. Indifference is the greatest aphrodisiac—that’s what really sums up style for me.” ```

Answer 85

``` “You wanna make more money? You like money? Wear a suit.” ```

Answer 86

``` “In fashion, it’s always better to be an interesting person than a beautiful one. Character is much more fascinating than pure good looks.” ```

Answer 87

``` “Building a wardrobe is like building a circle of friends your whole life.” ```

Answer 88

``` “I want to be on both: best and worst [dressed lists]. I want people to feel something.” ```

Answer 89

“To anyone who thinks, Clothes are just clothes, style is superficial—actually it has had a massive impact on my life and everybody who I work with,” Tan says. “By making an effort with your style, you are saying, ‘I deserve your respect.’” But don’t just take Tan’s word for it. There is actual science behind what he’s saying. Not only does clothing change how others perceive us, it changes how we perceive ourselves. According to a 2015 study by Abraham Rutchick, a psychology professor at California State University, Northridge, formal clothing directly affects the wearer’s cognition, influencing them to think broadly and abstractly—which is to say, to think just like leaders do. (The term for this phenomenon is enclothed cognition.) In a 2006 study called The Clothing Makes the Self, researchers found that people who dressed more formally described themselves in more confident terms. All the more reason to add a few standout power pieces to your capsule wardrobe..

Answer 90

Textures are great. Plaids are ok once in a while. Dont spend a ton of money on trends. Stick with the timeless Shop at thrift for unique items, mostly out of the cities. Use your capsule wardrobe to layer throughout the day. Experiment with more colors.

Answer 91

When you’re at the negotiating table, pay attention to how people speak and act. Do the words they’re saying match up with the way they’re carrying themselves? Look at the people who are not talking—what does their body language signal to you? People who are being sincere don’t typically calculate their body language. The opposite is true of people who are being dishonest. If you sense people are being deceitful, deploy a label using your inquisitive inflection: “It seems like I’ve missed something here?” A lie indicates that the other side is afraid to tell you the truth—they perceive you as a threat. In short, you’ve just encountered more negative emotions to be deactivated. To help defuse them, revert again to the late-night FM DJ voice, avoid all traces of accusation, and get your counterparts to drop their guard.

Answer 92

In interpersonal communications, 7 percent of a person’s effort is conveyed via spoken words, 38 percent by tone of voice, and 55 percent through body language. All of which is to say, your tone of voice is more than five times as important as what you’re actually saying. If your counterpart’s tone of voice and body language indicate that he or she is about to lose their bearings, harness the power of your late-night FM DJ voice—remember those mirror neurons?—to soothe your counterpart and slow down the pace of the negotiation.

Answer 93

People who are being dishonest tend to use more words and effort than necessary to communicate their point.

Answer 94

Doing all you can to show the other side that you are negotiating in good faith. The idea is to demonstrate that you are not here to deceive or exploit the other side—sometimes showing deference can be key.

Answer 95

Becoming genuinely interested in what drives the other side. Understanding their goals, motivations, wants, and fears will help you navigate the negotiation effectively. An authentic connection with your negotiating partner will help lead to an optimal outcome for both parties.

Answer 96

* Building trust-based influence through the use of tactical empathy, or deliberately influencing the other side’s feelings. By appealing to your counterpart’s emotions, you can build rapport, mutual understanding, influence, and—ultimately—deals.

Answer 97

Negotiators used to assume that eliminating emotion from the process would create the most logical (i.e., best) outcome. But what we understand now through neurological research is that there is no way to cut people’s feelings out of the process. (Nor is it desirable to do so.) In reality, suppressing emotions—specifically negative emotions— will hurt the process. Here are some pointers for taking emotions into account when negotiating: * Work to deactivate negative feelings—fear, suspicion, anger, aggression, and distrust. From a neurological standpoint, this means trying to defuse activity in the amygdala, the part of the brain that houses those feelings.

Answer 98

* Assertive This voice is declarative, straight up, and delivered like a punch in the nose. (Always counterproductive.) * Playful/accommodating This voice is a bearer of truths delivered gently. It promotes collaboration. This should be your go-to voice in negotiations. (Use it approximately 80 percent of the time.) * Late-night FM DJ This voice is straightforward with a soothing, downward lilt. It’s best employed when establishing points of negotiation that are immovable. (Use it approximately 10 to 20 percent of the time.)

Answer 99

* Inquisitive Speak with an upward inflection, as if you’re asking a question. This tone should convey genuine curiosity and interest in the other person’s point of view. This should be your default inflection. * Declarative Speak with a downward inflection, as if you’re stating a fact. Your voice will inspire your counterpart to feel the same kinds of emotions that you are expressing by activating an empathetic response from their brain’s mirror neurons.

Answer 100

Mirroring, or the repetition of key words used by your negotiating partner, is another essential negotiating tool. In most situations, you should identify one to three key terms for mirroring (but never use more than five). The technique can be especially effective when you’re repeating words that your counterpart has just spoken. Mirroring lets the other side know you’re paying attention to what they’re saying and treating their views with the close consideration they believe they deserve. An example of mirroring might look something like this: * Your negotiating partner: “I’ve had a really difficult year, and it seems like you’re discounting all of the financial and personal stress I’ve been under.” * You: “Financial and personal stress?” Mirroring is a rapport-building technique with wide applicability. It works as well at cocktail parties as it does during hostage negotiations. When you combine it with inquisitive inflection, mirroring can be an effective means of quelling the often reflexive hostility of confrontational people. Mirroring can also be used to gather intel. Using it with the inquisitive inflection will lead your counterpart to not only repeat themselves but to elaborate and offer additional details. This expands what you know about them and their position.

Answer 101

Labeling is used to give voice to the other side’s feelings. Good labels take the form of: * “It seems like…” * “It looks like…” * “You look like…” To label effectively, you must avoid all use of the first-person pronoun, as in, “What I’m hearing...” or “I think...” First-person phrases signal that you are your number

Answer 102

Likewise, labeling can help you overcome negative emotions. Labels are cumulative— often, you may need to use several of them to deactivate a single bad feeling. Labeling a negative emotion that isn’t there yet can help you inoculate against it. The counterpart of labeling is mislabeling, or the intentional misidentification of your counterpart’s feelings. Why would you ever do that? Because mislabeling gives the other side the opportunity to correct you. People love to feel like they’re in the right, and they love it even more when you readily admit your own misunderstanding of an issue they’re highly invested in. When the other side corrects you, you can receive new and sometimes critical information. Here’s an example of a simple mislabel: * You: “It seems like you disagree with these terms.” * Your negotiating partner: “I don’t disagree with the terms. I’m concerned with the resources needed to execute them.” By mislabeling, you’ve gleaned that your negotiating partner has no issue with the terms of your deal; rather, he or she has issues with carrying them out.

Answer 103

Dynamic silence can magnify the impact of your mirrors and labels. By taking a beat after you mislabel, for example, you give the other side the opportunity to set you straight, potentially revealing more information than you could have gotten by asking direct questions.

Answer 104

Calibrated questions are how and what questions structured for maximum effect. They are designed to change the power dynamic of the negotiation and force consideration of your position into the equation. In other words, they allow the other side to see things from your side of the table and allow everyone to keep their sense of autonomy in tact—something that Chris compares to our need for survival. “People will die over their autonomy,” he says. “It’s the reason why we have hostage negotiations in the first place.” Calibrated questions often sound like this: * “How am I supposed to do that?” * “What’s going to happen if I do that?” These questions also help cultivate the illusion of control in your counterpart. They can serve the same purpose as why questions while sounding less accusatory. Why questions tend to trigger a defensive posture. Think about how you’ve felt in the past when someone has asked, “Why did you do that?” By changing “why” to “what” (as in, “What are you trying to accomplish by doing that?”), you can remove the sting of accusation.

Answer 105

When it comes to a line of questioning, there are three types of yes answers : * Yes as a commitment (used to agree) * Yes as a confirmation (used to affirm commitment) * Yes as counterfeit (used tactically by someone who doesn’t trust you, feels trapped, or wants you to go away) Often, a no can be much more valuable than a yes. In certain circumstances, people feel safe and protected by a no. So, a question like “Is this a good idea?” may be better phrased as “Is this a ridiculous idea?”; “Can you agree to do it this way?” could be better presented as “Do you think it’s unreasonable if we can both agree to take things in this direction?” When answering a yes question, people are going to feel that every piece of information they provide is another commitment to be made. By contrast, a no relieves them of the sense that they may have just surrendered their entire negotiating position. Avoiding yes in favor of no helps ease the other side’s fear of commitment. Here again, a negative emotion is being deactivated. And don’t forget that no is equally valuable to your own cause. After saying no, use dynamic silence to let it sink in, demonstrating to your partner that you stand by your word

Answer 106

“Fear of loss… completely distorts your counterpart’s perception so much that it effectively bends their reality.” One of the primary negative emotions that can derail a negotiation is the fear of loss. Neuroscience teaches us that fear is a dominant factor in human decision-making. Use your skills to try and figure out what the other side is scared of losing. Know that people will begin to talk about a deal being “fair” once they feel backed into a corner. Fairness, in this moment, becomes the end all/be all of the negotiation. People will even walk away from a good deal if they feel like they’ve been treated unfairly. If you get the sense that the people across the table think you’re being unfair, encourage them to speak their minds about it. Then ask for a few examples of how you’ve allegedly been mistreating them. You may find that the other side’s idea of fairness will result in something that’s totally unfair for you. The key to negotiation may be deference, but that doesn’t equate to subservience. Do whatever you can to deactivate this fear of loss—remember your mirrors and labels—and keep your negotiation grounded, collaborative, and positive.

Answer 107

When negotiating, it’s always best to steer clear of a bargaining situation. But sometimes it’s unavoidable. Below are the stages of the Ackerman system. It’s paramount to employ tactical empathy between each round: * Establish a target price for the goods you want to buy. * Make an initial offer at 65 percent of your target price. * Assuming no deal, raise your price by 20 percent. * Assuming no deal, raise your price by 10 percent. * If still no deal, raise by another 5 percent. * Your final offer should be an odd number, and you should be prepared to include some non-monetary compensation to show them you’re committing all of your available resources. The point of the Ackerman system is to make the other side feel that every price increase is creating a real burden for you. Resist the temptation to set an anchor price that is unreasonably low. Lowball offers can create negative emotions like resentment, and the deal will be doomed from the start. Preferable to back-and-forth bargaining are the kinds of collaborative efforts that make for great negotiations. By the time the other side asks you to make the first offer, you should have elicited enough information from them to know what a great deal would look like in their eyes. Alternatively, set a range for yourself that’s dictated by the market price and by what you can actually afford. Again, the goal is to build as much rapport as possible with your counterpart. Even when bargaining, the benefits of trust-based influence will outweigh a zero-sum approach.

Answer 108

"We lost 70,000 jobs" -Kerry " I met people in south Carolina who lost their jobs and competed for jobs with their own children for $7 an hour. "- Obama

Answer 109

Kerry Called bush out for starting the war in Iraq. Bush reframed Kerry's comments to make it seem like he was denigrating the troops. He appealed to peoples patriotism. One way to counter this is to predict the dodge. Call it out before they do it and say "My opponent wont answer this question, He'll change the subject"

Answer 110

Don't deny within your opponents frame: Flip Flopping Kerry denied being against the Iraq war, Hillary denied being a political insider. You reject your opponents frame. You reframe flip flopping as being mature enough to update your views in light of new evidence.

Answer 111

Never ever talk to the police. Never try to impress them. Always ask for lawyers. Never talk about anything. They don't need recordings or video tapes. The judge will take police word for it. They are allowed to lie to you in interrogations. He gonna try to get you to sign a written Confession (apology letter) Independent review boards at state and community level. Prosecuters often work with police so may not want to prosecute them White jurors are more likely to side with police regardless of race of officer or the victim. DA is elected and may not seem to be going agonist police. Cameras are only as useful for the mechanism to persecute the police. Police are pitted in the public. We are asking cops to do too much. A kinder gentler and more diverse war on poor is still a war on the poor. All social problems are now seen as police problems. Organizing police in get fines an fees undermines democracy.

Answer 112

Police may first do a phone call to get you to 'apologize'/confess on tap. They may leave you in the room alone to feel trapped and isolated. Police will first try to get close to you so you can waive your right to remain silent. They also will try to build rapport by trying to connect with you. They will first open ended questions to use them against you. They will then accuses you repeatedly. They will say they have evidence they don't have. They wont allow you to deny anything (may say "You will be able to talk soon") because denials make your more confident. They will confront you with false evidence (They have taps, DNA, fingerprint etc). They will legally lie. They will use a good them and a bad theme. They will tell two stories (Its was a crime of passion v you're an evil person). They will say one is minimal v maximization but they all want a confession. When they sense you are going to confess. They may trick you into writing an apology letter to victim they can use as evidence.

Answer 113

Adam smith took a lot of his ideas from Islam. Islam could have markets that operated outside of government per view. It was based off shaira and mutual aid instead of competition. Islam got rid of usury and slavery so they could have much more trade and free markets.

Answer 114

During Axial age, Coinage/debt peonage started to have huge impact. Religions started around the same time to combat the slavery, debt, war complex. They were in the same cities as monetary hubs. Monetary hubs collapsed to the middle ages. Much of the gold goes to monastery's and churches. They go back to trade.

Answer 115

French invaded. Wanted the people to pay the cost of being conquered. Issued paper money than said' you have to give us this back' .

Answer 116

Global south 'debt' should be forgiven. They didn't really borrow the money, some dictator put it in a swiss bank account. They've paid it back multiple times over due to compounding interest. The IMF has no incentive to make 'intelligent' loans, since they take not risk since they are enforced by jackals globally. Debt is equated with sin in early religions. In Hinduism you owe the universe for making you and same with you parents. Debt is Also Sin in Aramaic. (Forgive our debt as we forgive those who have debt owed to us) English villages would have villagers owe each other debt. At the end of a term the would have a debt reckoning and square this by getting in a circle and figuring out who owes what and eventually cancel out the villages debt (sometimes with trade). In Nigeria a tribe would give you a gift, you have to give them a gift but of slightly less value, to keep the 'debt' interaction going.

Answer 117

Humans and chimps have a built-in rule following mentality for civilization cohesion. We create mental models that build on themselves and our rule following makes it so we can't easily disregard rules and models when they no longer conform to existing reality. People become emotionally invested in rules rather than logically invested. This explains why social change is often not linear but small and incremental than all at once. Stakeholders in the current process will veto change since they have a stake in it. Sometimes violence or the threat of violence in necessary to change status quo. Humans nature Humans nature us largely the same across culture and time but are marked by specific evolutions of culture largely due to environment. Ethelbert's law and Clovis law were the first laws in Europe and the forerunner of modern courts. This was to prevent tribal blood feuds from becoming full wars

Answer 118

In Leviathan (1651), Hobbes argued that the absolute power of the sovereign was ultimately justified by the consent of the governed, who agreed, in a hypothetical social contract, to obey the sovereign in all matters in exchange for a guarantee of peace and security. The prevented all against all (group against group)

Answer 119

Hobbs- life is solitary, nasty brutish and short Rousseau- life is solitary but in state of nature we cooperate based on necessity. Locke- people have the right to overthrow governments. Based on many ideas by Hobbes. All were included in the us constitution and all are wrong in assuming early human life was solitary. There is zero evidence of that. Individualism rose with time not cooperation. Aristotle was right when he said humans are political by nature. Our institutions override our natural cooperative behavior. Kinship behaviors and reciprocal behaviors make this apparent. Humans follow norms because of emotional norms in society. We want justice because if our tit for tat chimp life. Political power is the product of people thinking the government as legitimate. Humans - Humans want recognition of their own worth religion, culture etc. Recognition provides legitimacy which makes political organizations possible.

Answer 120

Offer fake reciprocity - I would die for you Pray on people without strong family ties get them to follow you by making faces and having them copy

Answer 121

Price + Profit (Your time, management cost, cost of equipment, factors involving competition. Markup may be 400%) The seller determines price. The buyer determines value. They determine whats fair FOR THEM. If you set the price too high, are you taking advantage of the customer? No, people buy Nike shoes because they see values in it. When value exceeds price, people give you money. There should be at least 50% profit in every step on the supply chain (production > Retail > Seller)

Answer 122

Be in L-squared mode and pay full attention with eyes and ears. Look for clusters. It cant just be one Failure to provide information asked for. Failure to deny - They don't say yes or no Use of exclusionary qualifiers - "Do you like how I'm dressed today?" "I don't hate it" "Fundamentally, our company did nothing wrong" Attacking the questioner Attack a third party/the situation Inappropriate level of concern - (They don't take it seriously enough, (they giggle), or they are too concerned) Convincing statement- The things people say to convince you of their innocence instead of just conveying information. They are explaining something 'why' something is the way it is. "I wouldn't do that, I'm a professional" Referral statements - Go back to a statement they've already made. "As I said previously" Invoking religion Perception qualifiers- "To tell you the truth/Frankly" Behavioral Pause Stop talking to gather thoughts Verbal/non verbal disconnect- Shaking their head to mean yes. Anchor point movements - When people move their feet or but when they speak. Grooming gesture - moving tie, stroking hair Hand to the face - When we are flight or flight blood flows away from extremities making us itchy.

Answer 123

Show your palms Pause instead of saying um. Create mystery in a single sentence. We do this not because of thing 1, thing 2 or thing 3.... but because of thing 4 Speak warmly to your audience. make them feel good about themselves. Rockstars do this. "Hello detroit!!" React to audience. Show them you see them and hear them. Make eye contact. for 3-5 seconds with someone in the crowd who is engaged Give a list of specifics. "For the florida mom who can pay her bills" "To the construction worker whose jobs are being shipped to mexico." Tell stories Create an image in people heads. Make a common enemy IT CANT BE THE OTHER PARTY

Answer 124

If the opponent has a good point divert with a wild statement. Make fun of peoples appearance. Fat and old trump. People are persuaded by people they like, and people who they want to be like. Mirror - Mirror someone's' energy and/or their last few words. Frame control Don't respond the content of insult, respond the the framing. "I wish the company here was better" "Don't beat yourself up" Frame peoples options in a very limited way. "Here are your options" Always create other options for yourself. Have more than one choice to have the upside in a negotiation.

Answer 125

You don't need witnesses. Make vague statements instead. Use a inanimate objects as "witnesses". "The halls witnessed this-" Delivery is more important than the content. It should be lively and entertaining

Answer 126

If your accused of something just accuse your opponent of it.

Answer 127

Make complex issues into bite size emotional arguments.

Answer 128

You can't be neutral. If all else fails, Appeal to gods and religion Cicero is never offers any real proof

Answer 129

"Crooked Hillary" " Creepy joe"

Answer 130

There is no wickedness planned or imagined that catiline was not a part of. In all these years what murder did he not direct. What act of repellant lewdness did not bear the mark of his guided hand.

Answer 131

list all the friends they have (allegedly). "There is not a single prisoner; assassin, their, forger of Wills, cheat, glutton etc. That hasn't been on intimate terms with catiline"

Answer 132

There are two fundamental insights at the heart of economics. The first is that people respond to incentives. Obvious opportunities to be better off are rarely left unexploited. The second is that every economic transaction has two sides: each side gets something and each side gives up something. When we consider the whole economy, those two sides have to add up. For everything we buy there must be something that we sell. For every good imported into our country something must be exported. These two rules taken together can provide tremendous insight into how economies work. For example, any story which implies that people pass on an opportunity to improve their economic standing is likely missing something. The Victorian economist David Ricardo used this insight to understand how landlords and farmers negotiated rents. Farmers want to cultivate the best possible land, where they can raise the most crops. Landlords want to charge the highest rent that farmers will be willing to pay. What then determines how much produce a farmer will have to pay to his landlord in rent and how much he will get to keep for himself? Ricardo reasoned that all farmers would get to keep an amount roughly equal to what could be produced on the worst plot of land under cultivation and any amount over would be paid in rent to the landlord. Why? Suppose a landlord tried to charge so much rent that the farmer actually ended up with less than he could produce on the worst plot of land. In that case, the farmer could get a better deal by offering a very tiny amount to rent land that was so bad no one was currently cultivating it. The owner of that uncultivated plot isn’t receiving any rent now, so even a tiny amount of rent makes him better off. Thus the farmer leaves his old landlord and rents the uncultivated plot (see figure 1). On the flip side, suppose another farmer demands that his landlord lower the rent, so that the farmer can keep more than what could be produced on the worst plot of land currently under cultivation. In that case, the landlord can threaten to evict his current farmer and rent the plot out to whoever is farming the very worst plot of land instead. The opportunity for farmers to find a new landlord or landlord’s ability to find a new farmer keeps the income of all the farmers roughly the same. They all fall in a fairly narrow range around the amount that a farmer could produce on the worst plot of land. Neither the actual productivity nor the actual needs of any individual farmer plays much of a role in determining his income. His income is set by the quality of a plot of land that might be very far away, farmed by someone he will probably never meet

Answer 133

The second principle—that economies have two sides and that every sale is also purchase—can lead us to equally powerful insights. For example, people are often worried that the United States runs a trade deficit year after year. It seems like we’re buying more from the rest of the world than they are buying from us. Economics tells us this story must be missing something. When we buy footwear from China, they send us shoes and we send them dollars. What does China do with the dollars? Some they use to buy US exports like soybeans. The rest, however, they use to buy US government bonds.

Answer 134

All couples started out with a fixed number of coupons, so that no couple would be able to abuse the system by always going out more than they babysat. The system worked great for a while, until a bunch couples stopped going out, all at the same time. That meant it was easy to find a sitter but hard to find an opportunity to sit. The couples who were still going out started to run low on coupons. Some of them began to get nervous and they started saving their coupons for special occasions. That resulted in even fewer couples going out, making it even harder to find an opportunity to sit. The cycle fed on itself. Eventually, all the couples were afraid of potentially running out of coupons and so they only rarely went out, making it nearly impossible for a couple to earn coupons to use when they needed them. The lack of opportunity to earn created a scarcity mindset, which made couples too afraid to use the coupons they had. Needless to say this defeated the entire purpose of the co-op, which was to allow couples to go out more. This happened not because there weren’t enough sitters, but because there weren’t enough coupons. This shortage of coupons changed the incentive to go out. We think of the couples who go out as “buying” a night of babysitting from the couples who stayed in. However, they were also “selling” extra coupons to the couples who stayed in. Both getting a babysitter for the night and having extra coupons were desirable. In this example, the essential principle modeled here—that every sale is also a purchase—also helps us understand why economies go into recessions,

Answer 135

Many economists consider David Ricardo one of the most important classical economists, after Adam Smith. Ricardo was able to articulate through words and simple examples concepts that would come to be fundamental tools of economic analysis. He outlined the Law of Comparative Advantage, which explaines how trade is beneficial to all parties involved. He also offered probably the first analysis of how automation could hurt workers. As Paul discusses, Ricardo also articulated the Law of Diminishing Returns, which today underlies economists’ understanding of supply and demand, and how prices and wages are determined. Learn more about Ricardo’s life and work. The Great Capitol Hill Baby-Sitting Co-Op Crisis is a classic in economics. Read the original here. Paul’s second principle is often illustrated using the circular flow model. The economy can be thought of as two cycles moving in opposite directions. In one direction, we see goods and services flowing from individuals to businesses and back again. This represents the fact that, as workers, we go to work to make things people want or provide a service that people need. Then, as consumers, we receive the things we want and need from other businesses. In the opposite direction, we see money flowing from businesses to households and back again. This represents the payments that we make for the things we buy and the income from the work that we do. The key takeaway is that both cycles are needed to make the economy work. When we buy things, we give up money for the things we want. When we go to work we make things in exchange for money. It’s easy to allow the money flow to fade into the background, but if something disrupts it, then the result can be an economic recession. Take a look at economist Jodi Beggs’s rendering of the circular flow model for more information.

Answer 136

Economists have been creating, debating, and testing theories about the economy for more than 250 years. Almost every “new” idea anyone has about the economy has probably been debated and discarded long ago. That doesn’t mean that it’s impossible to have genuinely original insights. It simply means that to do so, one must study an enormous amount of economic history. As unique as today’s events seem, they often have close parallels in the past. The Panic of 1893 was remarkably similar to the Great Recession of 2008. The current era of globalization shares much in common with the wave of globalization that occurred in the late 1800s. The field of economics itself developed alongside a dramatic shift in the way economies operated in general. Before the Industrial Revolution, the economy in most places looked nearly the same century after century. Suddenly, in the mid 1700s, the technological innovations in manufacturing and transportation brought rapid growth and change to England’s economy. Adam Smith, who is widely credited with creating the discipline of economics with his book The Wealth of Nations (1776), realized that this dramatic transformation in the way economies worked was driven in large part by the division of labor. He used the example of a pin factory to show how a group of workers, each specializing in one aspect of pin manufacturing, could produce more pins faster than the same number of master craftsmen working alone. Thus, he argued, countries were rich or poor not based on their levels of precious metals or other stores of wealth, but based on their capacity to produce the everyday things their citizens needed and wanted. Smith’s theory created a prevailing belief among economists that prosperity was assured if productive capacity was increased using the types of processes that Smith identified. If the prosperity of an entire economy declined, it was assumed that something had gone wrong with its productive capacity. There was also a general belief among economists in something called Say’s Law. Say’s Law states that supply creates its own demand. By “supply” economists mean the creation of goods and services. By “demand” economists mean the desire to purchase goods and services. Say’s Law suggests that on average the quantity of goods created will be equal to the quantity people want to buy. It may be the case that not many people want to buy a particular type of good and individual suppliers can go out of business. However, economists used to believe that the lack of demand for one good simply means that people prefer to spend their money on a different good. Indeed, it’s the desire to buy goods that induces people to offer goods for sale. When someone offers goods for sale they are hoping to earn money to buy something else. In this way, the supply of one good represents the demand for some other good. Say’s Law suggests that there could never be a general lack of demand. That is, it could not be the case that consumers simply didn’t want to buy as many goods as were being offered for sale. This creates a puzzle, however, because economists observe what is known as the business cycle: at times it seems like almost all businesses are able to sell as much as they want, while at other times virtually all business are having trouble selling as much as they want.

Answer 137

John Maynard Keynes eventually solved this puzzle by connecting several dots. First, people like to have a little extra money in reserve in case of an emergency. Second, if everyone becomes fearful at once, everyone will attempt to increase their reserves at the same time. Third, if everyone increases their reserves at the same time, there will not be enough spending to buy all the goods and services for sale. Fourth, if there is not enough spending to buy all the goods and services for sale, the level of fear in the economy will increase. This fear will, in turn, cause people to want to increase their reserves of money and the cycle will build on itself. This cycle is difficult to stop because people cannot get the very thing they want—more money in reserve—because the only way to get money is by selling something to other people. Those people will be reluctant to buy because they too are trying to increase their reserves. It is no accident that Keynes developed his theory during the Great Depression. Economists were perplexed by business cycles prior to the Great Depression, but the length and intensity of this recession created a sense of profound urgency to finally solve the mystery. Keynes explained that the prosperity of whole economies could decline even if their capacity to produce was undiminished. Even productive economies could get caught in a trap where a lack of spending could cause businesses to cut back on production. The cuts in production would then lead businesses to reduce the number of workers they employed. The reduction in employment opportunities would then lead families to cut back on spending, worsening the original problem. The story of the Great Capitol Hill Babysitting CoOp Crisis, discussed in Chapter 3: Two Fundamental Principles of Economics, helps illustrate Keynes’s insight on a smaller scale. Economists before Keynes would have said that all that is needed for the Babysitting Co-Op to prosper is for there to be enough couples willing and able to babysit. In fact, however, the Babysitting Co-Op has two sides. In addition to being willing and able to babysit, couples also have to be willing and able to go out and spend their babysitting coupons. This second problem, the unwillingness to spend coupons, has a solution so straightforward that it seems too good to be true. Indeed, even today many economists who haven’t specialized in studying money or recessions find it hard to believe. The solution is simply to print more coupons and give them to people. If for some reason giving the coupons away is problematic, then the Babysitting Co-Op could offer to pay coupons to its members for services other than babysitting, such as sending out announcements or hosting meetings. These solutions match exactly the options available to real governments. In most cases, governments can mitigate and reverse downturns by printing more money and effectively loaning it out at cheap interest rates. If that solution is problematic, then government can pay people to build public works, cut taxes, or expand safety net programs.

Answer 138

It’s the job of the Federal Reserve, or Fed, to keep the economy healthy. Technically the Fed’s mandate from Congress is to achieve full employment and price stability. Economists have long debated what the terms “full employment” and “price stability” mean in practice. The understanding today is that price stability means keeping the inflation rate around 2% per year. Full employment means getting unemployment as low as it can go without driving up inflation (see figure 1). *Wonkish” means “in the details,” especially in regards to theory and policy. Paul often labels a column “(wonkish)” when it contains a bunch of jargon and theory. FIGURE 1 An economy that produces too little will suffer from high unemployment, since the low rate of employment opportunities will be inversely proportional to the high number of able-bodied workers. An economy that produces too much will see widespread increases in the prices of nearly all goods and services as the demand for them outpaces production capabilities. This general increase in prices is known as inflation

Answer 139

To predict how much the economy will produce, the Fed and other professional economists use a model called IS-LM. The IS stands for Investment and Savings. The LM stands for Liquidity and Money. The ISLM model is based on the work of the legendary economist John Maynard Keynes. It attempts to distill many of his insights into a single graph (see figure 2). On the vertical axis of the graph, ‘r’ represents the interest rate on government bonds. On the horizontal axis, ‘Y’ represents Gross Domestic Product, or GDP. GDP is one of the most important statistics in economics. It represents three separate conceptions of the strength of an economy: (1) the value of everything that is produced within the country, (2) the value of everything that is purchased within the country plus that country’s net exports to other countries, and (3) the income of all the individuals and businesses within the country. These three values are the same because everything that we purchase must be first produced and then sold. Then, through the selling of products and services, we earn our income. Therefore, total production, total purchases, and total income for the whole country are the same. Measuring GDP tells us an enormous amount about how we are doing as a nation. If GDP is rising, it signifies that incomes are rising, and consumers are purchasing more. All of this means a stronger economy. The IS curve slopes down and to the right, representing the fact that as interest rates fall, people and businesses try to invest more in long-lasting goods like houses, cars, and equipment. When interest rates fall, families also tend to put less away for savings and spend more on consumer goods. Thus the effect of a falling interest rate is an increase in GDP through greater investment and less personal savings. The LM curve slopes up and to the right. It represents what economists call the money market. As the economy expands, banks and other financial institutions need funds to support the extra investment. To get those funds, they encourage consumers to deposit more of their cash into longer term deposits like certificates of deposit or bonds. Checking accounts pay very low interest rates and cash doesn’t pay any interest rate at all. So the higher interest rate consumers can get on CDs or bonds, the more they are willing to deposit their cash in those types of longer term investments. Thus, as the economy expands, interest rates tend to rise. The IS relationship and LM relationship create opposing forces. On the one hand, a falling interest rate tends to cause the economy to expand. On the other hand, an expanding economy causes interest rates to rise. Where the two curves meet, the forces are balanced and the economy is in equilibrium (see figure 3). The Federal Reserve can move the LM curve by printing money. The more money the Fed prints, the less aggressively banks have to raise interest rates to attract deposits. This causes the LM curve to shift outward. The lines now cross at a new point—one where the interest rate is lower and the economy is larger. In this way the Fed has the power to control the level of GDP (see figure 4). Although the Fed can increase the strength of the economy by printing money, that comes at the cost of a higher rate of inflation. Higher inflation causes the IS curve to shift inwards. This causes interest rates to rise again and the economy to slow. If the Fed is not careful, its actions can backfire and lead to an economy with high rates of inflation but not very high GDP growth. In the 1970s, the United States experienced precisely that outcome. Inflation rose throughout the 1970s while economic growth slowed. That experience left a mark on many Americans—so much so that there are people who believe that trying to increase GDP by printing money is so dangerous that it borders on evil. Economists understand that while high inflation is a real danger, low inflation is dangerous as well. Just as high inflation can lead to permanently high interest rates, low inflation can lead to permanently low interest rates. Permanently low interest rates limits the Fed’s ability to increase the strength of the economy in very bad times, which can lead to long, deep recessions. Economists often draw the LM curve as a straight line. In fact, it has a kink at zero (see figure 5). Interest rates cannot go below zero no matter how much money the Fed prints. Economists call this the Zero Lower Bound. When the 2008 crisis came along, the Fed attempted to counteract the economic collapse by printing money and driving down interest rates. When interest rates hit zero, however, printing money had no additional effect. In a severe depression like the one in 2008, printing money is not enough to save the economy (see figure 6)

Answer 140

Waves of bank failures occurred during the Great Depression. After the Depression, the government began insuring deposits and requiring banks to follow strict safety guidelines to ensure this wouldn’t happen again. Slowly, however, new institutions popped up that weren’t officially banks but nonetheless made their money by taking bank-type risks. These institutions created a shadow banking system, and by 2008 they handled almost ten times more money than the regular banking system. Bank runs are often associated with asset bubbles. The fundamental value of an asset is the return an investor believes he or she would receive if he or she bought an asset and never sold it. For real estate, the fundamental value is based on the rent the property will earn over its lifetime. For stocks, the fundamental value is based on the profits the company will earn. Asset bubbles occur when investors are willing to pay far more than a reasonable estimate of fundamental value in the hopes that they will be able to sell the asset later to other investors for even more money. This process can continue for a while, but eventually the flow of new investors slows. As it becomes harder to find new investors, old investors panic and sell all at once. This is sometimes called a Wile E. Coyote moment, after the famous cartoon character who would run off a cliff but only begin to fall when he noticed the ground was no longer beneath him. In the same way, the price of an asset in a bubble continues to rises above its fundamental value until investors notice that they are running out of new investors to whom they can sell. The subprime crisis combined the elements of a bubble with a bank run. The shadow banking system took loans from subprime borrowers. It then combined thousands of those loans into a single pool. As long as all borrowers didn’t default at once, the pool would collect a relatively predictable number of payments each month. When the housing bubble burst, however, many of the subprime borrowers defaulted all at once. Payments into the pools stopped. Without that income, shadow banks such as Accredited Home Loans or Freedom Mortgage Company could not honor their obligations (see figure 1)

Answer 141

The subprime crisis combined the elements of a bubble with a bank run. The shadow banking system took loans from subprime borrowers. It then combined thousands of those loans into a single pool. As long as all borrowers didn’t default at once, the pool would collect a relatively predictable number of payments each month. ``` When the housing bubble burst, however, many of the subprime borrowers defaulted all at once. Payments into the pools stopped. Without that income, shadow banks such as Accredited Home Loans or Freedom Mortgage Company could not honor their obligations (see figure 1) ``` Shadow banks were providing a lot of the economy’s credit; when they went down that credit was cut off. This caused spending in the economy to fall. The fall in spending led to a fall in prices of not only houses but commercial property, automobiles, and other assets. The fall in prices made it even more difficult for borrowers to get or repay loans, which led to further declines in spending and prices. Economists refer to this as “debt deflation.” This type of crisis is too large even for the Fed to stop. As a result of this snowball effect, unemployment soared from 4.5% to around 10%. An unemployment rate of 10% meant that roughly 15 million Americans who wanted to find a job could not. Now referred to as the Great Recession, this was the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Millions of manufacturing jobs were lost during the Great Recession. This wasn’t a result of anything that the workers did or even anything that their employers did. The crisis of 2008 negatively impacted millions of people. The massive job loss and potential scarring of entire career paths means that a recession is more than just an abstract economic concept. Recessions take an enormous toll on those who live through them

Answer 142

The financial crisis that began in 2007 pushed the US into a recession by the end of that same year. That recession in turn worsened the financial crisis as more people lost their jobs and were unable to repay mortgages and other loans. This deepening of the financial crisis in turn led to an even worse recession, and on it went. It’s natural to ask, “what can be done about this?” For most recessions, the answer is straightforward. The Federal Reserve is able to lessen the blow and even turn around a recession by printing more money. When the babysitting co-op, discussed in Chapter 3: Two Fundamental Principles of Economics, went into “recession,” the problem was solved by issuing more babysitting vouchers (see figure 1) This strategy, however, faces a limitation. To increase the amount of money circulating in the economy, the Federal Reserve lowers interest rates. Lower interest rates make it easier for households and businesses to borrow money from banks. The loans that banks make inject more money into the economy and allow it to recover from the recession. When interest rates hit zero, however, increases in the money supply have no effect. Households and businesses no longer have an increased incentive to take out loans. The extra money sits in banks without being spent. This is the reason the LM curve, discussed in Chapter 5: Understanding Macroeconomics: The Fed and IS-LM (Wonkish), is flat at zero. Economists call the inability of interest rates to go below zero the Zero Lower Bound. If you recall, LM stands for Liquidity and Money. Liquidity refers to the amount of money circulating in the economy. When the economy is liquid, households and businesses can easily find the cash they need to make the purchases they want. They can then make purchasing decisions based on long term considerations about their budget and what they can afford. Households and businesses do not have to worry that even though a purchase is a good long term idea, they may not have enough cash in the short term to buy it outright or make the payments on a loan. When the economy reaches the Zero Lower Bound, printing money no longer increases liquidity. If the economy reaches the Zero Lower Bound during a recession, it is said to be in a liquidity trap. The Federal Reserve would like to increase economic activity to bring the economy out of recession but it can’t because its primary tool, printing more money, is no longer effective.

Answer 143

When the economy reaches the Zero Lower Bound, printing money no longer increases liquidity. If the economy reaches the Zero Lower Bound during a recession, it is said to be in a liquidity trap. The Federal Reserve would like to increase economic activity to bring the economy out of recession but it can’t because its primary tool, printing more money, is no longer effective. In the 1930s, most of the world’s economies were mired in a liquidity trap. The massive government borrowing which accompanied World War II brought the world out of the liquidity trap. For another six decades, there were no major liquidity traps anywhere. In 1998, however, the Japanese economy hit the Zero Lower Bound following the collapse of their stock and real estate markets. The Japanese economy become ensnared in a liquidity trap. The Bank of Japan, Japan’s equivalent of the Fed, attempted to rescue the economy by printing more money. However, the printing had no effect. One Japanese economist joked that the only consumer durables—that is, manufactured goods—that were selling well in Japan were safes for holding all the extra cash that the Japanese Central Bank was printing. When the Great Recession began in the United States, some economists, including Paul, recognized the similarity to the Japanese situation. Ben Bernanke, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, knew the Japanese situation well. He was aware that there was only a very small chance that he would be able to turn around the United States economy before it hit the liquidity trap. Bernanke responded by printing money aggressively. Economists and other commentators who were not familiar with Japan’s experience became frightened that he would cause extreme inflation. However, just as in Japan’s case, most of the money sat in banks and did not circulate in the wider economy. There were huge increase in the money supply but only a very small increase in prices. Bernanke’s efforts had helped slow the economic collapse, but the shock the financial system experienced was too great to be overcome entirely. Like Japan the United States found itself in a liquidity trap.

Answer 144

Those pundits might be highly intelligent and well-trained, but they are not experienced macroeconomists. Even if macroeconomists are able to convince politicians that more spending can help the economy, there is immediately a political fight over what the money is spent on and where. Politicians have a natural incentive to fight for their district and the projects that they personally believe in, even if that spending is not the most effective during a recession. Despite the difficulties, however, the United States did enact a stimulus plan in 2009. Known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the stimulus contained approximately $288 billion in tax cuts and $499 billion in spending. That plan, combined with Bernanke’s efforts, prevented the United States from repeating the Great Depression. Though it wasn’t strong enough to avoid the liquidity trap completely, it was able to alter the economy’s trajectory. When the Great Recession first began in 2007, it was following nearly exactly the same track as the Great Depression. Yet, by early 2010, the descent leveled off. The unemployment rate peaked at 10 percent in October of 2009 and hovered around 9.9 percent until April of 2010, when it dropped to 9.6 percent. From there it began a downward trend that so far has lasted through the summer of 2018. The downturn was difficult, but for the United States, it didn’t approach the depths that occurred during the Great Depression. Stimulus only works if it leads to an increase in the budget deficit. The budget deficit is the difference between how much the government spends and how much revenue it takes in taxes. Either spending increases or tax cuts will expand the budget deficit and can stimulate the economy. However, if the government increases spending, but increases taxes to pay for that spending, there will be little net stimulus. Likewise, if the government decreases taxes but decreases spending to balance the budget, there will be little, if any, net stimulus.

Answer 145

Most people think of the budget deficit as bad. It’s worth asking, though, why exactly that’s so. There are two basic reasons, neither of which applies when a country like the United States is in a liquidity trap. The first reason is that in normal times when the government borrows money, that leaves less money available for households and businesses who also need to borrow. If the government borrows too much it will crowd-out that private spending. In a liquidity trap, however, money is piling up with no one borrowing. Thus the government is not crowding anyone out. The second reason is that if the debt grows too large, a country may find it difficult to pay back. This can be a problem for less developed countries but it is not a problem for an industrialized, well-developed nation like the United States. Unlike developing countries, the United States borrows in its own currency, which means that the Fed can simply print dollars to pay off the debt if it’s absolutely necessary. This option reduces the fear of US bondholders because it means that the United States government will not one day default simply because it cannot come up with the money to pay back their loans, and makes bondholders more willing to lend to the US at low interest rates. Low interest rates make it possible for the United States to repay even a very large debt.

Answer 146

Over the last several decades a large portion of the economics gains in wealthy countries have gone to a small minority of the population. Paul, like many economists, considers this to be one of the biggest economic challenges facing us today. When Paul grew up during the 1950s and 1960s, the United States income was much more evenly distributed. During the 1970s and 1980s, that began to change. Income gains at the top especially the top 1 percent, outpaced the rest of the country. Meanwhile income for the middle class percent stagnated. This gap has created a society that is far more stratified by income than the one that existed 50 years ago. Paul credits this increase in stratification for the increase in economic anxiety that we have seen over the same period. Before World War II, income inequality in the United States was roughly equivalent to where it is today. During and after World War II, income inequality fell rapidly and drastically. It stayed at this low level until about the 1970s, when inequality began rising again (see figure 1).

Answer 147

It can be easy to confuse income inequality with wealth inequality. Income represents how much you earn in a given year both from work and from the yearly return on your investments. Wealth is your total net worth. The income inequality that existed prior to World War II was largely caused by wealth inequality. Some families had large fortunes which produced large returns every year. The income inequality that we have today mostly comes from wide differences in salaries. At the very extreme are C-suite executives who have seen their average compensation grow nearly tenfold between 1960 and 2010. College-educated workers in general have fared far better than average, seeing their wages nearly double over that same period. By comparison, workers with less than a high school diploma have seen no growth in real wages over that same period. That income inequality from salary differences is beginning to lead to income inequality from wealth differences. Few high income people spend all of what they make in a year. Over time, that built up savings produces vast wealth that will eventually pass onto their children (see figure 2). Rising inequality tends to have disproportionately strong impact on people who are not white. One theory for why America tends to have less economic redistribution to reduce inequality than Europe is that many white voters do not see these policies as helping people who are like them. Instead they see them as taking away from their community and giving to another community. Most economic crises tend to drive down income inequality. This happens because stock market collapses not only bring down the wealth of the richest Americans but because CEOs of public corporations and financial executives are often paid based on the performance of the market. The last crisis, however, was concentrated in the housing market. The most valuable asset that most middle class people own is their home. Therefore, the crisis hit the middle class much harder than previous crises. It has also meant that many middle class families have not yet recovered from their loss in wealth.

Answer 148

The issue of taxes is highly contentious. Although they are a major political issue, they are a less significant determinant of economic growth than is often assumed. History has shown that countries like the United States can do very well under a variety of different tax schemes. Indeed, the best period of growth in US history came just after World War II, when taxes were among the highest we have experienced in our nation’s history. The US tax code is overly complex in many ways, but not so much that it threatens economic growth. The United States also collects less in taxes than do most other developed countries, such as France, Denmark, or Germany. These countries with higher tax rates are nonetheless prosperous, well-functioning economies, so the first question one should ask when designing a tax system is not how high taxes should be, but what services should the government provide and how best can we pay for them. Polls suggest that most Americans want to keep or expand our three most important safety net programs: Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Social Security and Medicare are targeted specifically to the elderly. Medicaid covers low-income Americans of all ages, but spends disproportionately more on the elderly because the elderly have higher health care needs.

Answer 149

Our society is aging. This implies that our social safety net programs will face increasing costs in the years to come. To pay for them, many economists believe we will have to raise taxes. Some of that can come from taxing the wealthy. The marginal tax rate—the rate on the last dollar of income—of the wealthy is around 55 percent, when federal, state, and local taxes are combined. Considering that a country like Denmark has taxes amounting to more than half the country’s income, Paul suspects that the United States could raise its taxes on the rich without worrying about any effects on the economy. We could probably raise our corporate tax rate as well. Though those two things together will help fund our future safety net, Paul notes that it’s just a start. We will probably have to enact very broad-based taxes like a Value Added Tax, or VAT.

Answer 150

Paul contrasts this to an opposing position, often called supply-side economics, which suggests the government can actually cause a large sustained increase in growth by cutting taxes. It’s called supply-side economics because it focuses on what the government can do to increase the overall supply of goods and services that are created in the economy. Supply-side economics was first applied under President Reagan in the 1980s. Conservatives credited tax cuts for the rapid recovery of 1982-4, although this probably mainly reflected monetary policy. President Clinton, however, raised taxes in the early 1990s and the economy experienced an even bigger boom. George W. Bush then cut taxes again in the early 2000s and there was hardly any boom. President Obama raised taxes again in 2013 and it seemed to have no effect on the economy at all. From these historical episodes many economists, including Paul, have concluded that taxes probably just don’t matter that much (see figure 1). In 2017, President Trump signed a major tax cut, a feature of which was an attempt to make the US corporate tax more internationally competitive. The idea was that if US corporate taxes were lower, investors around the world would be more likely to build factories and other facilities in the US. This would provide more high-wage jobs for US workers within the States. Paul and other Democratic economists have argued that while the theory behind these cuts may sound persuasive, it’s not supported by evidence. When other countries have tried similar tax cuts they have found only limited amounts of new investments, which take decades to fully materialize.

Answer 151

Today our economy is transitioning to one based mainly on services. Health services, such as nursing, are among the fastest growing occupations. These shifts in our economy, from agriculture to manufacturing and from manufacturing to services can be extremely difficult for workers who began their career in one era but find the economy shifting to another era before they retire. Overall, though, our economy is seeing higher average incomes and increased productivity, despite the pains of transition. It’s easy to look at the job losses in manufacturing and wonder what will happen if and when automation comes to services. Paul uses a hotdog analogy to point out that what we are seeing is not job destruction but job re-balancing. Manufacturing is losing jobs and services are gaining jobs for the same reason. Technological progress in manufacturing is faster than technological progress in services (see figure 1). If the automotive industry had not declined in employment, then we would currently be producing more cars than we have drivers. If nursing had not expanded in employment, then finding care for the sick and elderly would be even harder than it is today. If labor productivity in the nursing sector were to take off, then families would see their medical costs fall and may use the savings to buy an extra vehicle just for recreation. In that case, we would have both more automobiles and greater access to health care. We would be wealthier overall (see figure 2). Manufacturing technology is progressing so rapidly though, it is unlikely that we will ever rebalance back to the type of economy we had in the 1950s. When you do the actual math, an economy that heavily focused on manufacturing would mean not only multiple cars per driver but dozens of TVs for every family and more furniture than you could even fit in the typical house. Therefore, it’s unlikely we will ever turn the clock all the way back. That means significant pain as the economy evolves, but in the long run it means more prosperity as well.

Answer 152

Health care is one of the largest and fastest growing segments of the US economy. It’s common for people to think of their local economy as dominated by the industries that have historically been unique to that location. For example, in West Virginia most people think of their economy as being dominated by coal mining. In reality, only around 3% of West Virginia’s workers are in coal mining. In contrast, 15% are in health care and social assistance. Whereas in the past, the canonical middle class job in America may have been some type of factory worker, today the most common middle class job in America is some version of nursing. In the coming decades, getting the economics of health care right will be central to the health of the entire economy

Answer 153

Private health insurance markets are inherently vulnerable to collapse. In any given year, roughly 5% of people are responsible for roughly 50% of all health care costs. When a private insurer decides how much to charge for premiums, it has to figure out what its average customer is going to spend on health care that year. If the insurance company charges too low of a premium, it will not be able to cover the costs. If it charges too much, however, healthy people will decide to cancel their policies. When that happens, the percentage of insurance company’s customers who are sickly will go up and so will the average cost per patient. If that happens, the insurance company may still not take in enough in premiums to cover costs. This can create a death spiral (see figure 1). If the insurance company again raises their premiums to cover their increased average costs, even more patients will cancel their policies, driving average costs even higher. This process continues until only the sickest patients are willing to pay for insurance. To cover the cost, the premiums on that insurance will be at least equal to the cost of treating those patients. Making it virtually unaffordable (see figure 2). Private health insurance suffers from two other problems as well. The first is asymmetric information. Consumers know more about their health than insurance companies do. This gives people an incentive to lie to insurance companies and tell them that they are more healthy than they actually are. In response, insurance companies employ investigators to not only research potential customers before they sign up, but to question the validity of an insurance claim once it’s filed. This arms race between customers and insurance companies over the disclosure of pre-existing conditions leads to enormous frustration and losses on both sides. The second problem is moral hazard. Once people have insurance it is in both their interest and their doctor’s interest to buy any procedure even if it only has the slightest chance of working. Paul argues that these two factors are one reason why health care costs in the United States are higher than they are in most of the developed world.

Answer 154

There are essentially three ways to provide universal health care. The first is for government to provide healthcare directly under: “socialized medicine”. In this case, all hospitals would be owned by the government and all doctors and nurses would be government employees. The United Kingdom’s National Health Service, or NHS, is an example of this type of system. Over time, it has proven to be one of the most cost effective systems. However, both doctors and patients have less choice in the range of treatments and procedures that are available to them. The second solution is to have a single-payer system, like Canada. Under a single-payer system, the government provides health insurance for everyone, but doctor’s offices and hospitals are still private businesses or nonprofits. This type of system allows people more choice between doctors and hospitals with different approaches to care, but it also costs more than socialized medicine. The third system is to allow private insurance companies but regulate them and mandate that everyone purchase some type of health insurance. Switzerland has regulated health insurance and the recently-passed Affordable Care Act is an attempt to build a mandated health insurance system in the United States. Regulated health insurance systems allow for the most consumer choice, but they are also the most expensive. Every country, including the United States, with a regulated health insurance system uses subsidies to help lower income people afford to pay for insurance. Perhaps surprisingly, moving the United States towards a regulated health insurance system added relatively little to the United States’s overall health expenditures. Even though around 20 million people gained coverage. Insuring those people was relatively inexpensive because most of them were young people, who are much cheaper to cover than the elderly covered by Medicare.

Answer 155

The real challenge in reforming the US healthcare system was overcoming our fear of change. The majority of Americans had health care even before the Affordable Care Act. Most retired people had insurance through Medicare. Most working, middle, and upper-class Americans had insurance through their employer. Those Americans at or below the poverty line were eligible for insurance through Medicaid. Those with insurance through their employers were worried that the new system would not be as good as the old system. This concern meant that Congress was unlikely to do anything that would get rid of the current employer-based health care system. Making major changes to any public program, like health insurance, is a difficult undertaking. The existing system will only tolerate so much change at one time. Trying to do too much at once can be counterproductive. Nonetheless, health care reform is one area in which many economists, like Paul, feel that the most important work is yet to be done. The Affordable Care Act took the United States closer to universal coverage but still left millions uninsured. Paul stresses two lessons in trying to advocate for better health care. First, don’t let the best be the enemy of the good. Even small improvements can change the lives of millions of people. Second, have hope. The fact that there are better health care systems out there means that the US health care system can be improved.

Answer 156

Even today, economists might fail to mention certain “inconvenient” aspects of their models, which could be harmful to political causes they believe in. You will often be able to get a fuller picture by reading multiple economists with a diversity of viewpoints. Ricardo’s theories are excellent at explaining why trade occurs between countries which specialize in very different types of products. Economists noticed over time that there was also a lot of trade between countries in products that looked very similar. Paul was awarded the Nobel Prize for explaining this phenomenon using what has come to be known as “new trade theory.” In his theory, trade was driven not only by inherent differences in productivity, but by the fact that economies of scale favored concentrating production in one place (see figure 5). For example, before the Canada-US Auto Pact was signed in 1965, there was very little trade in automobiles between the two countries. Canadians bought cars made in Canada and Americans bought cars made in the United States. Yet, the major automobile manufacturers in Canada were the same as in the United States: GM, Ford, and Chrysler. The Canadian automobile industry, however, was significantly less productive than the American. The smaller Canadian market meant that assembly lines could not be dedicated to solely producing one model of car but had to be shared between multiple models. Stopping the assembly line and switching out the parts for the new model cost time and labor. After the auto agreement between Canada and the United States went into effect, automobile manufacturers restructured the lines so that the factories in Canada only specialized in building specific models for the combined US-Canada market and the US factories built other models (see figure 6). This meant that trade expanded between Canada and the United States in goods of the same type. Some car models were made in America and shipped to Canada. Other models were made in Canada and shipped to America (see figure 7). Ricardo’s theories would not have predicted this type of development but Paul’s did. The experience of the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement showed that trade was not only driven by comparative advantage but by the economies of scale that come from specialization.

Answer 157

Steamships and railroads drove the original era of globalization. These innovations lowered the cost of physically transporting goods over long distances. The major cost in transportation that remained was the cost of sorting. When a ship arrived at port or when a train pulled into its station, workers had to spend an enormous amount of time carefully sorting each bag, barrel, or crate, and ensuring that it went to its intended destination. The development of the shipping container changed all of that. Container ships are now loaded with standardized shipping containers. Those containers are placed on standardized railroad cars and they match exactly the specification for a tractor trailer. They also each have their own specific barcode. Sorting a container is as simple as scanning the barcode and seeing which railroad car or tractor trailer is scheduled to carry it on the next leg of its journey. This phenomenon has been the largest driving force in making complex trade patterns between distant nations possible. That revolution has made the United States much wealthier. Mass production of the iPhone would not be possible without complex supply chains linking China, South Korea, Taiwan, and the United States. Still, there are losers as well as winners associated with trade. Trade has meant the disappearance of entire industries in garment factories from the United States. Apparel manufacturing used to be heavily concentrated in New York City. Millions of otherwise low-skilled workers could find work. Those labor-intensive jobs have largely been shipped overseas, which means that there is less demand for workers with little education and fewer opportunities for unskilled laborers to find work than in the past. Falling demand for low skilled workers leads to falling or at best stagnant wages. In this way, the effects of trade largely mirror the effects of technological change. They make the entire country more wealthy on the whole, but can have devastating impacts for particular communities.

Answer 158

When economists attempt to measure the overall impact of trade, they use a process called factor content analysis. They imagine that instead of importing textiles from a country like Bangladesh, the textile workers themselves immigrate to the United States. Then, instead of building and exporting passenger jets to the rest of the world, they imagine that the engineers who make those jets emigrate to other countries. Then they consider how the addition of more textile workers would affect the wages of US textile workers. In general, we would expect an increase in the supply of textile workers to lower the wages for those workers. Next, they consider how the loss of engineers would affect the wages of US engineers. In general, we would expect a decrease in the supply of engineers to raise the wages for engineers (see figure 1). After performing these calculations, economists find that trade is a significant contributor to the rise in inequality, but it is not the primary contributor. Technological change, politics, and cultural shifts are far more powerful factors. Trade has a more powerful effect on our trading partners, particularly our least developed trading partners. The United States is an advanced economy with the ability to produce lots of different things. Bangladesh, on the other hand, is a very poor country with limited capability. The low wages in Bangladesh, however, do mean that workers there can be competitive in labor-intensive industries like garment manufacturing. Even those sweatshops that pay low wages and have horrible working conditions (by our standards) provide the same type of opportunity for Bangladeshis that they did for garment workers in New York City a hundred years ago. Without that backstop, Bangladesh would be even poorer than it is today.

Answer 159

This complex pattern of winners and losers is summed by a graph called the Elephant Chart, created by contemporary development and inequality economist Branko Milanović. The Elephant Chart shows us that when we consider the effect of trade on the entire human population, four distinct groups emerge (see figure 2). First, there are the poorest people in the world, most living in Sub-Saharan Africa, who are not as of yet part of the global economy. Their prospects have changed little in spite of globalization. Second, there is a massive portion of the human population living in China and the Pacific Rim who have seen an enormous rise in their living standards. They are not up to American levels yet, but their situation has enormously improved since the 1980s. Third is the working class in the United States, Europe, and Japan. They are still wealthier than most people in China, however, they’ve seen little improvement and in some cases an outright decline in their standard of living. Lastly, there is the educated elite in the United States, Europe, and Japan. They’ve seen percentage gains in income nearly as large as people living in China. This complex story surrounding trade creates high international tensions. However, it’s important to remember that trade is only one of the factors creating income inequality in the United States, but it is the dominant factor changing the lives of people in China and the Pacific Rim.

Answer 160

The economic growth that China has experienced over the last 30 years has astounded economists. In no other place, at no other time, have so many people been brought out of the depths of poverty into the global middle class. The rise of Chinese exports, especially after 2000, caused shock to the US economy that economists refer to as the “China Shock.” The US had to adjust to rapidly changing patterns of trade as some industries moved to China and new industries were born. That shock faded by around 2010. Attempting to restrict trade with China would create a second shock. It’s important to remember that the economic hardship from the China Shock came not from trade itself, but from the need to rapidly adjust to new patterns of trade. Reducing trade with China will mean having to re-adjust again. Increasing taxes on the imports of materials used in manufacturing, such as steel and aluminum, is particularly destructive. Doing so benefits US steelmakers, but at the expense of US automotive and appliance manufacturing. Economic estimates suggest that the jobs lost in automotive and appliance manufacture will exceed those gained in steel (see figure 1). Politicians in the United States have made a big deal about the trade deficit that the US runs with China. That figure, however, is misleading for several reasons. First, the US runs a bilateral trade deficit with China of $375 billion. That sounds like a lot, but is less than 2% of our approximately $20 trillion economy. Second, even that figure of $375 billion is an overestimate. The Chinese economy specializes in assembling goods from components made elsewhere. For example, iPhones are assembled in China but the microprocessors come from South Korea. This implies that a lot of the value of the imports we receive from China really were manufactured elsewhere, and should be counted as imports from those countries instead of China. Lastly, what remaining trade deficit we do have with China mostly represents the fact that the Chinese are investing more in America than we are in China. Paul argues that those concerned about inequality in the United States and Europe should focus on domestic policies rather than trade. The one issue with China that bothers Paul the most is its government’s lack of respect for intellectual property rights. The Chinese government not only permits but encourages its companies to use foreign technology or copy foreign books and movies without paying copyright and patent fees.

Answer 161

Along with new trade theory, one of Paul’s greatest contributions to economics was in the area of economic geography. He understood long before most economists that increases in communication technology could lead to the rise of very large cities and the decline of small towns. When businesses decide on locations, they face two major considerations. The first consideration is being close to their customers and their suppliers. If it is expensive to transport goods, then manufacturers will find it advantageous to locate somewhere in between the two. In that way, they lower the transportation costs for acquiring raw material and shipping final goods to customers. These considerations helped drive the development of many of the manufacturing centers around the Great Lakes in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Resources shipped in from the American heartland turned into output sent to the Eastern Seaboard. The second consideration is what the great Victorian economist Alfred Marshall called “immaterial factors.” Marshall pointed out that what might be considered the “mysteries of the trade” are no mystery at all when you live in a town dominated by an industry. Casual conversation at the bar or the cafe will tend towards the town’s main industry. It becomes easy to learn the important elements of doing business simply by being in the right place, among the right people. Paul realized that as the costs of transportation fell, the advantages of an industry cluster can rise. This leads to a snowball effect that overwhelms other considerations (see figure 1) Silicon Valley for example, has a natural advantage in growing apricots. The weather and soil are nearly ideal for apricot trees. Large groves used to cover Silicon Valley before the 1950s. Agglomeration effects, however, would soon overpower this natural advantage. During World War II, the US Navy used the San Francisco Bay for research into new technologies, especially radar navigation and long range radio communication. This brought engineers in radio communication to the area. In 1956, William Shockley won the Nobel Prize for his development of the semiconductor. That same year, he moved to Palo Alto, a town on the southwest end of the San Francisco Bay, to be close to his ailing mother. Shockley recruited other engineers from around the country to come work with him—some of whom ended up breaking off and founding a company that came to be known as Fairchild Semiconductor. Their company was the only one in the world at the time capable of making transistors on a large scale.

Answer 162

As the demand for electronics grew, engineers and entrepreneurs moved to the San Francisco Bay Area to be close to Fairchild and to take advantage of the expertise of communications engineers in the area. Palo Alto became a small hub for electronic communications. When the internet was developed in the early 1990s, technology experts and entrepreneurs moved to Silicon Valley to be close to these technology experts. The commercial success of early internet firms brought venture capitalists and other investors to the area. This created an even bigger technology cluster which soon outgrew Palo Alto and came to cover much of the San Francisco Bay Area. Today, rather than being the home of apricot groves, Silicon Valley is a major international technology cluster. As communication and transportation technology expands, Paul predicts that economic growth will increasingly focus on big metropolitan areas. However, land use restrictions in many major cities prevent the influx of more people. Land prices in large cities can be very expensive. The way to keep housing and rents for businesses affordable is to build more residences or offices on each plot of land. This is accomplished by building high-rise buildings. Residents in San Francisco and even New York have passed ordinances that limit or in some cases forbid the building of high-rises over many parts of the city. This causes the price of housing to skyrocket and means that only the wealthiest people are able to move to the city. Not only does this make the city less affordable for those living there, but it also makes the entire economy weaker, by slowing the evolution towards megacities. The flip-side of the growth of megacities is the decline of medium and small-sized cities. Cities that were focused around a single industry were particularly hard hit as manufacturing dwindled and employment opportunities vanished. The Great Lakes region was the ideal place for manufacturers looking to lower transportation costs. However, it offers few opportunities or amenities for high tech workers. In addition, many of the communities were built around a single manufacturing industry. That provided an advantage when manufacturing employment was high. Workers in that industry could share trade information. As manufacturing declined, however, the advantage of manufacturing towns disappeared. In pure economic terms, it might be advantageous to close down the town and move everyone to the expanding city. For those that grew up in these towns, though, the decision is more complex. It means leaving the only place they have ever known and taking a risk in cities that are, because of building restrictions, extremely expensive. Dealing with the consequences of economic geography will be one of the major policy challenges affecting economics in the coming decades.

Answer 163

Economics deals with subjects that are often the source of intense academic and political debate. Economists, like Paul, who are embroiled in that debate want to present their ideas in the most persuasive way possible. Nonetheless, Paul hopes that this MasterClass will help you be a skeptical consumer of those ideas and not let him or any other economic commentator get away with logically unsound or factually unsupported arguments. When reading any economic argument, first ask whether all of the elements for a sound argument are in place. That is, does the argument begin with a core set of assumptions, provide evidence to support those assumptions, and then expand on those assumptions through a clear chain of logic all the way to its conclusions? Surprisingly, you may find that much of what is written even from some popular sources is little more than a passionate series of assertions that might be true, but are not shown to be true by the author. Once you’re confident that all the elements are in place, then you can ask yourself: Does the argument hang together? This can be difficult and requires a degree of mindfulness. Even very intelligent readers are often taken in by an argument that appeals to their own biases or makes a complex problem seem easy to understand. For example, lots of things are going on in the economy at once. You can always find patterns that seem to suggest that two phenomena are related when in fact they are not. Economists call this “spurious correlation.” Two phenomena are genuinely correlated if they are related to each other in a systematic way. A spurious correlation, however, is a pattern that arises by pure chance. To spot a spurious correlation, ask yourself if something else going on could explain this same pattern. It’s often asserted that low-tax states have faster rates of growth than high-tax states. Lowtax states, however, are located in the South where winters are milder and housing is less expensive. Both of those factors have been big drivers behind growth rates for the last half century.

Answer 164

Authors may also cherry pick their facts—meaning he or she finds one particular source or one particular time in history when a key fact that supports his or her argument is true, but then ignores all of the other instances when this fact is not true. If an author has to pick an obscure or very out-of-date fact, then that is a sign that he or she may be cherry-picking. You can learn something about an author’s honesty by looking at whether he or she has ever admitted to an error. Economics is complex and predictions are hard, especially about the future. That means that from time to time, even the best economic analysts will be wrong. The very best, however, will admit that they were wrong, try to understand why they were wrong, and incorporate that understanding into future predictions

Answer 165

Greek, third century BCE ``` AREAS OF EXPERTISE: self-examination, the Socratic method MAJOR WORKS: See “Plato” INFLUENCED: Countless thinkers, from Plato to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and beyond Socrates was an Athenian scholar and founding figure of Western philosophy. His method of critical thinking through rigorous student-teacher debate—questioning society’s assumptions and humanity’s deepest urges—is now known as the Socratic method, a cornerstone of modern philosophical inquiry. According to this principle, self-examination reveals the truth about being human and the path to happiness. He also believed that the truth lies within the individual and that searching for it in popular opinion, history, or mysticism is futile. Socrates left behind no written works; everything known about his life comes from posthumous texts published by friends, former students, and fellow Sophists (or teachers), including Plato, Xenophon, and Plato’s student Aristotle (all of whom are discussed in this section). Each of these authors presents a different interpretation of Socrates, causing scholars to question which version is the most accurate. But his outsize impact on Western philosophy is incontestable. “Socrates is a figure that the Greeks call atopos,” Cornel says. “Atopos means unclassifiable, unsubsumable. There’d never be one label that fully accounts for who he was.” ```

Answer 166

``` "I just want all of us to recognize the ways in which philosophical quests for truth, goodness, and beauty can be noble adventures.” ```

Answer 167

``` Greek, ca. 429–347 BCE AREAS OF EXPERTISE: political philosophy, ethics, materialism, moral intellectualism, metaphysics MAJOR WORKS: Phaedrus, Philebus, Protagoras, Meno, The Republic, Symposium, Theaetetus, Timaeus ``` ``` INFLUENCED: Aristotle, Giambattista Vico, David Deutsch Like his mentor Socrates, Plato is widely considered one of the most important figures in Western philosophy—and human history. He’s known for his theory of Forms, wherein he rejected materialism (a focus on earthly matters instead of intellectual or spiritual ones) in favor of metaphysics (a concern with the fundamental nature of reality and being). Plato believed that all things exist in an abstract form that’s unchanging and idealized; his theory suggests that objects and ideas in the material world are copies of their perfect, if hypothetical, counterparts. He founded the Hekademeia, which eventually became the Akademia or Academy—an institution of higher education that was free and open to the public. While it didn’t have formalized teachers and students, many scholars consider it an early archetype of the Western education system. ```

Answer 168

Along with Plato and Aristotle, Xenophon was a chief chronicler of the life and mind of Socrates, whom he knew as both a friend and a teacher. Xenophon was also a military leader celebrated for his contributions to the study of history, including vivid accounts of wars in which he fought. The wealthy Athenian’s technical treatises covered horsemanship, combat strategy, hunting, and civil government, and he explored the question of how to sustain a moral life. But his legacy has more to do with historiography than his relatively modest philosophical innovations. Xenophon and Plato offered divergent depictions of Socrates, which has puzzled scholars for millennia. The contrast is most conspicuous around the trial of Socrates before the Athenian authorities, after which the elder philosopher was condemned to death. According to Xenophon, Socrates intentionally did not prepare an adequate defense, accepting his fate to make a point about the importance of ethical behavior.

Answer 169

``` Emerging after the Middle Ages, a period defined by dogmatic thinkers like Italy’s Thomas Aquinas, Hobbes wrote on topics that would dominate early modern European discourse: liberty, natural rights, human nature, and civil law. His novel view of politics began with what’s known as the state of nature, or the natural condition of human beings prior to the rise of governments. Under natural law, Hobbes theorized, everyone has an equal right to everything, begetting an inevitable condition of warring among humans for self-preservation. To avoid the constant risk of violent death, people developed a social contract—a widespread agreement to abide by a given set of rules or laws, forming the basis of civil society. Hobbes’s conceptual approach would play a crucial role in the development of thought during the Enlightenment (see: “Spinoza,” this page; “Kant,” page 11). ```

Answer 170

``` French, 1596–1650 AREAS OF EXPERTISE: mathematics, modern rationalism, metaphysics, physical science MAJOR WORKS: Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting One’s Reason and of Seeking Truth in the Sciences, Meditations on First Philosophy, Principles of Philosophy, The Passions of the Soul INFLUENCED: Sir Isaac Newton, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, JeanJacques Rousseau Descartes helped establish multiple principles of philosophy, including modern rationalism—a modality that champions reason and intuition, sometimes in opposition to experience (although some scholars argue that this opposition oversimplifies both rationalism and empiricism). He developed a synthesis of algebra and geometry known as analytic geometry, which is sometimes referred to as Cartesian geometry, and the Cartesian coordinate sysem, a method of locating points on a graph that remains in wide use today. A devout Roman Catholic, he ```

Answer 171

``` Dutch, 1632–1677 AREAS OF EXPERTISE: rational thought, determinism, moral relativism MAJOR WORKS : Ethics, Political Treatise, Theological-Political Treatise INFLUENCED: John Locke, Sigmund Freud, Albert Einstein Along with Descartes and the German thinker Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Spinoza is considered one of the first rationalist philosophers. The Dutch Hebrew scholar argued that free will is an illusion and believed in God’s existence within the context of pantheism—a doc - trine stating that God is identical to the cosmos. Spinoza was heavily influenced by Aristotle and the Greek Stoics (who took perception to be the basis of true knowledge), and he rejected notions of good and evil found in Judaism and Christianity, positing that these values aren’t intrinsic and absolute but instead relative and limited by human understanding. In 1656, religious authorities in Amsterdam issued Spinoza a writ of herem, a formal complaint that effectively banned him from the Jewish community, alleging atheism and “abominable heresies.” Nevertheless, his philosophy proved influential in the Enlightenment—a movement of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that championed science and logic over tradition and religion—and beyond ```

Answer 172

``` British, 1632–1677 AREAS OF EXPERTISE: political liberalism, human rights, intellectual liberty MAJOR WORKS: The Second Treatise of Government, A Letter Concerning Toleration, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Some Thoughts Concerning Education INFLUENCED: David Hume, Jean-Jacques Rousseau This physician and philosopher gained recognition for his foundational ideas about political liberalism—that humans should live as they please within a culture of agreed-upon rules. His writing was crucial to the development of ideas around liberty, natural rights, the social contract, religious tolerance, and the right of revolution. Locke also took on civil and human rights, the separation of powers, and republicanism—a philosophy of limited government with elected representatives serving at the will of the people and a division between church and state. In addition to political thought, he’s known for his work in epistemology, or the study of knowledge. This helped form the foundation of empiricism: the notion that human beings are born with no knowledge and everything we learn comes from our experience of an external world. ```

Answer 173

``` Italian, 1668–1744 AREAS OF EXPERTISE: humanism, science, philology MAJOR WORK: The New Science INFLUENCED: James Joyce, R.G. Collingwood Vico lived and worked during the Italian Enlightenment, which, by way of economic, judicial, political, and social reforms, signaled the shifting of popular thought in Europe. His signature text, The New Science, includes discussion of humando, a term Cornel discusses extensively. Vico endorsed classical Greek and Roman philosophers; during speeches at the University of Naples, he criticized Cartesian rationalism (see: “Descartes,” page 10) and offered a humanistic alternative. He sought to synthesize the philosophy of history, philology (the theory of language), jurisprudence (legal theory), and the humanities into a single social science. Vico believed that all races and nationalities share a universal common sense, which can be unearthed by studying what he called ideal eternal history. This work, and Vico’s quest to articulate universal laws of human nature, received only moderate regard during his lifetime but gained traction in the nineteenth century. ```

Answer 174

``` German, 1724–1804 AREAS OF EXPERTISE: critical thinking, metaphysics, morality, natural science, pragmatism MAJOR WORKS: The Critique of Pure Reason, Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, Answer to the Question: What Is Enlightenment?, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, The Critique of Practical Reason INFLUENCED: Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean-Paul Sartre, Hannah Arendt, Ayn Rand Another crucial figure of the Age of Enlightenment, Kant is widely studied due to his work on ethics (cultural rules regarding what is believed to be right and wrong) and metaphysics. He sought to expand the relevance of his philosophical ideas so that human nature, rightness, and moral duty would be as measurable as physics. Kant vehemently disagreed with Aristotle’s idea of eudaemonism—a theory suggesting that happiness and personal well-being are the highest ethical goals—and opposed using virtue as a fundamental ethical category. While Aristotle focused on the development of the individual, which, in turn, would benefit society as a whole, Kant’s approach was duty-based: He argued that there are certain binding duties we have as human beings. Many scholars saw his work on ethical theory as a new way of considering rationality and morals. For Kant, morality was the product of what he called pure practical reason. ```

Answer 175

``` British, 1729–1797 AREAS OF EXPERTISE: economics, conservatism, religion MAJOR WORKS: A Vindication of Natural Society, A Philosophical Enquiry Into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, Conciliation With America, Reflections on the Revolution in France, Letters on a Regicide Peace INFLUENCED: Friedrich Hayek, Karl Popper This philosopher, economist, and political thinker inspired heated debates in his lifetime, particularly through his books Reflections on the Revolution in France and A Philosophical Enquiry Into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. Burke’s political life was rooted in London, where he served as a member of the House of Commons, a major legislative body. He belonged to the Whig Party, which was considered comparatively left-wing among England’s political parties at the time. Burke’s advocacy for the institutions of church and family, however, as well as his skepticism toward taxation and the French Revolution, have led some political thinkers to see him as the father of modern conservatism. (Cornel acknowledges him as “one of the great conservative thinkers.”) ```

Answer 176

American, 1803–1882 AREAS OF EXPERTISE: transcendentalism, poetry, spirituality MAJOR WORKS: Concord Hymn, Essays: First Series, Self-Reliance, Uriel, English Traits, Brahma, The Conduct of Life INFLUENCED: William Ellery Channing, Bronson Alcott, Margaret Fuller, Henry David Thoreau A poet, essayist, and naturalist, Emerson was a key figure during a period in which American literature came of age as an expression of the national spirit. After a brief stint as a junior pastor, Emerson left the ministry (he disagreed with its teachings) and traveled through Europe. He was a proponent of transcendentalism, a philosophical movement that encouraged self-reliance, an appreciation for nature, and everyday spirituality. He was also a founding member of the Transcendental Club, a group that eventually included influential English-language writers like Margaret Fuller and William Henry Channing. Cornel’s 1989 book, The American Evasion of Philosophy: A Genealogy of Pragmatism begins with a rigorous analysis of Emerson’s role in the rise of American pragmatism (see: “Kant,” page 11; “Royce,” this page).

Answer 177

``` German, 1844–1900 AREAS OF EXPERTISE: moral relativism, religion, pessimism MAJOR WORKS: The Gay Science, Thus Spake Zarathustra, Beyond Good and Evil, The Will to Power INFLUENCED: Rainer Maria Rilke, Sigmund Freud, Walter Kaufmann, Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault This perennially controversial thinker published books and essays about religion, truth, and the human condition. Nietzsche is often credited with establishing or advancing concepts like perspectivism (the notion that philosophers should recognize the effects of their individual perspectives on their ideas), moral relativism (the rejection of absolute truths about moral behavior), eternal recurrence (the idea that all existence repeats ad infinitum), the Übermensch (an archetypal free spirit focused on individual goals and values), the will to power (the desire to focus on knowledge and overcoming one’s own limitations), and nihilism (see page 17). In the mid-1860s, Nietzsche discovered the work of the notoriously pessimistic German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, whose book The World as Will and Representation left an indelible mark. In 1869, at the age of twenty-five, Nietzsche became the youngest professor of classical philology (in this context, the study of how classical and biblical texts are interpreted) at the University of Basel in Switzerland. Decades after Nietzsche’s death, propagandists of Germany’s Nazi Party appropriated elements of his work; scholars generally agree that this was a misuse of his original concepts. ```

Answer 178

``` American, 1855–1916 AREAS OF EXPERTISE: pragmatism, ethics, metaphysics MAJOR WORKS: The Religious Aspect of Philosophy, The World and the Individual, The Philosophy of Loyalty, The Problem of Christianity INFLUENCED: George Herbert Mead, Norbert Wiener Royce was an American philosopher and historian who gained notoriety for absolute idealism (the idea that all of reality exists within a single consciousness) and conceptualizing the “Absolute Knower,” an infinite mind and all-encompassing source of true knowledge. Royce believed human beings can experience absolute truth as part of a collective being, and his reverence for loyalty as humanity’s greatest virtue underpinned many of his philosophical theories. While his early works were largely concerned with the metaphysical, his later writings more directly addressed the notion of God and ethics. He critiqued the individualistic teachings of organized religion—where confession, penance, and material success through personal effort signal an individual’s state of grace—and advocated instead for communal participation as a method of connecting with the divine. ```

Answer 179

``` British, 1861–1947 AREAS OF EXPERTISE: mathematics, process philosophy, metaphysics, ontology MAJOR WORKS: The Concept of Nature, Science and the Modern World, Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology INFLUENCED: Charles Hartshorne, John B. Cobb This mathematician and philosopher’s work on the logic of pure mathematics (the abstract science of numbers, quantity, and space) paved the way for modern-day contributions to algebra and metaphysics. He was a central figure of process philosophy, or process studies, which posits that change, or the “process of becoming,” drives the universe. (Previous schools of thought, like substance philosophy, saw the universe as an unchanging entity.) Whitehead’s reach extends into the field of holistic medicine, thanks to his theories on how emotional and environmental aspects of human existence can affect an individual’s well-being. His most important work, Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology, envisioned life as a vast assembly of individual moments, rather than as a continuous one, wherein all moments are related to one another. Whitehead’s 1933 book, Adventures of Ideas, posited, in Cornel’s words, that “there’s no novelty that is wholly novel”—a concept comparable to that of sankofa (see page 16). ```

Answer 180

``` American, 1868–1963 AREAS OF EXPERTISE: sociology, double consciousness, race, socialism, communism, Pan-Africanism MAJOR WORKS: The Philadelphia Negro, The Souls of Black Folk, The Quest of the Silver Fleece, Encyclopedia Africana INFLUENCED: Martin Luther King Jr., Kwame Anthony Appiah A trailblazing sociologist, activist, author, and cofounder of America’s National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Du Bois was a leading scholarly voice for civil rights in the early twentieth century. The first Black person to receive a doctorate from Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, he applied cutting-edge social science studies to the country’s marginalized Black communities, culminating in the essay “The Strivings of the Negro People” for American magazine The Atlantic Monthly in 1897. Du Bois helped bring the term color line into the popular vernacular and advanced the idea of double consciousness, or “two-ness,” in his landmark book The Souls of Black Folk. The latter concept stated that Black Americans viewed themselves from two perspectives: their own, and that of white people, who often saw them with “contempt or pity.” Du Bois was also a major figure in the Niagara Movement, an organization of Black intellectuals that called for full political, civil, and social rights for all Black Americans. ```

Answer 181

``` Gramsci, leader of the Italian Communist Party, hoped to oppose the fascist movement of his day, liberate the working class, and educate his compatriots on social theory. He spent his life enmeshed in the teachings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels—the German philosophers who authored The Communist Manifesto—expanding upon and critiquing their tenets while remaining ensconced in Marxism, the political philosophy of the Russian Revolution. Soon after the rise of Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini in the 1920s, Gramsci was imprisoned for almost a decade; during that time, he wrote more than three thousand pages on a host of subjects related to Marxism, politics, history, and culture. Gramsci believed the working class shouldn’t rely on the inevitability of victory as predicted by Marx; he advocated for ruthlessness (when necessary), military training and expertise, and a willingness to set virtue aside. From these tactics, he developed a practical-philosophical archetype for resistance that he called Modern Prince—a reference to The Prince, Italian diplomat Niccolò Machiavelli’s canonical 1532 work on political power and manipulation. ```

Answer 182

``` AREAS OF EXPERTISE: social-political philosophy, religion, epistemology, colonialism, class, ethics MAJOR WORKS: Gravity and Grace, The Need for Roots, Waiting for God, Letter to a Priest, Oppression and Liberty INFLUENCED: T.S. Eliot, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, Simon Leys, Robert Zaretsky Weil dedicated her life to social justice and education. Born to a Jewish family, she grew up in an agnostic household, but throughout her life she experienced numerous religious revelations that drew her to the Christian faith and influenced her political and social endeavors. Her work explored philosophy through the human condition, emphasizing that morality is an ingrained pillar of humanity. Weil’s most notable philosophical beliefs were paradoxical; her concept of “decreation,” for example, defined the individual’s purpose as to give up one’s existence. While she was relatively obscure—and widely considered to be a radical—during her life, many of her social and political concepts helped form the tenets of individualism and Christian anarchism (the belief that Christians ultimately answer only to God). ```

Answer 183

Dating back to the time of Socrates, this method of education aims to create a well-rounded citizenry—addressing mental, physical, social, and moral improvement— through the synthesis of different types of knowledge. Originally practiced by the ancient Greek aristocracy, paideiabased pedagogy combines the liberal arts (literature, rhetoric, history, and philosophy) with science and arithmetic and physical activities like gymnastics and wrestling. Early advocates posited that striving for individual excellence would improve the community (or polis), thus benefiting the common good. Unlike property or other material goods, paideia was considered a value that couldn’t be taken from the individual. Displays like the Olympic Games, also developed in ancient Greece, spoke to the idea of arête (“excellence”) that could be achieved through paideia. Modern-day philosophers like American educator Mortimer J. Adler, whose 1982 paper The Paideia Proposal criticized Western public educational systems, have offered the Paideia Program as a means of reform. Adler believed that all students should have access to the same quality education, which would set them up to be good citizens. Cornel explains that paideia rests on three conceptual pillars: the formation of attention, the cultivation of a critical sensibility, and maturation—the development of one’s moral character. He suggests that following this process toward the attainment of a “deep love of wisdom” will leave us better prepared to face humanity’s gravest challenges.

Answer 184

Cultivated through oral tradition by the Akan people of Ghana, sankofa posits that one should remember the past in order to make positive progress. The word means “to retrieve” in the Akan (Twi) language, and its philosophical connotation is expanded upon in this West African proverb: Se wo were fi na wosankofa a yenkyi (“It is not taboo to go back and fetch what you forgot”). The power of sankofa comes from this central idea: To know your history and heritage is to know your current self, the world around you, and how to make improvements to both. There are two main adinkra symbols associated with this concept: a heart that curls inward and outward, and a bird looking backward while carrying an egg in its mouth. People often fabricate the sankofa bird as a gold weight and emblazon the heart shape onto artwork or their bodies as tattoos. The heart also appears on many gates in America, especially in New York City. In order to respond creatively to life’s challenges, Cornel advises you to tap into some ancestral knowledge. “Without the best of our roots,” he says, “we cannot even think about wise, courageous, visionary R-O-U-T-E-S. And by routes, I mean our individual lives, our individual journeys and pilgrimages, but also our collective lives.” To infuse sankofa into other philosophical modes, Cornel believes, is to embrace humility. No philosopher is self-made; we must go back to the best in order to move forward.

Answer 185

Existence is useless, there is no truth, and everything is meaningless. So say the adherents of nihilism, a philosophy bred in nineteenth-century Europe. While there are multiple interpretations of this term, they all work around this premise of pervasive futility. The modern-day version of the term comes from the German nihilismus, which dates back to the eighteenth century. (The Latin word nihil means “nothing” or “the absence of anything.”) The term is often associated with German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (see page 13), who, in his seminal work The Gay Science, famously wrote that “God is dead” (possibly borrowing from earlier German philosopher Georg Hegel). The twentieth century produced several closely related interpretations of nihilism. Epistemological nihilism states that knowledge doesn’t exist (or is unattainable and therefore effectively nonexistent). Ethical nihilism, which ascribes no value to the notion of shared codes of conduct, concludes that there’s no reason to hold anyone to any ethical standard. Existential nihilism, the merits of which are debated in French philosopher and writer Jean-Paul Sartre’s famed 1943 book, Being and Nothingness, expands meaninglessness beyond the scope of human consciousness—everyone everywhere, at every point, is of no value to the universe. Other contemporary iterations include passive nihilism (nihilism is its own end, and there is no reason to pursue higher values) and political nihilism (nobody should hold political views and, instead, should work only to tear down political institutions). But for Cornel, nihilism is the inability to give or receive love. The antidote, he says, is the transcendent power of music. (See page 19 for more.)

Answer 186

This concept, from the Greek word kenoo, meaning “emptied,” connotes a clearing out of the self for the sake of a greater good. Although it’s firmly rooted in Christian theology, the term has philosophical and artistic applications. The New Testament of the Bible describes Jesus Christ becoming human: “who, as He already existed in the form of God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, / but emptied Himself by taking the form of a bond-servant and being born in the likeness of men.” (Phil. 2:6–7; note the use of emptied.) Philosophically, the practice of kenosis (usually associated with a group of German theologians in the mid-nineteenth century) is about humbling oneself as a sign of sacrifice. In Cornel’s view, this applies to believers, atheists, and everyone in between: “If I can engage in forms of self-emptying and self-giving and self-sacrificing and service, especially to those who have been rendered invisible, no matter who they are, no matter what color, no matter what gender, no matter what sexual orientation, no matter what national identity, then that for me is a grand vision of greatness.” Cornel points to a number of American artists and musicians as exemplars of kenosis. American soul star James Brown would play concerts that lasted several hours and refuse to quit before honoring every song request. American saxophonist John Coltrane’s style could evoke the pure empathy of an artist who has surrendered his own identity. And American jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald practiced kenosis through her exuberant performances, eternally prepared, Cornel says, “to do the same thing the next night with the same willingness of emptying herself as part of a great tradition of a people who helped shape and mold her.”

Answer 187

Questions of how we lay to rest and grieve the dead, and how we come to terms with our own mortality, are the focus of this philosophical premise. The English word humanity is rooted in the Latin humanitas, which is derived from humando, meaning “burying.” Cornel believes that humando offers another way to look at humility: “to be on the earth, tied to the earth, and to recognize that no matter how smart, rich, mighty we are, there are forces beyond our control.” In his classic text The New Science, from 1725, the Italian humanist Giambattista Vico (see page 11) declares that “[t]he second human institution is burial,” the first being marriage. He goes on to draw the etymological connection between burial and human civilization, and to suggest that “people’s souls do not die with their bodies, but are immortal.” Whether or not you believe in life after death, preparation for death can be a central concern of life, providing a framework through which self-analysis is possible. Rituals surrounding death can help us make sense of our finite existence. Cornel explains, “Burial’s simply the way in which the quick and the alive acknowledge the significance of those who are no longer quick and alive. So you put them in burial. That’s the highest form of acknowledgment of their significance.” Conversely, denial of these rites is a hallmark of colonial violence and systematic oppression—from the mass genocide of Indigenous people in the Americas to the enslavement of Africans throughout the globe to the Holocaust—that has been used to normalize the implied or overt disposability of certain lives. “The dehumanization of a people, the worst you could ever do, is to deprive the dead bodies of burial,” Cornel says.

Answer 188

"When crime and criminals are thrust before us, they are to be met by all the energies that God has given us – by argument, scorn, sarcasm, and denunciation. We must confront them not only with the sword of justice but also with the powerful instruments of rhetoric and persuasion, ensuring that the light of truth shines brightly to dispel the darkness of wrongdoing." -Sumner

Answer 189

Agree (Say “ I respect that” “I see why you say that” “That makes sense”) Ask Questions (“Why do you think that?) Use a change in frame to disagree. (This isn’t about that” )

Answer 190

Chuck trapped bobby using his own taste for vengeance against him. He had someone he had power over pretend to screw him over on the Ice Juice IPO to get Bobby to short the position. That way he could catch him on insider trading and poisoning the ice juice drinkers.

Answer 191

Ego is most people's front. Don't attack the front first unless there is a strategy or you're sure to win. Attack their FLANK. is their weakness vice? Allies? Lower their defenses and make them like you. Bait them to go further by seeming to agree with them. Let them go too far and make themselves look ridiculous. Rhetoric is a frontal attack. Napoleon would trick the enemy into advancing to far. He would then attack from his rear or flank to cut his supply lines/lines of retreat which couldn't be ignored. Never use a frontal attack when a flank will work. To influence someone, first rid yourself of all prejudice.

Answer 192

Make people feel surrounded to make them panic. Rockefeller- enveloped competition by building his own pipeline. Bought stock to stir deception. Started a price war. It seemed like he was everywhere and all knowing. Use well timed attacks but not too many so the enemy knows you. Hitler was paranoid and Churchill used it to his advantage by making him think he could be attacked at anytime. He made a faint in the balkins that made Hitler think he was attacking stopping Hitler from sending reinforcements to Russia. and losing Hitler to Russia. The impetus, violent or arrogant are easy to lure into envelopment.

Answer 193

Always have a branching strategy. Maneuvers to confuse your enemy. Get them to chase you in circles. Say the opposite of what you mean to do. Threaten one area while shooting for another. Create maximum disorder. Don't crowd yourself with alliances that force your hand. Don't take positions that box you into corners. Don't commit yourself to defending one fixed position. Don't loose the power of maneuvers. Never seek battle for its own sake. Trick your opponent into leaving the bar where they will be locked out.

Answer 194

Negotiate while advancing. Negotiate while you have the upper hand. Negotiation is about manuring for power or placement. It's war by other means. Put yourself at your strongest before a negotiation. When you're weak, use negotiations to buy yourself time or maneuvers. When you're strong, take as much as you can and give back some of what you took. Always have an exit strategy going in.

Answer 195

Lyndon B Johnson won the election and went back and won over his opponents by charm, concessions and meaningful gestures. He met everyone on the campaign trail in the hill country in Texas and shook their hands and looked them on the eye. Look at victories as a door to the next battle. Nothing ever really ends. Some victories lead nowhere. Some defeats are good. The only real ending is death.

Answer 196

Enemy of your enemy is your friend - Always find your opponents enemies to know if they’ll make good allies.

Answer 197

Use leverage when needed - Always gather information. Bumpy was threatened by the mob for killing a man but used his knowledge of their tax fraud to make them back off.