Twice Incorrect Quotes

Five Stars! Park Reader -- Great Read! Reviewed in the United States on October 22, 2020 I read this twice. The first time I read it so quickly because I couldn't put it down. The second time because I wanted to make sure I didn't miss anything! There were twists and turns that took me by surprise; my assumptions were incorrect. I enjoy being genuinely surprised.

First, the poor often lack critical pieces of information and believe things that are not true. They are unsure about the benefits of immunizing children; they think there is little value in what is learned during the first few years of education; they don’t know how much fertilizer they need to use; they don’t know which is the easiest way to get infected with HIV; they don’t know what their politicians do when in office. When their firmly held beliefs turn out to be incorrect, they end up making the wrong decision, sometimes with drastic consequences—think of the girls who have unprotected sex with older men or the farmers who use twice as much fertilizer as they should. For example, the uncertainty about the benefits of immunization combines with the universal tendency to procrastinate, with the result that a lot of children don’t get immunized. The richer you are, the more the “right” decisions are made for you. These decisions are difficult for everyone because they require some thinking now or some other small cost today, and the benefits are usually reaped in the distant future. As such, procrastination very easily gets in the way. For the poor, this is compounded by the fact that their lives are already much more demanding than ours: Many of them run small businesses in highly competitive industries; most of the rest work as casual laborers and need to constantly worry about where their next job will come from.

Having twice been sued by people for offering incorrect market advice, he refrained from offering stock tips.