Facts and Beliefs about Telecom Competition

There are two articles in today’s Wall Street Journal that you should see. On the righthand column of B1, Telecom Mergers Limit Choices of Customers talks about how the pending SBC/AT&T and MCI/Qwest mergers are going to limit consumer choices, raise costs and decrease innovation in spite of the fact that consumers are inundated by a tsunami of communication choices and technologies. An explanation for this lack of vision is in the lefthand column in Science Journal, People Believe a ‘Fact’ That Fits Their Views Even if It’s Clearly False. This article talks about how people believe what they want to believe, facts be damned, if it violates their mental model of how the world works. You will see the same thing in people’s reactions to growth numbers and social security reform. More on this later.