Why Is U.S. Media So Negative? (Ep. 477)
Breaking news! Sources say American journalism exploits our negativity bias to maximize profits, and social media algorithms add fuel to the fire. Stephen Dubner investigates. Listen and follow our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. Below is a transcript of the episode, edited for readability. For more information on the people and ideas in the episode, see the links at the bottom of this post. * * * I’d like you to imagine — and this shouldn’t be very hard — but imagine you’re in the midst of a growing pandemic:
And let’s say you want to be as informed as possible.
And now let’s say you are an economics professor watching this news, for hours a day. How does the information you’re getting add to your understanding of the pandemic?
The economist in question here is Bruce Sacerdote, at Dartmouth College.
When Sacerdote says he was looking for “more useful information,” what does that mean?
It wasn’t that Sacerdote wanted to pretend that everything was fine.
But Sacerdote saw a difference between being knocked down and wallowing. He began to wonder if the news coverage of the pandemic was commensurate with the pandemic itself. And whether the coverage he was seeing — mostly from major U.S. media outlets — whether it was perhaps more negative than other coverage. Like local news, or international news, or even the articles published in scientific journals. All of them were seeing the same Covid-19 story unfold — but were the major U.S. media outlets selling a more negative version of the story? And if so, what were the ramifications? Sacerdote wasn’t quite alone in his concern. The Centers for Disease Control issued a warning about media consumption: “Take breaks from watching, reading, or listening to news stories, including those on social media,” the C.D.C. said. “It’s good to be informed but … consider limiting news to just a couple times a day.” Now Sacerdote, remember, is an economist — not an epidemiologist or a public-health scholar. So he also wondered how the economic setup of the U.S. media industry was driving the tone of the coverage. We have been putting out a series of episodes lately about how the U.S. is fundamentally different from other countries. We’ve looked at the extraordinarily high levels of individualism in America; we’ve looked at policing and child poverty, transportation policy. Did Bruce Sacerdote find another dimension on which the U.S. is an outlier? He decided to do what economists do; he started gathering data in order to produce a study.
Today, on Freakonomics Radio: is your news negatively biased? Or should we just blame the English language?
And let’s not forget about social media.
Marshall McLuhan said it first, more than 50 years ago: “The medium is the message.” It’s also been said that we call T.V. a medium because it’s neither rare nor well-done. Is that fair? Is it true? Is it time to answer these questions? Yes, it is. * * * In certain circles — like academia, where Bruce Sacerdote works; or journalism, where I do — you are generally considered a more serious person if you are critical, or even negative. Whereas positivity tends to be associated with naiveté or cheerleading.
So Sacerdote, who is generally an optimist, sometimes feels like an outlier.
It is true that tech investors can be incredibly optimistic, sometimes to a fault. How optimistic should you be if you’re investing in media firms? It depends. Newspapers are, for the most part, a bad bet. Over the past 15 years or so, the digital revolution has upset what used to be a very profitable apple cart: U.S. newspaper revenues fell from around $60 billion a year to $20 billion. But cable T.V. is doing great. At the big three — Fox News, C.N.N., and M.S.N.B.C. — revenues continue to grow, and their profit margins are massive. C.N.N., for instance, earned an estimated $700 million profit in 2019 on revenue of just $1.6 billion.
And while technology markets thrive on optimism, Sacerdote began to suspect that major media outlets thrive on pessimism.
Fear-mongering, we should say, is not new. Journalism does span a wide spectrum, but the most crowd-pleasing outlets have long followed a simple mantra: if it bleeds, it leads. And Sacerdote argues that this instinct is particularly strong in the U.S.
How did he reach this conclusion? It was the result of a huge research project done in collaboration with Molly Cook and Ranjan Segal. They set out to analyze Covid news coverage in four distinct categories: major U.S. media, local and regional U.S. media, international media outlets, and scientific journals. All told, they analyzed 43,000 stories, including journal and newspaper articles and cable T.V. transcripts. They used machine-learning algorithms and what Sacerdote calls “very simple word-counting techniques” to measure how negative or positive a given story was. This measurement relied on the use of two lexicons popular with researchers — a list of nearly 5,000 words judged to be negative and another list of positive words, just over 2,000 of them. Perhaps the difference in size between these two lexicons should have been a clue. Here are some of the words from the negative lexicon:
And, some words from the positive lexicon:
The researchers focused their analysis on Covid coverage because that’s what Sacerdote was interested in. But the particulars of the pandemic also allowed them to sharpen their analysis, since the virus hit different places at different times. This meant they could use local Covid trends as a control tool to isolate and measure the tone of the media coverage. So, what’d they find?
For example: think about how the vaccine timeline was covered early on. Here is a New York Times headline from April 29th, 2020:
And here’s a passage from that article:
Now, we should say, the New York Times’s coverage of President Trump was almost uniformly critical, so maybe it’s not surprising that its coverage of the Trump administration’s vaccine efforts might also be critical. But the Times was just one of the 14 major U.S. media outlets in this analysis. Here, meanwhile, is a headline from one of the foreign outlets the researchers analyzed — this is the Oxford Mail in England, in February of 2020, also writing about vaccines:
And, a passage from that article:
So this is the kind of information that Bruce Sacerdote the economist would see, later, in his analysis. But at the time, Bruce Sacerdote the human was back in Hanover, New Hampshire, watching a lot of C.N.N. and reading a lot of the New York Times.
In other words: it could be that the bad news delivered by major U.S. media outlets increases our appetite for bad news, and in order to maintain its audience, those outlets in turn deliver even more bad news. To pick on The New York Times just a bit more — in a separate analysis, the data scientist Kalev Leetaru performed a sentiment analysis on every article the Times published between 1945 and 2005. He found that coverage began drifting negative in the 1960s and has gotten progressively more so. But, which way does the arrow point? Do news outlets simply meet our demand for negativity? Or do they create that demand? It’s been well-documented by academic researchers that humans do have a built-in negativity bias. The social psychologist Roy Baumeister calls it “the power of bad” — and he says it can serve a valuable function.
So how does the “power of bad,” an ancient psychological mechanism, intersect with how The New York Times conveys information? To understand that, it helps to first understand how the English language has been shaped by this negativity bias.
That is Arika Okrent.
“Weird” in some simple, relatively harmless ways — like spelling. One example from Okrent: consider the following three words: “D-O-U-G-H,” “T-O-U-G-H,” and “T-H-R-O-U-G-H.” Other than the opening letters, they’re identical. So why don’t they sound identical? Why are they pronounced “dough,” “tough,” and “through”? But the weird spelling in English isn’t nearly as complicated as the weird emotions. Especially the negative ones.
The music also helps. You know, the music that C.N.N. and other cable-news networks play to make sure you know that their “Breaking News” alert is really important.
These are real examples from C.N.N.; the “breaking news” text is being read aloud by our producers.
We should also acknowledge that a lot of news is meant to alarm us; that’s part of its purpose. And I know journalism is a business. It’s the business I’ve been in most of my adult life — including several years at The New York Times. But I’ve always thought of journalism as having a somewhat different mission from other industries. Yes, every writer and editor and producer wants their work to get attention, and they want to be paid. But the argument being made by Bruce Sacerdote goes beyond that. He says that the major American media outlets are primarily driven by profit-maximizing, and that the best way to profit-maximize is by accentuating the negative.
Sacerdote’s study covered just 2020, from January 1st until December 31st. So, it did include the beginning of the vaccine rollout, but it ended before Joe Biden became President. Sacerdote did look for a relationship between the political bias of a given news outlet and its tendency to run negative news; he didn’t find any. But you could imagine that Donald Trump’s contentious presidency may have affected the overall tone of media coverage in 2020.
But Sacerdote thinks his research findings are more generalizable than that.
Why is this important — other than the psychic damage that so much negativity can cause? Here’s one reason: if all you’re being told by the media is that Problem X is bad and getting worse, and Problem Y is even more unsolvable — well, you may start believing it. You may start believing that we are collectively terrible at solving problems, and it’s probably not even worth trying. Whereas the reality is that collectively, we humans I mean, are actually quite good at solving problems. Yes, it’s hard — but it’s made even harder when the only stories that gain traction are the stories telling us that those problems can’t be solved. Now, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking — wait a minute, there is one newish sector of the media that’s practically devoid of negativity. Social media. Everything on social media is puppies and rainbows, isn’t it? RATHJE: One example of a very viral post said, “Check out Joe Biden’s recent brain freeze.” * * * There’s a famous saying in poker: When you’re sitting at the table and you can’t tell who’s the sucker, the sucker is you. Here’s another version, updated for our digital age: If you’re spending a lot of time online and you can’t tell what the product is, the product is you.
That’s Steve Rathje. He’s getting his Ph.D. in psychology at the University of Cambridge. He studies misinformation and political polarization. He also created a Web app called “Have I Shared Fake News?”
As Rathje said, the big social-media sites are almost exclusively reliant on advertising dollars. In 2019, Twitter took in just under $3.5 billion in revenues; that same year, Facebook took in $70 billion. This means that all the newspapers in America, even all the cable-T.V. networks, could fit in Facebook’s back pocket. And in a way, they do: More than half of all Americans get at least a portion of their news via social media, with one-third coming from Facebook. Here’s what Steve Rathje wanted to know: if you’re a social-media site and your business is built around engagement in order to sell the most advertising possible, what’s the best way to drive engagement? So Rathje, like Bruce Sacerdote, embarked on a big study. He and two co-authors — Sander van der Linden and Jay Van Bavel -- analyzed nearly three million social-media posts to learn what makes a post more likely to attract other users. Their analysis covered the years 2016 to 2020; they focused on posts from conservative and liberal media platforms and Republican and Democratic members of Congress. So, what’d they find?
The “outgroup” meaning someone on the other side of the political aisle.
The paper, which was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is called “Outgroup Animosity Drives Engagement on Social Media.”
These “perverse incentives,” as Rathje categorizes them, are not universal. Just as journalism operates under different guidelines around the world, so too do Twitter and Facebook. In China, for instance, social-media content is tightly regulated, especially any posts about politics. Twitter is outright banned in China, although many people use virtual private networks to get around the ban. Some Chinese Twitter users have been jailed for criticizing the government; and during the Covid-19 outbreak in Wuhan, the government clamped down on social-media activity that documented what was happening in the city’s hospitals. In the U.S., meanwhile, the government has been pretty much absent in regulating social-media activity. The occasional high-profile banishment of a user like Donald Trump has come from the companies, not the government. But that may change, as politicians on both sides have been calling for more regulation.
That, again, is the economist Bruce Sacerdote.
According to Steve Rathje, that is pretty much the exact argument that companies like Facebook and Twitter make when they’re accused of using their algorithms to promote negative or even false information.
But Rathje isn’t persuaded.
The power of bad may indeed be a strong bias, but remember, it’s not equally powerful in all domains. Bruce Sacerdote again:
Here, again, are the negativity numbers from the Sacerdote media study: 87 percent of Covid coverage in national U.S. media, like the New York Times, was negative. The negativity number for regional and local coverage: just 53 percent. So, maybe there’s room for some optimism? Probably not.
Since 2004, one in five local newspapers has shut down.
So this sounds like a losing formula: If you are a media outlet that doesn’t promote negativity, you’re more likely to go out of business.
Sacerdote has already admitted to being an optimist — so this may just be the optimism talking — but he does see an upside in media coverage that doesn’t just bang on about a problem, but instead looks at the problem from multiple angles, and maybe even explores a solution. For example?
* * * Freakonomics Radio is produced by Stitcher and Dubner Productions. This episode was produced by Zack Lapinski. Our staff also includes Alison Craiglow, Greg Rippin, Joel Meyer, Tricia Bobeda, Mary Diduch, Brent Katz, Emma Tyrrell, Lyric Bowditch, Jasmin Klinger, Eleanor Osborne, Ryan Kelley, and Jacob Clemente. Our theme song is “Mr. Fortune,” by the Hitchhikers; the rest of the music this week was composed by Luis Guerra. You can follow Freakonomics Radio on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. Here’s where you can learn more about the people and ideas in this episode: SOURCES
RESOURCES
EXTRAS
The post Why Is U.S. Media So Negative? (Ep. 477) appeared first on Freakonomics. Via Finance http://www.rssmix.com/via Blogger http://annadesuza.blogspot.com/2021/10/why-is-us-media-so-negative-ep-477.html October 06, 2021 at 09:18PM
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My morning routine isnât guru approved â and thatâs what makes it perfect for me
God, can we please stop with guilting people over the morning pages, the journaling, the meditation, the drinking 18 gallons of mint-infused water, and the yoga? If you want to do those, GREAT! But you donât have to. My rules for the perfect morning:
Why we take bad advice about morning routinesThereâs a new cottage industry of people telling you all the thing you âshouldâ do every morning. But as it gets more absurdly specific, it gets even more performative. Drink a glass of water? No! Make sure you infuse it with turmeric and mint. If you like mint, great. But just adding mint doesnât do anything. The real win here is to be intentional about what you want to do â and how you want to do it. This is a lot harder than making an esoteric recommendation like drinking 6oz of yak tea. People love those recommendations because all of us want a magic bullet, or âsecretsâ that will magically change everything for us. Deep down, we know itâs all bullshit. I spoke to Tim Ferriss about this on his podcast a few years ago â you can watch the interview here: How to create the right morning routine for youReal happiness and productivity comes from making much deeper changes.
This is a lot harder than taking some magic pill. It means fundamentally restructuring your lifestyle, including how you work (maybe even where you work), how you relax, what time you go to sleep, and even what you think of yourself (âIâm not a morning personâ is an identity you can rewrite).
Learn how to build good habits and break bad ones with my FREE Ultimate Guide to Habits.
Real morning routines are decided the week before, month before, and year beforeI love the idea of crafting a meaningful morning for your personal Rich Life. I do not love the cargo-cult fanaticism about random tactics. The best morning routine is decided the day before, the week before, and the year before by mastering the fundamentals. What I mean by this: When I wake up and have a leisurely morning, then wander over to start working, I open my calendar. What I see has been decided weeks and months before:
Itâs far better to consciously decide what your morning looks like. If you want to roll over and check Instagram (as I do), thatâs great. The first thing I get to read is some 17-year-old telling me I am wrong about investing. Good morning, @crypt0_4_lyfe7291. Thanks for your contributions to the investing literature. Be realistic about your time and energyLook at your calendar for tomorrow. Have you thought about how your energy fluctuates throughout the day? Does your calendar include the 3 most important things that need to get done? Is it realistic â does it include time to use the bathroom and eat and just zone out?
If you want your morning routine to stick for good, learn how to master your psychology in my free Ultimate Guide to Habits.
3 questions to ask yourself when designing your morning routine
As you tackle these questions, you may realize that your perfect morning is a lot closer than you thought. My morning routine isnât guru approved â and thatâs what makes it perfect for me is a post from: I Will Teach You To Be Rich. Via Finance http://www.rssmix.com/via Blogger http://annadesuza.blogspot.com/2021/10/my-morning-routine-isnt-guru-approved.html October 05, 2021 at 02:18PM
How Can You Convince Someone They’re Wrong? (NSQ Ep. 69)
Also: what’s the best way to handle rejection? * * * Relevant Research & References Here’s where you can learn more about the people and ideas in this episode: SOURCES
RESOURCES
EXTRA
The post How Can You Convince Someone They’re Wrong? (NSQ Ep. 69) appeared first on Freakonomics. Via Finance http://www.rssmix.com/via Blogger http://annadesuza.blogspot.com/2021/10/how-can-you-convince-someone-theyre.html October 03, 2021 at 04:18AM
Robert Axelrod on Why Being Nice, Forgiving, and Provokable are the Best Strategies for Life (People I (Mostly) Admire, Ep. 47)
The prisoner’s dilemma is a classic game-theory problem. Robert, a political scientist at the University of Michigan, has spent his career studying it — and the ways humans can cooperate, or betray each other, for their own benefit. He and Steve talk about the best way to play it and how it shows up in real world situations, from war zones to Steve’s own life. Listen and follow People I (Mostly) Admire on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. * * * Here’s where you can learn more about the people and ideas in this episode: SOURCE
RESOURCES
EXTRA
The post Robert Axelrod on Why Being Nice, Forgiving, and Provokable are the Best Strategies for Life (People I (Mostly) Admire, Ep. 47) appeared first on Freakonomics. Via Finance http://www.rssmix.com/via Blogger http://annadesuza.blogspot.com/2021/10/robert-axelrod-on-why-being-nice.html October 01, 2021 at 08:18PM
Why Fridays May Be Dangerous for Your Health (Freakonomics, M.D. Ep. 9)
When researchers analyzed which day of the week most drug-safety alerts are released — and what it means for public health — they were stunned. So was Bapu Jena. He talks with them and a physician this week about the “Friday Effect,” a common problem with big repercussions for the safety of the medications. Follow Freakonomics, M.D. on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. * * * Relevant Research & References Here’s where you can learn more about the people and ideas in this episode: SOURCES
RESOURCE
The post Why Fridays May Be Dangerous for Your Health (Freakonomics, M.D. Ep. 9) appeared first on Freakonomics. Via Finance http://www.rssmix.com/via Blogger http://annadesuza.blogspot.com/2021/10/why-fridays-may-be-dangerous-for-your.html September 30, 2021 at 10:18PM
That’s a Great Question! (Ep. 192 Rebroadcast)
Verbal tic or strategic rejoinder? Whatever the case: it’s rare to come across an interview these days where at least one question isn’t a “great” one. Listen and follow our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. Below is a transcript of the episode, edited for readability. For more information on the people and ideas in the episode, see the links at the bottom of this post. * * * Hey there, it’s Stephen Dubner. Some of the Freakonomics Radio episodes we make have an agenda. That’s the case with the one you’re about to hear. We made it back in 2015 because I’d noticed a disturbing trend in the interviews we do for this show but also throughout the media, academia, politics, you name it. I was hoping this episode would not only call attention to the problem, but help solve it. Well, dear listener, we failed. We did not solve this problem at all — at least as evidenced by how often I still encounter it. So maybe this time around it’ll work? Hope, they say, springs eternal. And if there’s anything I have in abundance, it’s hope. * * * We’ve been doing this show for a while now. And I’ve noticed a trend.
Look, I’m going to be honest with you. Most of the questions we ask? They aren’t really all that great. But it’s like there’s a verbal tic going around.
And you know who has this tic really bad?
Yeah, Steve Levitt. You know who Steve Levitt is, don’t you?
Levitt’s my Freakonomics friend and co-author. He’s an economist at the University of Chicago. Levitt, you’ve been at Chicago for quite a while now, haven’t you?
And you seem to think that when it comes to what makes a good question, absolutely no topic is off-limits, wouldn’t you say?
* * * “Hey, that’s a great question!” I’ve heard this over and over and over the last several years — and not just on our show. You hear it in all kinds of media interviews, during the Q&A portion of tech conferences, academic conferences. But just because I’ve heard it a lot — that doesn’t mean much. We needed professional help.
Okrent knows several languages.
For the purpose of this discussion, we’re sticking to English and the phrase we’re discussing today: “That’s a great question.”
Okay, so how do you figure this out?
But Okrent was able to find a couple big collections of spoken-language data.
That’s a 100 million-word database, which includes transcripts of everyday conversation, as well as government meetings, media interviews, and so on.
Okay, and where does Arika Okrent think this habit has come from?
That’s Bill McGowan. He does media and P.R. training for C.E.O.’s, athletes, artists, even the best men at weddings. His company is called Clarity Media Group, and he wrote a book called Pitch Perfect: How to Say It Right the First Time, Every Time. McGowan says that some people say, “That’s a great question” to serve as what’s called a bridge.
Now, when Bill McGowan says it’s “elementary” — he means really elementary.
It was absurd because it had become such a habit that it lost its meaning. Nearly all of us have some kind of linguistic tic, some go-to phrase we probably don’t even know we use. I, for instance, begin way too many sentences with “So.” As in: “So, what have we learned so far?” Or: “So, what McGowan is really saying here—.” Or: “So, even President Obama uses a verbal bridge.”
But “look” and “listen” are not the only bridges used by President Obama:
So, what exactly is saying “That’s a great question” meant to accomplish?
In other words, as Arika Okrent sees things, it’s linguistic B.S.
But not everyone has soured on the phrase. * * * The media coach Bill McGowan thinks that people should just stop saying, “That’s a great question.” He thinks it’s nothing more than cheap flattery or a stall for time. But some people do use the phrase strategically. Andy Kessler is a former hedge-fund manager who now writes about technology and markets. In a 2015 Wall Street Journal column, Kessler wrote about a trick he admires, used by Silicon Valley entrepreneurs at board meetings. “When an investor or outside board member asks a stupid question,” Kessler writes, “the C.E.O. says ‘that’s a great question’ and then gives the questioner an action item, something like: ‘Okay, can you survey the competition and report back on their capital plans and hiring ratios? Great, let’s keep going.’ Eventually,” Kessler writes, “the stupid questions dry up and people who ask them may stop coming to the meetings.” Okay, so you can use the phrase as a form of retribution. Steve Levitt sees another use.
Let me be clear on one thing: when it comes to saying, “that’s a great question” — perhaps saying it disingenuously — I myself am not innocent. When I’m on the other side of the microphone than I am now, I am a menace:
And I know where I caught it. I caught it from Steve Levitt:
* * * Freakonomics Radio is produced by Stitcher and Dubner Productions. This episode was produced by Suzie Lechtenberg. Our staff also includes Alison Craiglow, Greg Rippin, Joel Meyer, Tricia Bobeda, Mary Diduch, Zack Lapinski, Brent Katz, Emma Tyrrell, Lyric Bowditch, Jasmin Klinger, Eleanor Osborne, Ryan Kelley, and Jacob Clemente. Our theme song is “Mr. Fortune,” by the Hitchhikers. You can follow Freakonomics Radio on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. Here’s where you can learn more about the people and ideas in this episode: SOURCES
RESOURCES
The post That’s a Great Question! (Ep. 192 Rebroadcast) appeared first on Freakonomics. Via Finance http://www.rssmix.com/via Blogger http://annadesuza.blogspot.com/2021/09/thats-great-question-ep-192-rebroadcast.html September 29, 2021 at 10:18PM
Debt consolidation: How does it work and is it right for you?
When you have debts everywhere you turn, it can feel like you’re completely swamped. Your hands are tied every payday as you funnel money into paying off debts, leaving you with no room to save. That’s why a lot of people turn to debt consolidation, which is when you use a loan to pay off all of your debt — and it can seem like a godsend. But wait, how is ANOTHER debt supposed to help? Of course, you’re right to be suspicious. The thing is, it can help but only if you do it right. Do it wrong and you’ll be kicking yourself from a position worse than you’re in now. So, should I consolidate my debt? Debt consolidation can work as a way to pay off debt faster. However, if you’re not disciplined and look for help in the wrong places, you’ll end up spending MORE time paying off your debt. Let’s take a look at what debt consolidation is, how to consolidate debt, the pros and cons, where to find a reputable organization to help you, and ways you can get out of debt fast.
Bonus: Ready to ditch debt, save money, and build real wealth? Download our FREE Ultimate Guide to Personal Finance.
What is debt consolidation?Debt consolidation combines all of the debt you owe into a single payment with a lower monthly interest rate. This typically works by taking out another loan in order to pay off all of your other debt. Let’s say you have debt across three credit cards and you owe the following:
Each month, you’re contributing $100 to each card for a total of $300 — however, a portion of each is being eaten by interest:
So in all you’re paying $254.16 towards your debt rather than the full $300. With debt consolidation, you take out a loan of $4,000 and pay off ALL of the above debt — and you get a lower interest rate for the loan at 10%. Now each month when you contribute $300 you’ll pay $266.67 towards your debt rather than just $254.16. In theory, this means you’ll be able to pay off your debt faster. The interest rate you’re able to get depends on which type of loan you attain:
If you want to get your debt consolidated, you’ll have to go through one of the two routes above — which we’ll get into later. Before we do that though, it’s important you know the dangers around consolidating your debt.
Bonus: Ready to ditch debt, save money, and build real wealth? Download our FREE Ultimate Guide to Personal Finance.
The problem with debt consolidationBut before you click on one of those scammy internet ads marketing “DEBT CONSOLIDATION — BE DEBT FREE IN 3 HOURS,” consider the big drawbacks to debt consolidation: 1. It could take longer to pay down your debtIf there’s anything we’ve learned about human psychology over a decade of studying behavior and personal finances, it’s that things like that are easier said than done. For example, if the average person ends up saving $300 in interest payments because of debt consolidation, do you think they’ll use that extra money towards their debt OR do you think they’ll end up spending it? Most likely, the latter. Human willpower is limited. It’s the same reason why cutting out lattes or skipping lunch to save money doesn’t work. A person with 300 “extra dollars” might end up just blowing it on something else. What happens then is it takes longer to pay down debt. This results in even MORE fees they have to pay. Aside from diminishing willpower, many debt consolidation loan companies offer up longer loan terms than people realize. So while the interest rate is lower, they end up paying more because they didn’t take into account how long they’d have the loan for. 2. You could lose your home or carIf you decide to put your car or home down as collateral you stand to lose much more than a few thousand dollars off the life of your loan. A home equity loan is also known as a second mortgage. Taking a second mortgage out on your home means you risk losing your house if you fail to make payments. Of course there are some advantages to going this route. For one you can deduct the interest payments from your home equity loan from your taxes. Plus you’ll be able to get a lower interest rate than if you went the unsecured route. Overall, though, it’s just not worth the risk — especially when there are better ways to go about it. 3. Your credit score will sufferThere are a few things that go into making a great credit score. One of them is your credit history — or how long you’ve had credit for. It actually accounts for 15% of your overall score. That might seem small but consider this: If you get rid of a bunch of different lines of credit at once, your credit score is going to take a huge drop. That drop gets bigger with more and more lines of credit you close. How do you know if debt consolidation is right for you?Debt consolidation can be a great way to plan your route out of debt. But that doesn’t mean it’s the perfect solution for everyone. The benefits of debt consolidation are hard to argue with. You can simplify your debt, save money on interest, only deal with one creditor, and (hopefully) clear your debt faster. But there are pros and cons you need to know about before you make this decision. It can be the best move for some, but worse for others. Signs debt consolidation is right for youYou have high-interest debtsThe number one sign that debt consolidation is a good option for you is if you have several high-interest debts. Why pay interest on several debts when you can pay it on just one? If you know you can secure a lower interest loan, it makes sense to consolidate your debts. According to Experian, the average personal loan interest rate is 9.41% -- whereas the average interest rate for credit cards is around 16%. So, if you’ve got a ton of credit card debt, it’s worth considering debt consolidation. You have good creditIf you’re already in debt, getting another loan might be tricky unless you have good credit. Most creditors will want a credit score of around 670 (FICO Score). If you have good credit, you’re more likely to get approved, and also get a loan with decent interest rates. Remember, you want a loan with lower interest rates than your current debts, so this part is key. If your credit score isn’t the best, a new loan might not have favorable interest rates. You want a fixed repayment scheduleWith some debts like credit cards, it’s easy to just make the minimum payments or even miss a payment (please don’t do this). This makes it harder to clear the debt because some of it relies on willpower. With a personal loan, you have a fixed payment and loan term that you have to abide by. This makes it much easier to stay on track and clear your debts. It also means there are no fluctuations in your monthly debt payments like with a credit card so it’s easier to budget for. Signs debt consolidation is NOT right for youYou have a poor credit scoreHaving a poor credit score is one reason why a lot of people want to get out of debt as fast as possible. However, debt consolidation relies on you not only being able to take out a new loan but also getting one without crazy high interest rates. If the only loans you can take out mean you’ll be paying MORE in interest rates, then it’s not worth it. In this case, the only benefit would be to simplify your loans. But what you really need is to save on interest so you can clear the debts faster. You’re on the verge of bankruptcyIf things have taken a downward turn and creditors are threatening to sue, then a debt consolidation loan may not even be accessible to you. Bankruptcy is a scary thought, but if this is your reality, you are unlikely to qualify for a debt consolidation loan. If this is your current situation, you would be better off looking into debt settlement to try and reduce your debt amount first. You can’t afford the monthly repaymentsTaking on another debt is tricky if you’re already in debt. While you can use this one to clear your other debts, you need to make sure you can cover the monthly repayments. As it’ll be a higher debt amount (to cover all your other debts), the monthly repayments will be higher. Make sure that you can fit it comfortably into your budget before taking on new debt. After all, missing repayments can set you back even further.
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How to consolidate debt — and get rid of it completelyIf you’re STILL interested in consolidating your debt, I want to help you. Because there are a LOT of scammy consolidation services out there. These “businesses” will promise that they’ll help you get out of debt fast through their loan packages … … only to screw you with hidden fees, bloated interest rates, and long loan terms. The trick here then is to separate the good debt consolidation organizations from the bad ones. Step 1: Find a non-profit debt consolidation firmNon-profit debt consolidation firms are 501(c)(3) organizations that help provide you with consolidation services, credit counseling, and will even negotiate with your creditors for you. The best part: They do so with little to no costs to you since they’re funded by third-party sources such as donations and grants. Unfortunately, even scammers and bad consolidation services have non-profit status. So you’ll have to do your research into finding a reputable one. Two good signs a non-profit debt consolidation firm is the real deal:
Make a list of 5 to 10 non-profit debt consolidation firms. Spend the next week calling each of them and getting a consultation on your situation and what they can do for you. A good non-profit will spend about an hour on your consultation. Beware of any organization that wants to take your money and put you into a plan right away. They are NOT looking out for your best interests. Step 2: Eliminate temptationLuckily, a non-profit debt consolidation firm will take care of a lot of legwork for you. That means they’ll call your creditors, negotiate down your debt and interest rate, and work with them to consolidate all of your debt into one manageable monthly payment. Unluckily, that’s the easy part. The hard part means actually doing the work of paying down your debt — and that’s up to you. To do that, you need to first get rid of the temptation of using your credit cards until you’re debt-free. If you ever expect to pay down your debt, you can’t add more to it. Here’s my favorite tip: Plunge your cards into a bowl of water and shove it all into your freezer. Seriously. Remember what we said about human willpower? It’s very weak — so weak that a solution like freezing your cards is necessary sometimes to delete temptation. When you literally freeze your credit, you’ll have to chip away at a massive block of ice in order to get it back — giving you time to think about whether or not you want to go through with whatever purchase you were going to make. You can also give them away to a loved one to keep until you’re out of debt. Step 3: Confront your debtIt’s good to finally confront your debt. That’s the first step to getting out of it. While it may be tough to climb out of debt, the sooner you make a plan to do so, the better. You’ll be able to repair your credit score, work on boosting your savings, save on interest, and finally get some sleep at night. Debt can weigh heavily on the mind, after all. The good thing is, you don’t have to do this all alone. There’s help at hand. You can get in touch with a non-profit debt consolidation firm to help you. Take advantage of their credit counseling services to help steer you through unmanageable debt. Do your research and find a non-profit so you can avoid the scammers out there. It’s easy to feel bad for yourself and avoid confronting your debt. It’s harder to actually step up and do something about it. Since you’re here, that means that you’re willing to put in the work to dig yourself out of your financial hole which is amazing!
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What is the difference between debt consolidation and debt settlement?Another term you’ll likely come across in your quest to clear your debt is debt settlement. But what is it? Both debt settlement and debt consolidation are used to handle personal debt, but they work in very different ways. Debt settlement is used to reduce the total amount of debt owed. Whereas debt consolidation is about reducing the number of creditors you owe. With debt consolidation, you combine multiple debts into one. Debt settlement is when you ask one or more of your creditors to accept less than you owe. If the creditor agrees, you both reach a settlement agreement in either a lump sum or installments. Which one is best for you?This depends on your circumstances and what the creditor will agree to. If you want to make your monthly repayments more manageable and reduce the amount of interest you pay, then debt consolidation is the way to go. If you’re already behind on payments and are struggling to meet them, then debt settlement might be a better option. In this case, if you’re already behind on payments you might struggle to get a debt consolidation loan anyway because of the impact on your credit score. So, debt settlement is definitely something to try out to reduce the burden. Debt settlement is the next logical step if you’re out of options, have poor credit, and want to avoid declaring bankruptcy if at all possible. It may mean taking a hit on your credit score, but you might have to just accept that. Once the debts are clear, you can get to work on repairing that damage. How does debt settlement work?Debt settlement is a tricky one and requires you to whip out your negotiation skills. There’s no guarantee the creditor will agree, but there’s no harm in asking. The process is pretty simple. You can ask your creditor if they would be willing to negotiate a settlement. Do this over the phone or in writing to keep a record of the conversation. A creditor can do one of three things:
With the counteroffer, you will need to consider if the amount they want is affordable in your budget. Make sure you’re agreeing to something that’s realistic and fair. Once you agree on a settlement amount, all that’s left is to arrange the payments. This can either be a lump sum or through installment payments, whichever you agree to. After you’ve made the payments, the remaining balance that’s been hanging over your head will be a nice round zero. If negotiating debt settlement on your own sounds like a nightmare, don’t worry. There is help at hand. You can hire a debt settlement company to negotiate on your behalf. However, this does involve paying them a fee, and again, you have to do your research to avoid hiring a scammer. Pros and cons of debt settlementProsYou reduce your debt amountThe biggest pro to debt settlement is simply that you reduce your debt amount. A lot of people don’t know that you can ask your creditors for this. So they carry on struggling. But if you’re struggling, it can’t hurt to ask. If a creditor agrees, you could cut hundreds of dollars from your debt and all the interest that comes on top of that. You can clear your debt fasterWith a smaller debt amount to pay off, you can pay it off faster. Whether you agree on a payment plan or a lump sum, you’ll be able to say goodbye to your debts much sooner. This means your money will be freed up faster to put into savings accounts or whatever else you want to spend your money on. You can also get to work repairing any damage to your credit score once the debt is clearer. The sooner the better. It could help you avoid bankruptcyIf bankruptcy is on the horizon, debt settlement should absolutely be a consideration. The last thing you want is a bankruptcy on your record. You can pretty much say goodbye to being able to take out credit for a LONG time if you reach this point. ConsYour credit score will take a hitNaturally, debt settlement does not reflect well on your ability to repay debts. If you have debt settlement in your credit history, it signals to future creditors that you are riskier to lend to. This could result in sky-high interest rates or outright credit rejection in the future. However, if your credit score is already low and your debts are just making it worse, then you pretty much have nothing to lose. Yes, you’ll take a hit, but you’ll also get out of debt sooner if your creditors agree to debt settlement. You might struggle to get credit again… especially with those creditorsA lower-than-ideal credit score does affect your ability to take out credit in the future. However, if you’ve been in a tricky situation with credit, it’s probably worth avoiding new loans and finance for a little while anyway. The creditors who agree to debt settlement will likely avoid lending to you again because they will be worried about losing money. This could limit your options in the future. But if it’s your only option, you might just have to just bite the bullet. There is no guarantee creditors will agreeUnfortunately, if you’re relying on creditors to throw you a lifeline here, you might be out of luck. In an ideal scenario, they’ll be forgiving and offer you a way to climb out of debt in a way that benefits everyone. But there’s no guarantee they’ll do this. They could outright reject your request or be inflexible with their counteroffer. There’s little you can do if this is the case. You can try another of your creditors if you have several debts to see if any of them will agree.
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Avoiding debt in the futureAfter you’ve decided on a method to reduce your debt – don’t stop. Ridding yourself of debt is just one key part of building strong personal finance. The other part of the puzzle is to manage your spending so you don’t end up in the same position as before. The last thing you want to do is put all your hard work into clearing the debt, only to succumb to temptation or poor money management which puts you right back where you started. That’s why we want to give you something that can help you take your personal finances to the next level: The Ultimate Guide to Personal Finance. In it, you’ll learn how to:
Enter your info below and get on your way to living a Rich Life today. 100% privacy. No games, no B.S., no spam. When you sign up, we’ll keep you posted Debt consolidation: How does it work and is it right for you? is a post from: I Will Teach You To Be Rich. Via Finance http://www.rssmix.com/via Blogger http://annadesuza.blogspot.com/2021/09/debt-consolidation-how-does-it-work-and.html September 27, 2021 at 08:18AM
“This Didn’t End the Way It’s Supposed to End.” (Bonus)
The N.B.A. superstar Chris Bosh was still competing at the highest level when a blood clot abruptly ended his career. In his new book, Letters to a Young Athlete, Bosh covers the highlights and the struggles. In this installment of the Freakonomics Radio Book Club, he talks with guest host Angela Duckworth. Listen and follow our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. Below is a transcript of the episode, edited for readability. For more information on the people and ideas in the episode, see the links at the bottom of this post. * * * DUBNER: Hey there, it’s Stephen Dubner. We’ve got a bonus episode for you today. It’s the latest installment of our Freakonomics Radio Book Club with a guest host you’re likely familiar with, and she’s interviewing an author who you’re also likely familiar with. Especially if you follow the N.B.A. Do you remember, back in 2010, when LeBron James became a free agent and staged a primetime event on E.S.P.N. to announce where he was going?
When James went to the Miami Heat, it wasn’t just a case of the best player in basketball joining a new team. It was the best player in basketball joining a new team that had two of the other best players in the game: Dwyane Wade, who’d been in Miami for a while, and another superstar who joined the Heat the same year as James. This guy:
Chris Bosh, LeBron James, and Dwyane Wade were the core of the N.B.A.’s first “super team,” and they did go on to win two N.B.A. championships. Bosh, a six-foot-11 forward, had started his career with the Toronto Raptors. He was a great scorer, a great rebounder, and he was clutch.
But you want to know what makes Chris Bosh really special? It’s his love of books.
That’s Bosh talking to the author of Grit, Angela Duckworth.
Angela is a psychology professor at the University of Pennsylvania, and she’s also my co-host on our spinoff podcast No Stupid Questions. Today, she interviews Chris Bosh about his own book, a memoir called Letters to a Young Athlete. They talk about grit, they talk about their favorite books — and they talk what it takes to succeed, even when the game suddenly changes.
Chris Bosh was just inducted into the N.B.A. Hall of Fame. And today he’s on the Freakonomics Radio Book Club. Could things possibly get any better? Chris Bosh in conversation with Angela Duckworth. * * * DUCKWORTH: I’ve spent most of my career studying excellence, and what it takes to achieve it. And, as it turns out, so has Chris Bosh. Now, I didn’t know whether I would connect with his new book, Letters to a Young Athlete. I’m not necessarily young, nor am I an athlete, but you know what? Those aren’t deal breakers. If you want to understand the kind of commitment and rigor that it takes to make the most of your abilities, in any field, then you will likely find something resonant in Bosh’s story. Here’s an excerpt from the introduction. * * *
* * * Bosh has accomplished a lot for a 37 year old. He was an 11-time N.B.A. All-Star. He has two N.B.A. championship rings. He has an Olympic gold medal. There’s a lot more, as well. But when you sit down for a conversation, he might do the “TLDR” version.
With a memoir that nods to literary history, it’s no surprise that reading is a huge part of Chris Bosh’s life.
His love of books started early.
Whether Bosh was reading Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell or The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene, he found an escape in books — which was especially useful once he moved to Miami.
Here’s a passage from Bosh’s own book, Letters to a Young Athlete.
Here’s a passage from Letters to a Young Athlete.
Here’s another excerpt from Letters to a Young Athlete. * * *
To give you some context about retirement in the NBA: Dwyane Wade bowed out at 37. Michael Jordan retired, for the second time, at age 40. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was 42. And Chris Bosh? When he played his last game, he was just 31. Here’s another excerpt from his new book:
DUBNER: That was Chris Bosh in conversation with Angela Duckworth. His book is called Letters to a Young Athlete, from Penguin Press; audio excerpts are courtesy of Penguin Random House Audio, read by the author. If you want to hear more episodes of The Freakonomics Radio Book Club — including a pair of exclusive, brand-new episodes that you can’t hear anywhere else — go to your favorite podcast app and get The Freakonomics Radio Book Club. * * * Freakonomics Radio is produced by Stitcher and Renbud Radio, and it’s part of the Freakonomics Radio Network, which also includes No Stupid Questions, Freakonomics, M.D., and People I (Mostly) Admire. This episode was produced by Brent Katz. Our staff also includes Alison Craiglow, Greg Rippin, Joel Meyer, Tricia Bobeda, Zack Lapinski, Ryan Kelley, Mary Diduch, Emma Tyrrell, Lyric Bowditch, Jasmin Klinger, Eleanor Osborne, and Jacob Clemente. Our theme song is “Mr. Fortune,” by the Hitchhikers; the music for this episode was composed by Luis Guerra, Michael Reola, and Stephen Ulrich. As always, thanks for listening. Here’s where you can learn more about the people and ideas in this episode: SOURCES
RESOURCES
EXTRAS
The post “This Didn’t End the Way It’s Supposed to End.” (Bonus) appeared first on Freakonomics. Via Finance http://www.rssmix.com/via Blogger http://annadesuza.blogspot.com/2021/09/this-didnt-end-way-its-supposed-to-end.html September 26, 2021 at 08:18PM
Why Do We Want What We Can’t Have? (NSQ Ep. 68)
Also: why are humans still so tribal? * * * Relevant Research & References Here’s where you can learn more about the people and ideas in this episode: SOURCES
RESOURCES
EXTRAS The post Why Do We Want What We Can’t Have? (NSQ Ep. 68) appeared first on Freakonomics. Via Finance http://www.rssmix.com/via Blogger http://annadesuza.blogspot.com/2021/09/why-do-we-want-what-we-cant-have-nsq-ep.html September 26, 2021 at 04:18AM The Mom Who Stole the Blueprints for the Atomic Bomb (The Freakonomics Radio Book Club Ep. 11)9/25/2021
The Mom Who Stole the Blueprints for the Atomic Bomb (The Freakonomics Radio Book Club Ep. 11)
To her neighbors in the English countryside, the woman known as Mrs. Burton was a cake-baking mother of three. To the Soviet Union, she was an invaluable Cold War operative. Ben Macintyre, author of Agent Sonya: Moscow’s Most Daring Wartime Spy, explains how the woman who fed America’s atomic secrets to the Russians also struggled to balance her family and her cause. Hosted by Sarah Lyall. Listen and subscribe to The Freakonomics Radio Book Club on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. Below is a transcript of the episode, edited for readability. For more information on the people and ideas in the episode, see the links at the bottom of this post. * * * No one likes to be underestimated or overlooked because of something as unchangeable as X and Y chromosomes. But sometimes there are advantages to being underestimated.
Ursula Kuczynski was a Jewish German citizen. She worked as a spy for the Soviet Union from 1930 to 1950, relaying America’s scientific secrets to the U.S.S.R. — and helping to intensify the Cold War. Her neighbors in the English village of Great Rollright knew her simply as Mrs. Burton. Her code name was Agent Sonya.
Ben Macintyre has been fascinated by spies since he was young. In a different life, he might have become one himself.
Instead, he wound up tackling the subject in his nonfiction books. Some of those New York Times best-sellers include A Spy Among Friends, Operation Mincemeat, and The Spy and the Traitor. That last book received some high praise from the late John le Carré, the legendary spy novelist — and former spy himself. Le Carré called it the “best true spy story” he had ever read. But, even after decades immersed in the world of covert operations, Macintyre had never come across a spy quite like Ursula Kuczynski. For one thing, she’s the first major spy he’s written about who is a woman.
Here’s Ben Macintyre reading an excerpt from his newest book, Agent Sonya. * * *
* * * This is The Freakonomics Radio Book Club. Ben Macintyre discusses his book, Agent Sonya: Moscow’s Most Daring Wartime Spy. Today’s host is Sarah Lyall, writer-at-large for the New York Times and the author of The Anglo Files: A Field Guide to the British. * * * You know when you’re watching a spy movie, and they’re using codenames, code words, and writing things in invisible ink, and you think, some of this has got to be made up, right? Well, it turns out that a lot of that code-language is actually used by real spies.
As much as he loves classic spy mythology, Macintyre was drawn to his most recent subject Ursula Kuczynski, in part, because she was so unconventional.
Ursula’s dull new life in Shanghai changed when she met a man named Richard Sorge — the man who would introduce her to espionage. Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond, once described Sorge as “the most formidable spy in history.”
Sorge was introduced to Ursula by a fellow communist spy in Shanghai.
Here’s that moment in the book.
By 1938, Ursula had begun running operations herself.
* * * I’m Sarah Lyall, and this is The Freakonomics Radio Book Club. Today we’re speaking with spy-chronicler Ben Macintyre about his latest book, Agent Sonya: Moscow’s Most Daring Wartime Spy. At this point in the story, Ursula is living in Switzerland. One of her agents in Munich, Alexander Foote, discovers that his go-to lunch spot — the Osteria Bavaria — is, coincidentally, the favorite restaurant of Adolf Hitler.
By the late 1930s, Ursula had divorced Rudi, and was still operating out of Switzerland. She had two children now, the first from Rudi and the second from a different communist spy. Later, she would have a third. But her concern now was that the Nazis might invade Switzerland.
Ursula had a nanny named Olga Muth, who went by Ollo. Olga had started working in the Kuczyniski household in 1911, when Ursula was only 3. Now she cared for Ursula’s three children, and travelled with the family. The arrangement worked well for years. “I never mentioned the nature of my work,” Ursula wrote. “And Ollo did not ask about it.”
Ursula smuggled her children away from Olga Muth and broke ties with her. Now that she was married, Ursula could get a passport and could enter the U.K. — but this was still a big risk. With her communist ties and frequent travels, she would seem to be a target for British intelligence. Or so one might think.
Ursula, her children, and Len arrived in England just before Operation Barbarossa, the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union.
Klaus Fuchs, the German physicist and communist spy, was able to infiltrate the scientific community in London, and later joined the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos, New Mexico. There he fed atomic secrets to Ursula, who relayed them to Moscow — giving the Soviets a huge boost in the Cold War. In 1951, a U.S. Congressional Committee would conclude that Fuchs had “influenced the safety of more people and accomplished greater damage than any other spy not only in the history of the United States, but in the history of nations.”
In 1950, Ursula and her three children flew to Germany. By the time British Intelligence had alerted border patrol, she was already gone. She would not return to England for another forty years. * * *
* * *
* * * The Freakonomics Radio Book Club is produced by Stitcher and Renbud Radio. This episode was produced by Brent Katz. Our staff also includes Alison Craiglow, Greg Rippin, Joel Meyer, Tricia Bobeda, Mary Diduch, Zack Lapinski, Emma Tyrrell, Lyric Bowditch, Jasmin Klinger, Eleanor Osborne, Jacob Clemente, and Ryan Kelley. The audio excerpts of Agent Sonia are courtesy of Penguin Random House Audio; they were read by the author, Ben Macintyre. Our theme song is “Mr. Fortune,” by the Hitchhikers; other music for this episode was composed by Luis Guerra, Michael Reola, and Stephen Ulrich. You can follow The Freakonomics Radio Book Club on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. Here’s where you can learn more about the people and ideas in this episode: SOURCE
RESOURCES
EXTRAS
The post The Mom Who Stole the Blueprints for the Atomic Bomb (The Freakonomics Radio Book Club Ep. 11) appeared first on Freakonomics. Via Finance http://www.rssmix.com/via Blogger http://annadesuza.blogspot.com/2021/09/the-mom-who-stole-blueprints-for-atomic.html September 25, 2021 at 03:18AM |