Freakonomics – Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner

Looks like Levitt’s work mostly. It’s amazing to see Economists using number to figure out some crazy things and connecting stuff like how legalising abortion drastically reduced crime rates. Explaining how they caught the teachers was mind-blowing. Basically people live by incentives so give the correct incentive and get the person to do what you want. Incentives coule be economic, social or moral. Incentives are usually needed to be told by ‘experts’ who have their own incentives.

Things it opened my awareness to:
– Teachers cheat with kids tests to get them to pass and sumo wrestlers lose to give each other favours.
– Doctors sometimes scare you into useless operations just to keep the income coming. Like it’s shown angioplasty does nothing to help the heart attack issue.
– Listerine started out at a surgical antiseptic. Then was distilled and sold as floor cleaner and a cure for gonorrhea. Then as a cure for chronic halitosis where they used the incentive of curing bad breath or not get married and adverts like such.
– How Superman destroyed the Ku Klux Klan and secret words real estate agents use to make a house look good or bad.
– The whole drug dealer story, why they live with moms. They make you see it as just another co-operation doing business and connect the rat races, rewards, risks and other r words.
– They destroy what all these so called ‘experts’ say and using their own calculations see what the real cause of the effect was.
– How people worry more about things they can control like forbidding their kids to play with another kid whose parents have guns at home but have no problem if they have a pool at home when pools caused more deaths than guns.
– Case studies of black vs. white kids, kids in demographics, kids names and how they connect to the kids success. In fact I’ll share that too.
Things that matter: 1 – Highly educated parents with high socioeconimic status. 2 – Mother older than 30 at the time of first child birth. 3 – Low birthweight. 4 – Parents speak english at home. 5 – Child is adopted. 6 – Parents involved in the PTA. 7 – Having many books at home.
– How names make a big difference and ghetto names are given to show dedication to their area, their people, etc. At the same time the same names that score high in success are not the same a decade later. Stuff like that. Oh and one guy called his first son Winner and last one Loser. Loser ended up a successful cop kinda dude while winner ended up a major convict.

Big up Viv for the hook up.

Contents:
– An Explanatory Note
– Introduction: The hidden Side of Everything

1. What Do Schoolteachers and Sumo Wrestlers Have In Common?
2. How Is The Ku Klux Klan Like a Group
3. Why Do Drug Dealers Still Live with Their Moms?
4. Where Have All the Criminal Gone?
5. What Makes the Perfect Parent?
6. Perfect Parenting, Part II; or; Would a Roshanda by Any Other Name Smell as Sweet?

– Epilogue: Two Paths to Harward
– Notes
– Acknowledgements
– Index