Fantastic Stories

Introduction
One of Joe Goebbels' best inventions was the Big Lie. Goebbels' key insight was that sellers have to tell a story, a complete story, to induce people to buy. The story must seem to be reality. Perhaps he got the idea from Aristotle's Poetics, which introduced the idea of "suspension of disbelief." Advertising Execs and campaign consultants owe their living to Goebbels. They use his technique every day to sell useless stuff and crazy ideas.

Introduction

One of Joe Goebbels' best inventions was the Big Lie. Goebbels' key insight was that sellers have to tell a story, a complete story, to induce people to buy. The story must seem to be reality. Perhaps he got the idea from Aristotle's Poetics, which introduced the idea of "suspension of disbelief."

Advertising Execs and campaign consultants owe their living to Goebbels. They use his technique every day to sell useless stuff and crazy ideas.

Most people need to be convinced to act, whether it is about spending money or voting. The action must take place within a scenario that makes sense. That phrase, "makes sense," is very difficult to pin down, as it is entirely subjective. The minimum, yet most general, definition of the term is a way of connecting words or ideas or other activities together. For example, if a person understands "acorn" by kicking a tree (whether or not it is an oak), that is what "makes sense" of "acorn" to that person. It doesn't matter whether that "making sense" is scientifically sound, or unreasonable for the rest of us. For the purpose of advertising, it only matters that whatever the person does makes sense to himself. That is Goebbels' key insight about the Big Lie. Fairy stories, fiction and fantasy also use the same method to entrance readers.

The Bandit is telling a number of fairy stories in his attempt to steal away Social Security.

	He says ordinary citizens might actually have some money left over in Social Security which could be given to heirs. This assumes Social Security benefits aren't needed by the pensioner.
	Social Security recipients might actually get more money by investing it in stocks and bonds, than they would get from the existing program. This increase would occur despite a 40% or more cut in the basic Social Security payments.

The basic intent of those stories is to make people feel they will be the lucky winners in the great game of life. That's an easy dream at age 21, a lot harder after age 50. The dream story is that I will be successful and rich, I will make good investments that pay off handsomely, and I will reward my successors generously (who will thus recognize me as a great man).

The dream sidesteps the facts. Today, 1/3 of the 44 million or so Social Security recipients live in poverty. Fully 1/2 of all recipients rely on Social Secuirty as their sole source of income. While about 1/3 of Social Security recipients age 65-70 are farily well off (household incomes above $35,000), less than 10% of Social Security recipients leave any significant estate at death. Without Social Security, over 80% of the elderly would be in poverty.

The dream also sidesteps the erratic performance of stocks and bonds over the years (cf Mandelbrot, The (mis)Behavior of Markets). The Bandit would also make us forget the full faith and credit of the United States government. The Bandit's spell makes the government and human folly disappear from the living of life.

The dream ignores all those facts, because the dreamer wants to ignore all those discouraging facts. The spellmaker - our Bandit magician - tells a dreamy story so that ambitious, cocky youths will not perceive the facts. Goebbels did the same favor for Hitler, inventing the myth of Hitler youth and the Aryan race which hypnotized German children.

Another fantasy is the story of Ronald Reagan's magic. There was Reagan's famous incantation, "Mr Gorbachev, tear down thse walls," after which the walls obliged by coming apart. This modern miracle was preceded by the ruin of Jericho, caused by Joshua's trumpet. The similarity of the two events has not gone unnoticed by those who worship Saint Reagan.

I am a notorious unbeliever, so I am disinclined to put much faith in fairy tales. I do, however, enjoy them as much as the next child. For example, I particularly liked Dr Seuss' fable of the critters colored black and white, or was it white and black, with or without stripes and polka dots. At least, Dr Seuss had something to say that bears on our real world. I also took Cervantes' novel, Don Quixote, to have deep moral and personal significance when I read it. Even the Chinese bawdy tale, The Golden Lotus, is intensely instructive about our world.

But, Bandit tales are just tawdry Big Lies.