The important thing about groupthink is that it works not so much by censoring dissent as by making dissent seem somehow improbable.

Sometimes even a smart crowd will make a mistake.

Framing effects can be very influential, and to the degree that you can think of a task as close rather than distant, you're more likely to actually get it done.

The oil market is especially sensitive even to a hint of expansion or contraction in supply.

Self-dealing, essentially, occurs when managers run companies to line their own pockets instead of those of the companies' owners. It's been a perennial problem in American capitalism and became a real dilemma when America moved toward a model in which corporations would be run by professional managers who had only small ownership stakes.

Of course, politicians always say they're just describing their opponents' positions, even if they are in fact offering absurd caricatures, if not outright lies.

Congressional Republicans themselves have vehemently defended the idea that preexisting conditions should not be used to deny people insurance.