Welcome to I Found This - a weekly competition between two old friends, your hosts, James and Keith. Here each week, you’ll decide who’s find made your eyebrow raise higher.

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 Happy Monday!

How much does it take to hate?

In the 1970s, social psychologist, Henry Tajfel put together a series of experiments LINK to find out. More specifically, he wanted to learn how little a group of people would need to have in common to begin to discriminate against other groups. So, he did what any sensible man would do with a question like that – he put a bunch of dots on a screen and asked 14–15-year-old boys to guess how many dots they saw. Only, he didn’t actually care what they guessed. Instead, he randomly assigned each of them to one of two groups: the over-guessers or the under-guessers. He then asked each individual to assign a pot of cash to the rest of the classroom. The kids kept assigning more money to those who guessed like they did (or who they thought guessed like they did). In many cases, even if it meant the total money pot shrunk, they chose to maximize the gap between their group members and the others.

Henry Tajfel had himself survived the holocaust a few decades earlier but even he was surprised at how little it took for groups to identify with one another and to begin to discriminate. He planned to begin with something completely meaningless like the number of dots you guessed on a screen and then he would add new layers of meaning to the groups to see when they would turn on the others. In the end, not a single additional layer was needed.

So, this Thanksgiving, when you take in a big breath and prepare to unleash a wave of spit and rage on your uncle who votes differently than you, remember that dolt deserves it. If you had a screen full of dots, he’d probably be an over-guesser! He’s different than you and that, dear friend, is just not ok. - Keith

1T $

Okay, I did NOT stumble across the world’s first trillionaire - although depending on how you do the accounting, the English Crown, Putin, Arab Princes, or Rockefeller have already achieved this title. This interesting tidbit comes in the form of a visual. For years the US has been living with rock bottom interest rates(relative to world history and US history). This means capital was cheap and enormous wealth was accumulated. It also meant spending was easy. Even now there are only a few muted voices arguing for the government to stem the tides.

This comes as for the first time US consumers passed $1 Trillion in credit card debt. Apart from Dave Ramsey’s business model never looking stronger, when this number is coupled with the average interest rate of credit card debt being 21% - this stat is staggering. Here are the top 3 perhaps overlooked implications of this:

• Pressure on government to increase safety nets and entitlement programs

• Tail winds for business models with credit card and consumer debt as an input

• Accounts receivable be devalued on balance sheets

LINK

Once again, it is all about the money - James