I think a lot of us can empathize with this theory. Motivation increases as a tangible milestone is in the near term and if nothing is within a reachable distan

I think a lot of us can empathize with this theory. Motivation increases as a tangible milestone is in the near term and if nothing is within a reachable distance it becomes increasingly difficult to start down the path. It's similar in concept to all of the problems people have completing a project because the end goal is no where in sight. The interesting part is how you use this theory to help the impoverished. Can you just throw specific vouchers at the situation to alleviate some of the problems, as the end of the article suggests? I don't think this is feasible - it moderately resembles the Gulf coast debacle right now. Sure you can stop some of the problems, but rarely does it solve everything. The book sounds interesting, but all the reviews state that the author lacks data to back up his intuitive claims. I'd love it if he could provide some hard evidence to the theory, though I bet the most intuitive social claims often are hard to prove scientifically.