As my wife says, "Men

As my wife says, "Men are easily distracted."

The Economist reports on research by Margo Wilson and Martin Daly at McMaster University in Canada suggesting that the extent to which men discount future income compared to current income can be manipulated by showing them pictures of pretty women: "Hey, big spender. Men lose their fiscal prudence in the presence of attractive women".

"YOU already knew it, but now science has confirmed it: a glimpse of a beautiful woman can change the way a man thinks. Change him, in this case, from the kind of chap who prefers $100 a year hence to $25 tomorrow, into one who simply cannot wait the extra 364 days.

Economists and psychologists have been exploring the notion of discounting the future for some time now. For most people, money today is worth more than the same amount in the future. But how about twice that in a few weeks' time? Or three times as much in a half year? It is already well-known that men discount the future more steeply than women and that certain types of people�addicts, for instance�discount more steeply than others. But it has mostly been taken for granted that the way a person discounts is a stable personality trait, and an arbitrary one....