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Posts Tagged ‘FREAK est links’







Some Links We Like

1. Why people hate economists (HT: Ian McKay)

2. The Planet Money crew holds a live literary event, “Money Greed and Power.”

3. Excellent article by Howard Beck on Jeremy Lin‘s improvement over past two years; also explains why Golden State cut him:

Unfortunately for the Warriors, they hardly had a chance to assess Lin’s off-season transformation. The N.B.A. lockout prevented them from working with him until camps opened in early December. He was on the court for maybe 90 minutes before the Warriors cut him in a move to clear payroll room to chase a free-agent center.




Some Links We Like: Economists in the News Edition

1. Allen Sanderson on numbers in the news.
2. Dan Ariely on how online dating is like drinking wine: “You could describe it, but it’s not a very useful description. But you know if you like it or don’t.”
3. Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers (friends of the blog) on their lives as the It Couple of Economics. My favorite line? Betsey talking about economics itself: “It’s not a profession that rewards modesty in any way.” One might consider this a print version of the Stevenson-Wolfers story we told in our “Economist’s Guide to Parenting” radio program




Some Links Worth Following

1. President Obama is reading The World America Made, which downplays the America-is-in-decline meme; meanwhile, Latin America pushes the America-is-in-decline meme.

2. Austan Goolsbee is on Twitter, and has lots to say. (This will surprise no one who read this.)

3. If you have a Godfather-obsessed kid, as I do, you may want to read The Godfather Effect. (Good WSJ review here.)

4. “Is economic repugnance closely related to biological disgust?” Yes, this is from our friend Al Roth. More here on disgust and food.









FREAK-est Links

1. Danny Kahneman‘s Thinking, Fast and Slow (read his blog Q&A here) named a Times book of the year. Congrats!
2. Is “big data” really ready for primetime?
3. An economist (Laurence Kotlikoff) is running for President. (Did he listen to this?) His books include The Coming Generational Storm and Spend ‘Til the End: Raising Your Living Standard in Today’s Economy and When You Retire
(HT: Peter Coy)
4. Active trading — of military products! — between countries at war. (Especially interesting in light of Iran’s blockade threat.) (HT: David Wigram)








FREAK-est Links

This week, does eating fish reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s? How to use Google to pick your baby’s name; the brains of psychopaths are structurally different; impatient people have lower credit scores, and an interactive chart of all the money in the world.



FREAK-est Links

This week, the debate continues on whether talent matters; does coffee lower the risk of cancer in women? Felix Salmon examines the rising costs of tuition; Groupon nearly bankrupts a London bakery; nice guys actually can finish first; why men of average height have more children, and the dawn of neuroeconomics.



FREAK-est Links

This week, the CIA uses social media to track our feelings; are you sure that’s honey you’re buying? More gruesome news from the organ black market; New study says we over-eat in order to social climb; Americans have fewer close friends than we used to; and the White House officially responds to petition demanding the truth about ET.



FREAK-est Links

This week, Annie Hall economics, charting Greek car sales against its interest rates, 40 percent of toddlers use smartphones or iPads, Levitt answers questions from Holy Cross students, and car makers respond to our growing waistlines.



FREAK-est Links

This week, Smith College Logic professors prank the whole campus; how much of the world’s energy use goes to the Internet? Maps showing the geographic prices of weed, and unbanked America; out of 7 billion, which number human are you? And, why are Japanese women paying to have their teeth messed up?



FREAK-est Links

100-year-old man the oldest person to complete a full-distance marathon. Subject-object-verb: Linguists think we used to talk like Yoda. What percent are you? Use the WSJ‘s new calculator. Made in China: when a misreading results in a size 1450 monster slipper. Households under-report credit card debt by one-third. Egypt’s “Facebook Revolutionary” is now advising Occupy Wall Street. Will the world . . .



FREAK-est Links

This week, a new study says materialism ruins marriages; Italian PM Berlusconi thinks drugged-up stock traders cause market volatility; a scientist says memory, not practice, matters for success; does impatience make us fat? Russia’s coming population crisis; and an $18 million sunken treasure.