Purity is a good mask for corruption because it discourages inquiry.
The conventional wisdom is often wrong.
Information is a beacon, a cudgel, an olive branch, a deterrent--all depending on who wields it and how.
People who buy annuities, it turns out, live longer than people who don't, and not because the people who buy annuities are healthier to start with. The evidence suggests that an annuity's steady payout provides a little extra incentive to keep chugging along.
As W.C. Fields once said: a thing worth having is a thing worth cheating for.
In the United States especially, politics and economics don’t mix well. Politicians have all sorts of reasons to pass all sorts of laws that, as well-meaning as they may be, fail to account for the way real people respond to real-world incentives.