# Do people know best what's "in their own self-interest?"
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-know-best-whats-in-their-own-self-interest/799576
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [October 22, 2017, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-know-best-whats-in-their-own-self-interest/799576 "2017-10-22T18:55:03Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)
#### Post date: [October 23, 2017, 10:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-know-best-whats-in-their-own-self-interest/799576/21 "2017-10-23T10:21:43Z")
> [@Velocity](#):
>
> -
>
> I’m not a Trump voter, but I would like to challenge this on two grounds:
>
> 1. Usually, people who make this claim, do so purely on the basis of economic grounds. (i.e., Democrats might bring jobs back to the Rust Belt better than Trump, or Democrats would provide better healthcare and a social net, or Democrats understand that the Rust Belt’s heyday is over while the GOP doesn’t.) But they don’t take factors like psychological pleasure into account - for instance, many Trump voters, undoubtedly, get a powerful dopamine kick of schadenfreude out of seeing Trump win the presidency - not just on Election Night 2016, but also every day that he’s in the Oval Office and Hillary isn’t. Indeed, some Trump voters may enjoy that psychological pleasure so much that it, to them, outweighs whatever economic drawbacks they may suffer from Trump’s policies. If that is the case, then weren’t such Trump voters, in fact, indeed, voting for their self-interest when they elected Trump?
No. That is by definition voting against your interests. Doing something because it “feels good” in spite of the results being less than desirable.
> [@Velocity](#):
>
> -
>
> 1. It’s usually argued that a pregnant woman knows what’s best for her and her uterus (i.e., abortion,) or that people know what’s best for them on their sexual orientation, etc. If we go by the “Trump voters voted against their own self-interest,” then what’s the rebuttal against someone who claims that “Women who get an abortion do so against their own self-interest because abortion causes psychological trauma,” or “If gay people knew what was best for them, they’d seek gay-conversation therapy, since they’d be happier off straight than gay?”
The rebuttal is that it’s not your decision. A woman is perfectly capable of weighing the psychological trauma of an abortion against the emotional, financial and other demands of raising a child she doesn’t want for 18 years. A gay person is capable of knowing if they would be happier being gay or going through the scientifically dubious process of “conversion therapy”.
> [@wolfpup](#):
>
> The short version of that is “democracy is good”. I think we can all agree on that. Democracy is terrific! The problem is that when a wealthy plutocracy controls most of the channels of information and communication and hence the public mindset, you no longer have democracy. What you have is a plutocracy where self-interested oligarchs own the politicians and often and intentionally act against the interests of the majority of the population.
I would challenge this statement only because we have plenty of people who watch the same news and they don’t vote for Trump or support his policies. The reality is that many Conservative voters vote the way they do and follow Fox News and Breitbart because of willful ignorance. They have a particular limited way of thinking and gravitate towards news sources that reinforces their world view. In many cases, they would gravitate towards some random blogger if that was the only source of news they could find. Why do you think so many Trump supporters are so quick to buy into the “fake news” hype?
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### Author:  [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)
#### Post date: [October 23, 2017, 10:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-know-best-whats-in-their-own-self-interest/799576/22 "2017-10-23T10:33:28Z")
> [@Voyager](#):
>
> A great example. From [here](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/03/31/8-surprisingly-small-industries-that-employ-more-people-than-coal/?utm_term=.0ee91f8b4dc0) There were 50,000 miners employed in 2014, and about 76,000 in the entire coal industry. That is less than those employed by amusement parks or car washes. And, as the article says, the jobs are not coming back. Natural gas is cheaper.
> Add to that the fact that the hated regulations helped clean up our air, and people believing this are believing a lie.
As a side note to this – and I’m afraid I no longer have the original data I once looked up but I just want to make a general point – I once looked at the general census data of one of the prime coal mining regions in West Virginia that were strong Trump supporters in part because of his coal policy. It turned out that not only was this a coal producing area, but – no coincidence – there was a also a big coal-fired power plant nearby.
Which facts prompted me to look at statistics for the health of these people, and it turned out that they had something like ten times the rate of cardiopulmonary diseases of the national average. Coal was killing them, in more ways than one; if the mines didn’t get to them first, the air they breathed would.
Now in the matter of self-interest one might argue that this is a cost they’re willing to bear in order to have jobs. But for many different reasons, the jobs aren’t coming back anyway, no matter what idiotic policies the government tries to enact to bring back coal. They may as well try to bring back steam locomotives and steamships. An enlightened government policy would provide incentives to get these people redeployed in sustainable growth industries that have a future, industries that moreover are not going to kill them, directly or indirectly. And that’s not even touching on the subject of the impact of coal on global warming.
So there are really many different levels of (often conflicting) self-interest, and voting for Trump served absolutely none of them for these poor folks. Furthermore, if his relentless efforts at “repeal and replace” eventually succeed, many of these people will lose their health care, too. So they’ll get the full trifecta of losing their jobs, their health care, and their health. This gets back to my earlier point about the importance of informed voters to a functional democracy and to assuring their own self-interest.
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### Author:  [@Icarus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icarus)
#### Post date: [October 23, 2017, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-know-best-whats-in-their-own-self-interest/799576/23 "2017-10-23T13:15:21Z")
I would suggest that the answer to the OP is illustrated in the selection of Richard Thaler for the Nobel Prize in Economics. His contribution (in my very uneducated laymans terms interpretation, if I understand correctly, YMMV, don’t flame me, etc.) from the Social Sciences is that: Humans are not perfectly rational economic actors.
Taking that as a jumping off point, then No, people do not necessarily know what is in their own self-interest. That means everyone, not just those poor sad Conservative voters. This is one where I can comfortably say “both sides”.
However, I also think that when it comes to politics and voting, this discussion is a risky red herring. By risky - this whole idea of voters voting against their own self-interest presupposes an outside evaluator who can claim to know what someone’s self-interest should be (like, oh I don’t know, SDMB posters). Conservative voters are regularly stating that Democratic politicians are arrogant, condescending, and the like - could it be that this is exactly what they are talking about? That Democratic commentators, policy makers, politicians, are stating that Conservative voters don’t know what their own self-interests are, and that “they” know better? Consequently, I for one would like to see this line of discussion buried on the ash-heap of history. It only serves to further alienate already unsympathetic voters.
So, wrapping up -
No, people don’t necessarily know what’s in their best interest. The left should stop saying this in regard to Conservative voters.
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### Author:  [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)
#### Post date: [October 23, 2017, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-know-best-whats-in-their-own-self-interest/799576/24 "2017-10-23T14:41:37Z")
> [@Icarus](#):
>
> So, wrapping up -
> No, people don’t necessarily know what’s in their best interest. The left should stop saying this in regard to Conservative voters.
You’re arguing against a straw man of your own creation. No one has claimed that any of us can always be rational economic actors, much less that the left uniquely owns this ability. There is, however, a very vast difference between the fact that we don’t always make rational or well-informed decisions and the fact that a certain segment of the population _ **consistently** _ and _ **predictably** _ votes diametrically against their own interests, and then they establish in interviews that their voting decisions were based on beliefs that were objectively utterly false.
If “both sides do it” and this is an issue not worth discussing, please explain why it seems to be one side that is so over-represented by voters like these, by beneficiaries of Obamacare for example who nevertheless voted for the guy who was going to repeal it and thereby deprive millions of health care. Please explain why the ascendancy of the American political oligarchy has been the subject of [academic studies](https://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/is-america-an-oligarchy) and [well-researched books](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/24/books/review/dark-money-by-jane-mayer.html). Please explain why around half the population still believes climate change is a hoax despite the vast preponderance of scientific evidence, and why $900 million a year [is being spent by industrial interests to perpetuate that ignorance](http://drexel.edu/now/archive/2013/December/Climate-Change/), most of it dark money spent through anonymous donor organizations.
Above all, if “both sides do it”, please explain why the US is the only country in the civilized world without universal health care despite paying more than twice as much per capita for a broken system in which thousands die every year from lack of health care and thousands more face financial ruin from its costs. If “both sides do it” please explain why it’s predominantly one side that’s been pushing for health care reform for nearly a hundred years and the other side consistently opposing it. Who introduced Medicare, and who virulently opposed it? Who went around with dire warnings that Medicare would be the end of America as we know it and the beginning of communism? Who believed this bullshit, and who did they vote for? The US may be the richest country in the world thanks to its vast natural resources and habitable land, but please explain why its wealth distribution is so unequal that it currently has the [highest Gini coefficient](http://geo-mexico.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/gini-coefficient-change-oecd.jpg) of any advanced industrialized country in the world.
You may not agree that these are issues worth discussing. I think they are. And I think it’s well worth looking into who these extraordinary circumstances primarily benefit, and which party it is that in today’s political climate so assiduously represents them.
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### Author:  [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)
#### Post date: [October 23, 2017, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-know-best-whats-in-their-own-self-interest/799576/25 "2017-10-23T15:40:18Z")
> [@wolfpup](#):
>
> There is, however, a very vast difference between the fact that we don’t always make rational or well-informed decisions and the fact that a certain segment of the population _ **consistently** _ and _ **predictably** _ votes diametrically against their own interests, and then they establish in interviews that their voting decisions were based on beliefs that were objectively utterly false.
If you went on to list instances of people voting based on false beliefs it would be on point. However, each of the examples you give do not fit this pattern.
> [@](#):
>
> If “both sides do it” and this is an issue not worth discussing, please explain why it seems to be one side that is so over-represented by voters like these, by beneficiaries of Obamacare for example who nevertheless voted for the guy who was going to repeal it and thereby deprive millions of health care.
Just because someone may benefit from the ACA, doesn’t mean they are basing their vote on a lie when they vote for someone that wants to repeal it. It would be a vote based on a lie if they voted for someone that claimed they would not repeal it.
> [@](#):
>
> Please explain why the ascendancy of the American political oligarchy has been the subject of [academic studies](https://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/is-america-an-oligarchy) and [well-researched books](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/24/books/review/dark-money-by-jane-mayer.html).
Even if the dubious claim that the US is a plutocracy were true, this isn’t an example of someone basing their vote on a lie.
> [@](#):
>
> Please explain why around half the population still believes climate change is a hoax despite the vast preponderance of scientific evidence, and why $900 million a year [is being spent by industrial interests to perpetuate that ignorance](http://drexel.edu/now/archive/2013/December/Climate-Change/), most of it dark money spent through anonymous donor organizations.
First you’d have to establish that people are basing their vote on a denial of climate change. In looking at what people rank as issues of importance, climate change on the right is ranked relatively low so it’s hard to see how that vote is based on a lie. Dark money has nothing to do with anything.
> [@](#):
>
> Above all, if “both sides do it”, please explain why the US is the only country in the civilized world without universal health care despite paying more than twice as much per capita for a broken system in which thousands die every year from lack of health care and thousands more face financial ruin from its costs.
This is going even further down the non sequitur. Lack of UHC isn’t even close to an example of people voting based on a lie.
I think in a small amount of scenario people could be voting against their interests and if they are basing their votes on lies that are counter to their objectives that would be a good example. None of what you offered meets that criteria. I usually find the claim that people are voting against their interests to be the height of arrogance. People in possession of the exact same fact pattern will often come to different conclusions, recommend different courses of action to achieve similar or dissimilar objectives. To state that one person or group of people knows what’s better for the other - that way lays fascism.
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### Author:  [@Icarus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icarus)
#### Post date: [October 23, 2017, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-know-best-whats-in-their-own-self-interest/799576/26 "2017-10-23T15:51:41Z")
> [@wolfpup](#):
>
> the fact that a certain segment of the population _ **consistently** _ and _ **predictably** _ votes diametrically against their own interests
According to who? To you? You know better than them what their self-interests are?
> [@](#):
>
> If “both sides do it” and this is an issue not worth discussing,
You missed my point, and seem to be trying to shove it into your narrative. Please read my words again. My point was that it is a universal human condition that people don’t know what is in their self-interest.
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### Author:  [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)
#### Post date: [October 23, 2017, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-know-best-whats-in-their-own-self-interest/799576/27 "2017-10-23T15:59:53Z")
> [@wolfpup](#):
>
> There is, however, a very vast difference between the fact that we don’t always make rational or well-informed decisions and the fact that a certain segment of the population consistently and predictably votes diametrically against their own interests, and then they establish in interviews that their voting decisions were based on beliefs that were objectively utterly false.
I don’t think it is always the same segment. No doubt people voted for Obama because they believed him when he said the average family’s premiums would go down by $2500 per year, or that if they like their plan they could keep it. Now that those have been shown to be objectively false, and the Dems want to do more of the same, people who vote for Dems are also acting against their own interests, by that metric.
Regards,
Shodan
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### Author:  [@ZonexandScout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZonexandScout)
#### Post date: [October 23, 2017, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-know-best-whats-in-their-own-self-interest/799576/28 "2017-10-23T16:12:22Z")
Definitely a case of interpretation. There could be two different questions here, neither of which is totally consistent with the OP’s phrasing:
1. Do people know what they want, but sometimes act against the rational course of actions to reasonably obtain that result?
2. Do people know what is OBJECTIVELY best for them?
These are two entirely different questions. I certainly know how to go out and buy a bag of junk food, though it’s not in my best interest to do so. On the other hand, I abhor the idea of taking a job that will ensure my being able to put aside enough money for a comfortable retirement when I hate doing that type of work and will suffer through every hour.
P. J. O’Rouke said it very well: “America wasn’t founded so we could all be better. America was founded so we could all be anything we damned well pleased.”
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### Author:  [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)
#### Post date: [October 23, 2017, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-know-best-whats-in-their-own-self-interest/799576/29 "2017-10-23T16:15:46Z")
> [@ZonexandScout](#):
>
> P. J. O’Rouke said it very well: “America wasn’t founded so we could all be better. America was founded so we could all be anything we damned well pleased.”
I’m not sure that idea ever held much sway with the political left, but if it did, it certainly doesn’t appear to today.
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### Author:  [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)
#### Post date: [October 23, 2017, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-know-best-whats-in-their-own-self-interest/799576/30 "2017-10-23T17:29:49Z")
> [@Bone](#):
>
> If you went on to list instances of people voting based on false beliefs it would be on point. However, each of the examples you give do not fit this pattern.
> Just because someone may benefit from the ACA, doesn’t mean they are basing their vote on a lie when they vote for someone that wants to repeal it. It would be a vote based on a lie if they voted for someone that claimed they would not repeal it.
> Even if the dubious claim that the US is a plutocracy were true, this isn’t an example of someone basing their vote on a lie.
> First you’d have to establish that people are basing their vote on a denial of climate change. In looking at what people rank as issues of importance, climate change on the right is ranked relatively low so it’s hard to see how that vote is based on a lie. Dark money has nothing to do with anything.
> This is going even further down the non sequitur. Lack of UHC isn’t even close to an example of people voting based on a lie.
>
> I think in a small amount of scenario people could be voting against their interests and if they are basing their votes on lies that are counter to their objectives that would be a good example. None of what you offered meets that criteria. I usually find the claim that people are voting against their interests to be the height of arrogance. People in possession of the exact same fact pattern will often come to different conclusions, recommend different courses of action to achieve similar or dissimilar objectives. To state that one person or group of people knows what’s better for the other - that way lays fascism.
I think it may be an easier read if I try to address what are essentially a set of closely related points in a single narrative.
On your first point, the examples I gave were not intended _in themselves_ to be proof of “voting based on a lie”, but rather examples of outcomes that consistently favor the 1% that I allege – and that research supports – have a disproportionate influence on the political process.
However if you want examples of people voting based on false beliefs I need only mention the vast plethora of falsehoods that were circulating when the ACA was being enacted, many of which continue to this day. [Here for instance](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/16/opinion/trump-health-care.html) are some of the lies that were recently making the rounds in conservative media about the wonderfulness of attempts to repeal the ACA. [Here is](http://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-health-care-repeal-replace-alt-right-supporters-4chan-mccain-644402) a young woman who is a spokesperson for the “repeal and replace” movement who seems unaware that the ACA is the only reason she’s still on her parents’ insurance and that she would lose it if the repeal went through under the then-proposed terms. It also cites discussions from 4chan wherein no one actually knows anything about either the ACA or its proposed repeal – all they need to know, in their view, is that one is Obama and the other is Trump, so they’re for repeal. Would you really dispute that this is NOT typical of that side?
[This paper](https://jspp.psychopen.eu/index.php/jspp/article/view/750/html) takes a more holistic and scarier view of this demographic, though not entirely a surprising one. It analyzes Trump supporters in terms of five key defining traits: authoritarianism, social dominance (wanting to belong to the top of a social hierarchy that dominates lower-status groups), prejudice, lack of intergroup contact (i.e.- little social contact with minorities), and relative deprivation (more on that below).
Relative deprivation is an interesting one because Trump supporters as a whole are not a particularly deprived group, and in fact had a higher average household income than Hillary supporters. But they _ **felt** _ deprived in terms of where many of them thought they should be at this point in their lives, in terms of retirement, housing, tuition for their kids, affordability of health care, etc. And Trump tapped into this vague unsubstantiated dissatisfaction with a lot of rhetoric and hats and no plan whatsoever, threw in a bunch of blame against minorities and “bad” trade deals, and got himself elected.
And no serious observer – not even on the conservative side – believes for one second that any of these concerns are going to get addressed or are going to do anything but get worse. Basically this administration has lurched from one self-inflicted crisis to another and accomplished precisely nothing.
I don’t think it’s “arrogant” to point these things out, and it’s certainly not claiming to know better than anyone else what’s good for them. It’s pointing out that people have legitimate concerns and fears, and with some exceptions the things they’re worried about have in recent decades generally not been well addressed or have worsened, while an increasingly disproportionate amount of wealth keeps getting shifted to the 1%. This is surely not the result of ordinary people just being “in possession of the exact same fact pattern” and being thrilled with these results. You mentioned fascism. If you want to talk about which way lies fascism, I would say it lies precisely in the direction of authoritarianism, social dominance, prejudice, lack of intergroup contact, and a sense of relative deprivation.
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### Author:  [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)
#### Post date: [October 23, 2017, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-know-best-whats-in-their-own-self-interest/799576/31 "2017-10-23T17:46:47Z")
> [@wolfpup](#):
>
> … And no serious observer – not even on the conservative side – believes for one second that any of these concerns are going to get addressed or are going to do anything but get worse. …
Perhaps I don’t count as a “serious” observer, but personally (and I suspect for a lot of Americans) my retirement is looking quite rosy with the stock market hitting record highs. It’s certainly not gotten worse in the last 10 months.
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### Author:  [@Eonwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eonwe)
#### Post date: [October 23, 2017, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-know-best-whats-in-their-own-self-interest/799576/32 "2017-10-23T17:51:48Z")
Humans have a mechanism for making decisions, called “wanting” things that is just a feeling; an emotion.
In general, our feelings are an ok tool for determining self-interest, but as the variables increase, and as the outcomes move farther away in time and space, accurate assessment becomes increasingly difficult.
Not only that, but savvy actors use that mechanism (emotion-based wanting) to get people to do all kinds of things. The advertising business is not a business of facts, or of practical analysis, except insofar as presenting facts (or a perspective on facts) might make some people ‘feel’ a certain thing.
Many (most? all?) people filter/ignore/mis-interpret facts to support the emotions they already have. I would bet that most voters, for example, support their party’s economic policies not because they have a solid understanding of the policy, but because they feel strongly that their side does the “right” kind of thing.
tl;dr : just because we want a thing does not mean we need it, or even that it is good for us. It just means an emotion about a future possibility has been triggered. Throw selfish and self-interested leaders into the mix (both those who simply believe they know better, as well as those who put their own wants before the good of society), and it can become almost impossible to determine in a meaningful way what is good or bad for you.
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### Author:  [@ZonexandScout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZonexandScout)
#### Post date: [October 23, 2017, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-know-best-whats-in-their-own-self-interest/799576/33 "2017-10-23T18:02:26Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#):
>
> I’m not sure that idea ever held much sway with the political left, but if it did, it certainly doesn’t appear to today.
Touché.
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### Author:  [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)
#### Post date: [October 23, 2017, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-know-best-whats-in-their-own-self-interest/799576/34 "2017-10-23T18:20:17Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#):
>
> Perhaps I don’t count as a “serious” observer, but personally (and I suspect for a lot of Americans) my retirement is looking quite rosy with the stock market hitting record highs. It’s certainly not gotten worse in the last 10 months.
If you think Trump had anything to do with the stock market, then you definitely don’t count as a serious observer! 😃
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### Author:  [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)
#### Post date: [October 23, 2017, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-know-best-whats-in-their-own-self-interest/799576/35 "2017-10-23T18:22:22Z")
> [@Bone](#):
>
> Just because someone may benefit from the ACA, doesn’t mean they are basing their vote on a lie when they vote for someone that wants to repeal it. It would be a vote based on a lie if they voted for someone that claimed they would not repeal it.
The lie was not that he wanted to repeal ACA, it was that he had a really great plan in place of it with which no one would lose coverage and it would be cheaper. You know, the one the Republicans had 8 years to prepare but never quite came up with. Do you admit that Trump lied about this?
> [@](#):
>
> First you’d have to establish that people are basing their vote on a denial of climate change. In looking at what people rank as issues of importance, climate change on the right is ranked relatively low so it’s hard to see how that vote is based on a lie. Dark money has nothing to do with anything.
No, you don’t have to establish that. All you have to establish is that climate change is against the self interest of most voters, and those who vote for deniers are voting against their self-interest. It does not have to be on top of the list.
Some voters may not care, but those who vote for people partially on the basis of them saying not to worry about climate change because it is not a problem are voting for a lie.
> [@](#):
>
> I think in a small amount of scenario people could be voting against their interests and if they are basing their votes on lies that are counter to their objectives that would be a good example. None of what you offered meets that criteria. I usually find the claim that people are voting against their interests to be the height of arrogance. People in possession of the exact same fact pattern will often come to different conclusions, recommend different courses of action to achieve similar or dissimilar objectives. To state that one person or group of people knows what’s better for the other - that way lays fascism.
Well, I’m glad you are such a supporter of pro-choice policies and SSM - which is exactly rejecting that the religious know what is best for the rest of us.
You are pretty much repeating the homo economicus fallacy - that all economic actors make totally rational economic choices. Do you think that those who have subjected themselves to a limited stream of information are really making well informed choices about their self interest?
Yes there are different possible courses of action, but some are based on facts and some are not. Tax cuts funded by magical increases in growth (which haven’t happened in the past) are one. Climate policy based on denial is another. Now maybe the people who come up with these alternate plans are so stupid that they don’t understand the facts, but I rather think they are lying to support their agenda. (Or to keep getting they lobbyist baksheesh.)
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### Author:  [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)
#### Post date: [October 23, 2017, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-know-best-whats-in-their-own-self-interest/799576/36 "2017-10-23T18:24:52Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#):
>
> Perhaps I don’t count as a “serious” observer, but personally (and I suspect for a lot of Americans) my retirement is looking quite rosy with the stock market hitting record highs. It’s certainly not gotten worse in the last 10 months.
My retirement is rosy thanks to the big gains under Obama. As for the future, people were pretty optimistic in 2000 and 2007 also - but this time, I know, it is different. Just wait until the first economic crisis is mismanaged. And it will be.
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### Author:  [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)
#### Post date: [October 23, 2017, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-know-best-whats-in-their-own-self-interest/799576/37 "2017-10-23T18:25:38Z")
> [@wolfpup](#):
>
> If you think Trump had anything to do with the stock market, then you definitely don’t count as a serious observer! 😃
You said that “no serious observer” believes that “any of these concerns” (of which you listed ‘retirement’ as one if I understood your post #30 correctly) “are going to do anything but get worse.” Nothing about whether Trump would be responsible for it getting worse or not, just that it was going to get worse. It has, in fact, not gotten worse and has gotten better. Does this fact that disproves your claim cause you to change your analysis at all? Or are you sticking with the silly hyperbole?
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### Author:  [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)
#### Post date: [October 23, 2017, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-know-best-whats-in-their-own-self-interest/799576/38 "2017-10-23T18:27:37Z")
> [@Voyager](#):
>
> My retirement is rosy thanks to the big gains under Obama. As for the future, people were pretty optimistic in 2000 and 2007 also - but this time, I know, it is different. Just wait until the first economic crisis is mismanaged. And it will be.
I recognize that the stock market has ups and downs, and this current up-swing will not go on indefinitely. And the downturn that follows likewise will not last forever.
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### Author:  [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)
#### Post date: [October 23, 2017, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-know-best-whats-in-their-own-self-interest/799576/39 "2017-10-23T18:29:18Z")
> [@Icarus](#):
>
> I would suggest that the answer to the OP is illustrated in the selection of Richard Thaler for the Nobel Prize in Economics. His contribution (in my very uneducated laymans terms interpretation, if I understand correctly, YMMV, don’t flame me, etc.) from the Social Sciences is that: Humans are not perfectly rational economic actors.
Not quite. The real contribution (and that of Kahneman and Teversky who were there first) is that humans are not rational economic actors in predictable ways. You can demonstrate (and we have) anchoring experimentally. The effect is so large that you get statistically significant results with n = 20, which is amazing.
Those in the know say that Thaler got the Nobel because the committee is pissed off at macroeconomists who screwed up badly before the recession, and because he managed not to piss anyone off for three years.
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### Author:  [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)
#### Post date: [October 23, 2017, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-know-best-whats-in-their-own-self-interest/799576/40 "2017-10-23T18:33:22Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#):
>
> I recognize that the stock market has ups and downs, and this current up-swing will not go on indefinitely. And the downturn that follows likewise will not last forever.
Fine. But don’t give Trump credit if you don’t also give Obama credit - and Obama was starting from a much worse situation. Remember, Trump called the economy a disaster right up to the moment he moved into the White House, when it became really great. Yet another lie from him.
Markets go down, and I’ve shifted my investments to minimize the effects of this. But the depth of the fall depends a lot on economic policy. If interest rates had risen during the Bush years, not been depressed for political purposes, and if regulation was able to stop the issuance of crap loans, the collapse of the housing bubble would not have been so severe. A recession would have happened, but not a Great one.
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