Negotiating the Catfood Commission: Don't touch their proposals, demand a fresh start

[jpgray]

From Open Left:

By dropping their Social Security bombshells early without moderation from others on the commission, the co-chairs engaged in a strong-arm negotiating tactic known as 'anchoring.' Anchoring is the process whereby a number, no matter how absurd, influences us in negotiations or anywhere else we have to set a price or estimate value. This was the subject of a recent book, Priceless: The Myth of Fair Value and How to Take Advantage of it from which the following excerpt is drawn:

Scientists have replicated the anchoring experiment with many variations. You do not need a wheel of fortune, or a random number to have anchoring. You don't even need a reasonable number. Psychologist George Quattrone tried these questions:

• Is the average temperature in San Francisco higher or lower than 558 degrees Fahrenheit? What is the average temperature of San Francisco?

• How many top-ten records did the Beatles release - more than 100,025 or less than 100,025? Now give your estimate of the number of top-ten Beatles records?

These numbers are completely wacko. You'd think they couldn't possibly affect guesses about how warm San Francisco is, or how many top-ten Beatles records there were...except that they did. People primed with these and other absurdly high anchors gave higher estimates than those who received low anchors.

And so we too have now been primed with an absurdly high, wacko price to balance the budget in the form of the Catfood Comission's proposals to 'reform' Social Security.

...

So what would researchers of the anchoring phenomenon recommend to us here?

One of the worst things that can happen in a negotiation is for the other side to open with a wholly unacceptable number. In such situations, Max Bazerman and Margaret Neale believe it's necessary to "reanchor" - to demand a fresh start. In their Negotiating Rationally (1992), a popular text in MBA courses, they warn, "Responding to an initial offer with suggested adjustments gives the anchor some measure of credibility...Threatening to walk away from the table is better than agreeing to an unacceptable starting point."

http://openleft.com/diary/20829/negotiating-the-catfood-commission-dont-touch-their-proposals-demand-a-fresh-start

[Lasher]

1. You are right, same thing with the Bush tax cuts.

Let them expire and start talking about the Obama tax cuts, if any.

[glitch]

2. Absolutely agreed. Furthermore Bowles and Simpson need to be shunned by all serious people.

Their draft agenda is ludicrous and NOT on the task they were given.

[Individualist]

3. I'd prefer tarring and feathering to shunning.

[glitch]

7. You bring the tar, I'll bring the feathers :)- nt

[ibegurpard]

4. exactly...that's what should have been done with healthcare reform

the fact that what many liberals would consider to be a compromise was used as the anchoring is what is so infuriating

[kenny blankenship]

5. Agreed, reject this report/proposal in total. No debate needed and none should be tolerated.

Anyone who agrees to even discuss the specifics of this abortion is empowering the rightwing's assault on the Social Compact.

It is a Dead Letter.

[Hannah Bell]

6. +1

[doc03]

8. It's already being said Obama is going to cut SS, if he does

you may as well kiss the Whitehouse goodbye in 2012. It won't matter if 3/4 of the votes come from Republicans it will be hung around Obama's neck just like NAFTA was with Clinton.

[chill_wind]

9. Scrap it. Get back to focusing on jobs. The deficit debate can wait.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x9548570

[doc03]

10. I don't remember which show I heard it on but

Gov. Ed Rendell said there should be even deeper cuts in SS in his opinion!