The four anti-economic biases
My previous attempt at satire about boycotting Santa was inspired by this article on reason , which excerpts Bryan Caplan's book The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies . The article talks about how there are four basic biases with which most people are burdened: the anti-market bias - people believe that prices are set by the whims of CEOs rather than by market mechanisms of supply and demand; people don't believe that prices set by the market are fair; people believe that profits are an "unjust reward"; the anti-foreign bias - trade between individuals is a non-zero-sum game and is good, trade among towns is a non-zero-sum game and is good, trade among regions is a non-zero-sum game and is good - but trade among countries is a zero-sum game and is dangerous; the make-work bias - people believe that there are a finite amount of "jobs" that need to be "preserved" and "protected"; and the pessimistic bias