Compulsive gamblers are experts at self deception.

The BRICS Fallacy

But this is a fallacy.

And the fallacy comes from idealizing a past that we have forgotten about.

The Sudan firmly believes that the idea of a clash of civilizations is a fallacy.

The wisdom of our ancestors fallacy has often been invoked in debates over same sex marriage. Anyone familiar with political discussion in the United States will instantly recognize a more specific version that could be called the wisdom of the Founding Fathers fallacy.

That criticism, of course, stems from the fallacy of seeing effectiveness only as a function of size.

The fallacies that really challenge the modern reader, however, are those that characterize arguments that today are widely accepted even in the most educated and enlightened circles. One of these, Bentham says, in a jarring juxtaposition, may be termed Anarchy preacher s fallacy or The Rights of Man fallacy.

The fallacy, exemplified in a recent commentary by Philip Stephens of the Financial Times, is that, Athens is unable or unwilling or both to implement an economic reform program. Once this fallacy is presented as fact, it is only natural that coverage highlights how our government is, in Stephens s words, squandering the trust and goodwill of its eurozone partners.

Doing so proved invaluable as recently as the Scottish independence referendum last September. Two days before the count, bookmakers were paying out to gamblers who had bet that Scotland would vote No to independence.

And so the fallacy that we need this resource and we can actually make it in a time frame that is meaningful is not possible.

The concept of length of coastline, which seems to be so natural because it's given in many cases, is, in fact, complete fallacy there's no such thing.

Lack of equity capital, in turn, made risk averse shareholders hire gamblers to manage their limited liability investment companies. The managers chose overly risky operations, because they knew that the shareholders would not participate symmetrically in the risks.

By 1811, he had sorted them into nearly 50 different types, with titles like Attack us, you attack Government, the No precedent argument, and the Good in theory, bad in practice fallacy. (One thing on which both Immanuel Kant and Bentham agree is that this last example is a fallacy If something is bad in practice, there must be a flaw in the theory.)

The general case of this fallacy is the fallacy of composition what makes sense for each household or company individually does not necessarily add up to the good of the whole. The particular case that John Maynard Keynes identified was the paradox of thrift if everyone tries to save more in bad times, aggregate demand will fall, lowering total savings, because of the decrease in consumption and economic growth.

But, because they do nothing to protect themselves against their real estate price risks, they are unwitting gamblers. In fact, home buyers in most countries do nothing to protect themselves short of selling their homes because there is nothing to be done.

This fallacy often repeated by British Prime Minister David Cameron treats governments as if they faced the same budget constraints as households or companies. But governments are not like households or companies.

Another, related, fallacy is the assumption that reforms can reap benefits only in the long run. This misconception reduces the short term solution to affected governments sharply higher borrowing costs to bailouts.

More jobs? By jobs, he meant government spending, and he considered this a fallacy because blanket opposition to more government spending fails to take into account the good that the extra employees will be able to achieve.

To consider Islam as a civilization that is not susceptible to change is an historical fallacy. Religious moderation, if not secularization, remains the key not only to social integration, but also to Muslims opportunity to influence Europe s future.

Describing as a logical fallacy the recommendation at the beginning of paragraph 75 to impose a moratorium on executions, she said that that was like recommending the abolition of prisons because prison conditions were deplorable in some countries.

At the same time, it is a dangerous fallacy to seek redemption for a problem that is so deeply ingrained in Europe s history and in Islam s by blaming it on the Israel Palestine conflict or on young, alienated Muslims.

This raises the question of justice, but not the economic consequences of insisting on payment. Moreover, there is a fallacy of composition if there are too many debt collectors, they will impoverish the very people on whom their own prosperity depends.

The tight link existing between disasters, unsustainable development and weak governance points to the fallacy of the distinction that is usually made within the humanitarian community between disasters associated with natural hazards and other types of emergencies that necessitate humanitarian action.

This fallacy is repeated so often that it has entered the collective unconscious. The argument is that if the current generation spends more than it earns, the next generation will be forced to earn more than it spends to pay for it.

The first misconception is that exports create jobs, while imports do not a fallacy that the great trade economist Harry Johnson traced to mercantilism, and which the US has resurrected. In fact, in a world where parts and components come from everywhere, interference with imports imperils competitiveness.

According to this oft repeated fallacy, governments can raise money by issuing bonds, but, because bonds are loans, they will eventually have to be repaid, which can be done only by raising taxes. And, because taxpayers expect this, they will save now to pay their future tax bills.

Nevertheless, at a time when finance is under a cloud, the party that defends the freedom of the financial gamblers over the freedom of the individual is winning favor with the electorate like no other. The FDP can count on about 13 14 of the vote, which means that it may be able to join with Merkel s Christian Democratic Union to form a government.

Clearly, interdependency cannot be avoided nor can the responsibility than it entails. The idea that, when the going gets tough, an EU country can solve all of its problems by reverting to pure national sovereignty is an intellectual fallacy, a political chimera, and thus a source of considerable social frustration.

Eurozone politicians tend to believe that it is possible to regain competitiveness by carrying out reforms, undertaking infrastructure projects, and improving productivity, but without reducing domestic prices. That is a fallacy, because such steps improve competitiveness only in the same measure as they reduce domestic prices vis à vis eurozone competitors.

The problem is not with the constitution, but with the conventional wisdom almost an idée fixe that Iraq is a viable modern nation state, and that all it needs to make it work properly is the right political institutions. But this is a fallacy, and responsible leaders should begin to think of alternatives.

Especially now, as we all must confront the fallacy of a market only orientation, uninformed by social conscience we must seize and celebrate the power of the arts to shape our individual and national characters, and especially characters of the young people, who all too often, are subjected to bombardment of sensation, rather than digested experience.

Recognizing the significance of this strategy exposes a common fallacy whereby the global savings glut is attributed to emerging market countries desire to insure themselves against financial turmoil by acquiring dollar reserves. That may have been true in the immediate aftermath of the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s, but it was quickly overtaken by the growth imperative.

As outgoing US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel pointed out in a recent interview, in war, things can get out of control, and drift and wander in ways that can cause a military to fall into a more accelerated use of force than was initially anticipated. Against this background, the notion that force alone can transform conflict riven societies in the Middle East and elsewhere is a dangerous fallacy.

The repeal of the tax break on overtime reflects another economic fallacy to which French Socialist politicians are deeply attached the lump of labor notion that underlay the most disastrous of their economic policies the 35 hour workweek, introduced in 2000. The idea behind the policy is that demand for labor is a constant, and that this fixed number of aggregate working hours required by employers to meet final demand can be spread more evenly among workers to reduce unemployment.