Economics is about strategic thinking, and the strategies can get very complicated. Suppose you kiss someone and ask whether the person liked it. You'd like the person to answer "yes" and you'd like that answer to be truthful. But they know that, and if they like you, they may well say that they liked the kiss even if they didn't. But you know that, and thus might not really believe that they liked the kiss; they're just saying "yes" because that's what you want to hear. But they know that you know that, so sometimes they have to convey a sense that they didn't like it, so that you will believe them when they say that they did like it. But you know that. . . You get the picture. Economists have studied such issues; you can find a discussion of similar issues on George Mason University Economist Tyler Cowen's Web site (www.gmu.edu/jhc/ Tyler). (Difficult)
a. Should you always be honest, even when it hurts someone?
b. What strategies can you figure out to avoid the problem of not believing the other person?