Manipulate Me: The Booming Business in Behavioral Finance

By Ben Steverman  

Photographer: Patrick Fallon/Bloomberg

A Bentley Motors Ltd. Mulsanne luxury sedan at a dealership in Beverly Hills, California.

It's hard to find a place today where concepts of behavioral finance aren’t being applied to real-world situations. From London to Washington to Sydney, governments are experimenting with the psychology of decision-making and trying to “nudge” citizens toward better behaviors, whether that means saving more for retirement or signing an organ donation card. Meanwhile, businesses see opportunities for higher profits. To grab more attention and dollars from consumers, companies as far afield as banks and fitness-app makers carefully design their offerings with consumers’ decision-making quirks in mind.

It’s Official: Erdogan sent Turkish Troops into Syria

Turkish Troops deployed 200 Meters from ISIL Al Qaeda affiliated Mercenaries – Deployment of Mercenaries to Suleyman Shah Tomb an Engineered Pretext for a Turkish Invasion

Now also officially, Turkey’s Prime Minister R. Tayyip Erdogan said he has sent Turkish troops 25 kilometers into Syria. To “send aid” to the tomb of Suleyman Shah, the grandfather of Osman I who founded the Ottoman Empire, he claims. Turkish special forces have been observed in Syria, cooperating with mercenary forces, since 2012.\

 By Dr. Christof Lehmann

 

Nobel Prize-Winning Economist: We're Headed for Oligarchy

Robert Solow on powerful families’ threat to democratic institutions.

Rebecca J. Rosen

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Medici rule. Those were the days. (Wikimedia Commons) 

 

In a recent interview at the Economic Policy Institute, Nobel Prize-Winning economist and MIT professor Robert Solow riffed on the political effects of increasing inequality and concentration of wealth at the very top. "If that kind of concentration of wealth continues, then we get to be more and more an oligarchical country, a country that's run from the top," he said.

Let Georgia be a lesson for what will happen to Ukraine

My country's ordeal in 2008 suggests Crimea's referendum is a trick for Russia to cement its territorial and military grip

• Mikheil Saakashvili

Russian soldiers on top of a tank drive on a road near the flashpoint city of Gori in Georgia in August 2008. Photograph: Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP/Getty Images

Crimeans vote tomorrow in an illegal "referendum" which will lock them into Russia's embrace. After this vote, and the takeover by Russian troops of the southern Ukraine peninsula, Vladimir Putin will claim he has legal justification for further military build-up and direct armed attack. How do I know? Because of the many painful parallels and lessons from Georgia in 2008.

Το δείπνο του Soros με Έλληνες πολιτικούς, τραπεζίτες, επιχειρηματίες με... μενού οικονομία και γεωπολιτικά

Ενδιαφέρον για επενδύσεις στην Ελλάδα εξέφρασε ο γνωστός δισεκατομμυριούχος μεγαλοεπενδυτής George Soros, κατά τη διάρκεια μυστικού δείπνου που είχε με προσωπικότητες της πολιτικής και επιχειρηματικής σκηνής της χώρας, στο ξενοδοχείο Μεγάλη Βρετανία.

Goldman: Υπερτιμημένα τα γερμανικά ομόλογα - πιθανό sell off θα πλήξει και τους τίτλους της περιφέρειας

Τα ομόλογα του ευρωπαϊκού πυρήνα, κυρίως τα γερμανικά (bund) είναι πλέον ακριβά, καθώς οι τιμές τους είχαν ανέβει πολύ επειδή θεωρήθηκαν ασφαλές καταφύγιο την περίοδο της ανασφάλειας για το ευρώ. Καθώς ο κίνδυνος απομακρύνεται, οι τιμές των γερμανικών ομολόγων θεωρούνται υψηλές από την Goldman Sachs η οποία συνιστά στους πελάτες να λάβουν θέσεις short (να τα πουλήσουν). Επισημαίνει όμως ότι εάν υπάρξει τελικά ξεπούλημα στα γερμανικά ομόλογα, αυτό θα πλήξει και τα ομόλογα της περιφέρειας, των οποίων θα ανακοπεί η πτώση των αποδόσεων (επιτοκίων).