People talk of the new economy and of reinventing themselves in the workplace, and in that sense most of us are less secure.

We can't live in a state of perpetual doubt, so we make up the best story possible and we live as if the story were true.

There are domains in which expertise is not possible. Stock picking is a good example. And in long-term political strategic forecasting, it's been shown that experts are just not better than a dice-throwing monkey.

Doubting what you see is a very odd experience. And doubting what you remember is a little less odd than doubting what you see. But it's also a pretty odd experience, because some memories come with a very compelling sense of truth about them, and that happens to be the case even for memories that are not true.

Employers who violate rules of fairness are punished by reduced productivity, and merchants who follow unfair pricing policies can expect to lose sales.

When action is needed, optimism, even of the mildly delusional variety, may be a good thing.

When people think of the outcomes of their decisions, they think much more short term than that. They think in terms of gains and losses.