On the horizontal axis is the Gini coefficient, a measure of inequality. On the vertical axis is the intergenerational elasticity of income — how much a 1 percent rise in your father’s income affects your expected income; the higher this number, the lower is social mobility.

What would Daisy Buchanan say? I’m guessing that the movie version will be a disappointment. Check out more here and here.

I know. It sounds like one more gimmick, too good to be true. Perhaps, but in a new study, two psychological scientists propose just such an intervention — along with some preliminary evidence to back it up. Christine Logel of the University of Waterloo, Ontario, and Geoffrey Cohen of Stanford University describe a brief and simple way to give people the tools for resisting temptation and coping with life’s pressures.

It’s called “values affirmation,” and it’s done with a simple writing exercise. The theory is that focusing on one’s core values triggers a cascade of psychological processes: It bolsters a sense of self-worth and personal integrity. It underscores our higher values rather than our impulses, and by reminding us what’s really important in life, it buffers against mundane stresses. Since stress saps our limited cognitive resources, such an affirmation frees up these resources for willpower and self-discipline.

See the rest here.

Both experiments seem to have gone well, but critics point out that such approaches may have limitations – for instance, both Louis CK and Radio Head are established acts and enjoyed the ability to market their product rather cheaply. Time will tell if these experiments have an impact on the entertainment industry. You can check out the Louis CK offering here. Caution: his material is decidedly R Rated.

In much of the world, propaganda reigns, and truth is confined to secretive, fearful whispers. Even in our nation, apologists for suppressing or obscuring the truth may always be found. But the S.E.C., of all agencies, has a duty, inherent in its statutory mission, to see that the truth emerges; and if fails to do so, this Court must not, in the name of deference or convenience, grant judicial enforcement to the agency’s contrivances.

When considering biases and prejudices that influence decision-making, what most readily comes to mind is conscious bias and prejudice. But in recent years the subject of implicit bias—unconscious or subconscious influences on decision-making—has reemerged in a variety of psychological and social science venues and has potentially significant ramifications in judicial decision-making.

This paper introduces the concept of implicit bias in useful terms and then points the reader to deeper and more nuanced discussions of the subject and its ramifications across the social science spectrum. This paper will then consider some aspects of implicit bias’ role in judicial decision-making, both in terms of quick, heat-of-trial decisions (known as “blinking”) and in terms of carefully considered and weighed decisions (known as “staring”). Finally, this paper proposes some avenues of thought for future consideration about implicit bias’ potential influences and possible steps toward minimizing whatever harmful effects it might have on judicial decision-making.

Soldiers of the 353rd Infantry near a church at Stenay, Meuse in France, wait for the end of hostilities.

… from the Department of Veterans Affairs website:

World War I – known at the time as “The Great War” – officially ended when the Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919, in the Palace of Versailles outside the town of Versailles, France. However, fighting ceased seven months earlier when an armistice, or temporary cessation of hostilities, between the Allied nations and Germany went into effect on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. For that reason, November 11, 1918, is generally regarded as the end of “the war to end all wars.”

In November 1919, President Wilson proclaimed November 11 as the first commemoration of Armistice Day with the following words: “To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations…” (See the rest here)

All weekend I was thinking about this “jealousy” question, and I just kept coming back to all the different ways the game is rigged. People aren’t jealous and they don’t want privileges. They just want a level playing field, and they want Wall Street to give up its cheat codes, things like:

FREE MONEY. Ordinary people have to borrow their money at market rates. Lloyd Blankfein and Jamie Dimon get billions of dollars for free, from the Federal Reserve. They borrow at zero and lend the same money back to the government at two or three percent, a valuable public service otherwise known as “standing in the middle and taking a gigantic cut when the government decides to lend money to itself.”

Or the banks borrow billions at zero and lend mortgages to us at four percent, or credit cards at twenty or twenty-five percent. This is essentially an official government license to be rich, handed out at the expense of prudent ordinary citizens, who now no longer receive much interest on their CDs or other saved income. It is virtually impossible to not make money in banking when you have unlimited access to free money, especially when the government keeps buying its own cash back from you at market rates.

Your average chimpanzee couldn’t fuck up that business plan, which makes it all the more incredible that most of the too-big-to-fail banks are nonetheless still functionally insolvent, and dependent upon bailouts and phony accounting to stay above water. Where do the protesters go to sign up for their interest-free billion-dollar loans?

H/T G..R.

The real challenge for legal education is to prepare lawyers for the future without knowing what the future holds. Sound training in practical skills must go hand in hand with a broader and more capacious view of law. “Thinking like a lawyer” is more demanding today than it has ever been. Among other things, it requires us to draw on the methodologies and learning of other disciplines. It is necessity, not fashion, that causes lawyers to pay attention to the work of anthropologists, economists, historians, political scientists, psychologists, and sociologists. We look to those disciplines because their insights are useful—even indispensable—in understanding and solving legal problems in our complex and rapidly changing world.

And:

The most significant problems lawyers face are often novel and distinctive. What seems “theoretical” today has often proved to have extraordinarily practical effects in the hands of well-educated and well-informed practitioners. In the ever-challenging world of law in action, effective advocacy and wise problem-solving require an extensive and sophisticated set of skills.

Read the rest here in The Chronicle. H/T The Faculty Lounge

... and this is where Google was born ...

Yes. One thing that some people may not know about the late Steve Jobs is that he and Steve Wozniak started Apple Inc. out of his parent’s garage. Indeed a lot of great business were started that way … and nearly every good band ever. Check out a cool listing of the garage origins of some businesses on History.com.

H/T J. Lax