In total, by giving people $30 bonus, Intel lost almost 5 percent of productivity. That's a lot. Now, think about it. You give money because you think this would increase motivation. It actually decreases motivation.
Dan ArielyImagine you have six loans, small to huge. People want to close loans and because of that, they try to pay off the small loans, but that's not the right strategy. The right strategy, of course, is to pay the loan with the highest interest rate. People make this mistake and it costs them lots and lots of money, it's a very expensive mistake because interest rates accumulate and become very, very expensive very quickly.
Dan ArielyIf you have loans, the first thing you want to do is say, "Okay, look I have a credit card, if I really need to borrow, I have this emergency money that I can get, but for now there is no reason for me to keep cash at zero percent interest rate and at the same time, pay all of this money out. So, I think people need to figure out quickly how to pay loans and how much cash they should really keep.
Dan ArielyNot all debt is bad. From time to time we should get into debt when there's a good reason for that.
Dan ArielyWhy would you take money out of your paycheck at the beginning of the month when you don't know how much money you'll need?
Dan ArielyWho would you trust right now? Which bank would you trust? Which investment would you trust? Do you really want to put your money; do you want to suffer more of these losses that we just had? You know, these volatility that we see is just unexplainable by any rational standards. Nobody has any clue about how to explain this, and nobody wants to experience that. So, we hold more money back, we don't necessarily want to invest in the market and by default, people are saving more.
Dan Ariely