DAVID BROOKS ADMITS A PSYCHOLOGICAL, NOT ECONOMICAL, TRUTH

To wit, we aren't very rational and this fact can be used as a battering ram against the Austrian Economic Fortress (see the letter posted here).  Specifically, Brooks made these admissions:

We know that people can be induced to buy more cans of soup if you put a “Limit: 12 per customer” sign on the display. ... In addition, people are pretty bad at sacrificing short-term pleasure for long-term benefit. We’re bad at calculating risk. We’re mentally lazy. We make decision-making errors when thinking in our own language that we don’t make when thinking in another language. When asked to think in a second language, we’re forced to put in a little more mental effort.