The Daily Reckoning PRESENTS: Research shows that the brain has two
centers for decision-making. This data has been said to explain why
Americans save so little - one part of the brain told them they should
put
their paycheck in the bank, but the other insisted on buying a new
wide-screen TV. In this DR Classique, first run in April of 2005, Bill
Bonner takes a look into these parts of the brain...

LIMBIC MEDALS
by Bill Bonner

A new piece of research from Princeton's Center for the study of the
brain
came out last week. While poking around, the scientists thought they
found
something new.

Decisions are made in two parts of the brain, the researchers told us.
The
first part is the lateral prefrontal cortex. This is where advanced,
logical thinking is supposed to happen, such as when a person decides
which investment to make or which automobile offers the most value for
the
money. Deeper down in the grey matter is another decision center, the
more
primitive limbic system, which is where the real thinking takes place.
Researchers describe this part of the brain as deciding our likes and
dislikes...and telling us how to react to immediate stimuli. When a
dump
truck cuts you off in traffic, for example, the limbic system
practically
has your right arm and middle finger cocked in the traditional salute
before your lateral prefrontal cortex has time to weigh out the pros
and
cons.

The research was said to explain why Americans save so little. One part
of
the brain told them they should, but the other insisted on buying a new
wide-screen TV. Though the report was circulated in the media as though
it
meant something, it left us only more puzzled than before. When did
Americans acquire this limbic system, we wondered? Up until 1980,
American
savings rates were around 10% of incomes. Was there some kind of
evolutionary mutation that occurred in the early years of the Reagan
Administration?

And why don't the Chinese seem to have the same problem? They are said
to
save 25% of their incomes, while we save less than 1%. Someone ought to
pry open a Chinese skull and take a peek to verify this, but our guess
is
that the Chinese have limbic systems too.

At least the scientists were wise enough to realize that not every
thought
that passes through the human brain makes any real sense. The most
powerful thoughts - strong enough to put the average American's
retirement
in jeopardy - are not logical at all, but instinctive, atavistic,
primordial...and often practically insane.

When Woodrow Wilson stood before Congress and asked for a declaration
of
war against Germany, the words came out of the advanced part of his
brain.
They were nice, multi-syllabic, Latinate words, the kind of words you'd
expect from a former professor of government. But they were greasy and
meaningless, also just what you'd expect. The kind of bosh you find on
a
typical high-minded editorial page. It was as if what came out of the
president's mouth were brightly colored bubbles...that floated,
airily...lightly...above the crowds. His talk of "making the world safe
for democracy" was nothing more than gas. He was proposing to go into
the
war on the side of the English - who were at that very moment making
sure
there was no popular democracy in the Empire. The Irish...the
Indians...the Egyptians...the American president didn't even mention
them.
Had the upper brain been allowed to do its work, surely it would have
told
him that if he wanted to make the world safe for democracy he ought to
go
to war with the nation who suppressed it most widely; he might just as
well have entered the war on the side of Germany against England.

But deeper down in Wilson's limbic system were idealized pictures of
the
Magna Carta...the robes and wigs of English courts...High Tea...Dickens
and Thackeray...and all the trappings of the English upper classes as
they
were imagined by a naïve and admiring college professor from
Princeton,
New Jersey. The president, his advisors, his cabinet, and his leading
allies had such bad cases of anglophilia they practically stuttered and
drooled. And when they stirred the mob, the gaudy balloons they sent
aloft
meant nothing more than a signal that the fight had begun. The poor
schmucks' blood was up already. Wilson's big words merely unleashed
them.


We are not rehashing the history of WWI, dear reader. Instead, we are
reaching for another, sharper point. One moment of reasonable thought
would have shown what a losing proposition the European War would
likely
be, but the thinking was taking place in the limbic system, not the
lateral prefrontal cortex.

Wilson's limbic system had already made his decision. And the public,
too,
was soon engaged. The cannon were being drawn up for war. Medals were
being readied. They looked up at Wilson's empty words and must have
thought they saw the image of the Virgin Mary. In no time at all, they
were on their knees...pledging all they had to the war effort, giving
up
their purses, their sons, and their integrity. The super-patriots were
drilling holes through their walls so they could spy on neighbors with
names like Bauer and Feldgenhauer. In Tulsa, a Bulgarian was hung when
a
mob mistook him for a German. In Baltimore, a former mayor blew his
brains
out after being charged with being a German sympathizer. And woe to
anyone
who dared to laugh or cry.

"War is the health of the state," said Bismarck. War appeals to the
limbic
system even more than a new pair of shoes. Connoisseurs of Big Macs and
reality TV see the bright shine of polished brass, and bombs exploding
in
air and they are drawn to it like sinners to the sparkling gates of
Hell.
Politicians feel the need to explain it, to justify it, to dress it up
in
respectable clothes to hide the jackboots and to slosh on perfume to
cover
the stench of death. But the words mean nothing. The common man is
often
as ready for war as he is for an extension of his line of credit.

WWI turned out to be a catastrophe as meaningless and senseless as
Wilson's words. But the limbic system still functions. Could it be
setting
us up for another catastrophe? Once again, the yahoos cheer a new group
of
"Wilsonian" officials. Once again, they think they are making the world
safe for democracy. And for the first time ever, their leading
economists
hold out cheap credit like a waiter offering free piece of apple pie to
a
fat man.

The brain may have two centers of decision-making. But only one of them
makes the important decisions. The other is merely a lackey and a
stooge;
he does what he is told.

Regards,

Bill Bonner
The Daily Reckoning