My mantra is if you want to help people accomplish some goal, make it easy.

There are cases when I can make myself better off by restricting my future choices and commit myself to a specific course of action.

Is there a market for somebody selling a credit card that helps people pay down their balances? I think the question is yes. But it would have to be sold by a bank that's really willing to invest in being a trusted partner with its consumers, because they will make less money on each consumer.

I'm all for empowerment and education, but the empirical evidence is that it doesn't work. That's why I say make it easy.

When an economist says the evidence is "mixed," he or she means that theory says one thing and data says the opposite.

It would be much more consumer friendly for them to beep you when you swipe your card that says, uh-oh you're over your limit, are you sure you want to use that?

A company invites their employees to sign up for a plan where every time they get a raise, some part of that raise goes to increasing their contribution rate to the 401k plan. In the first company we convinced to adopt this plan, saving rates tripled.