Fascinating article this week in the Economist on soft paternalism (in other words, the saving of ourselves from ourselves, sponsored by the government and encouraged by everyone but the Cato Institute). For instance, researchers found 2 new ways to make people save for retirement (almost no one saves enough on their own). The first way is to make people opt out of 401K saving when starting a new job, instead of making them opt in. This increases the participation rate from under 50 to over 80%/ Also, if you commit workers to save a certain percentage of future wage increases up front, researchers were able to raise the savings rate for workers from about 5% to over 13%. Some researchers have even suggested ways to get people to quit smoking, like letting people buy cigarettes tax-free for 5 or 10 years, but only if they pay the tax up front in a lump sum. They would pay the same, but the current system makes it easy to start smoking by using a pay-as-you-go structure. If we're going to have sin taxes, might as well have ones that work. Hugh Nibley might say "work we must, but the lunch is free and nutritious and you're gonna eat it". Tough dilemma. Most of us are doomed to failure unless we can be tricked into succeeding, in which case we don't learn anything and succeed in spite of ourselves. I can email the article to anyone who wants it - just let me know.

I've been thinking about what makes a person into a better person. This week, an executive at work talked about how he started out in medical devices over 20 years ago. He's an inspirational kind of guy who's good at motivating and developing people around him; a class act. It made me wonder what kind of a guy he was 20 years ago, and what has he done (or what has happened to him) to make him into what he is today. There's a larger issue here that has spiritual implications. I'm still trying to figure out how one can measure personal progress; how to take a snapshot of my abilities or failings today and dust it off 2 years down the road to see what has changed.

So we went to Legoland. It was good, if only because the kids absolutely loved it. We hatched a crazy plan for bro-in-law Bryan (who was in Anaheim for a tradeshow) to come down to San Diego for dinner on Friday night, leave Kahlin, who would then go with us to Legoland, after which we take Kahlin back up to Anaheim, and drive back to San Diego. Kahlin was great with our kids, who love his intense personality. The only tears were shed by Asha, who failed by 1 inch to qualify for spinning teacups-like ride.