Sudhir Venkatesh wondered recently on this blog why the Wall Street meltdown hadn’t set off a wave of rioting in the streets. But riots may not be so far off, if the continuing unrest in Greece is any indication. (Take a look at a compelling set of photos from the always-compelling Big Picture blog.) In The Atlantic, meanwhile, Robert Kaplan . . .
I’m not a big fan of focus groups (when it comes to businesses figuring out what customers want) for a number of reasons. First, they are unnatural settings with a very high degree of scrutiny, which may distort how people respond. Second, it seems likely that people will tend to say what they think others expect them to say, or . . .
If things keep going as they are, Billboard is going to have to start a new Hot 100 chart just for songs about the Great Recession. Earlier we posted a music video of “Fannie Mae Eat Freddie Mac and Cheese.” Here now are two more recession blues: “Credit River,” by Constantines: Constantines – Credit River And “Everybody’s Getting Bailed Out . . .
My wife announced yesterday that she is “traveled out.” I’m not surprised — I am too: Since mid-August we’ve taken trips (mostly long weekends) to Istanbul, Munich, French Switzerland, northeast Italy, Amsterdam, Dublin, London, Barcelona, and, starting tomorrow, Paris plus London again.
Freakonomics reader Presh Talwalkar, author of the Mind Your Decisions blog, wonders why there’s no holiday-gift guide for economists: I see many practical applications to such a list. It could help students give gifts to professors, businesses give gifts to hired economists, etc. Perhaps this list would reduce the “deadweight loss” of Christmas gifts. The problem, of course, is that . . .
In the wake of a crackdown on black-market alcohol in Indonesia, the country’s sole legal alcohol importer is suddenly faced with meeting demand four times higher than what the government’s import quotas allow. The resulting crunch has led to chronic alcohol shortages and skyrocketing prices across the country, the BBC reports. Alcohol consumption is generally frowned upon in Indonesia — . . .
At around 231 million percent, Zimbabwe’s hyperinflation (which we’ve written about before) is currently the highest in the world. Blog reader Ben Saltsman sent us this photo of a restroom sign in South Africa, which hints at one use for Zimbabwe’s severely devalued currency: Photo: Eugine Baron But is it cost-effective for Zimbabweans to use money instead of T.P.? A . . .
We’ve been following James Altucher‘s continuing social experiment around the idea of ad-agency disintermediation — JungleSmash, a cash contest where people compete to make the best commercial for a product of James’s choosing. The submissions are in for the latest product: Monster Energy Drinks. It’s a little graphic, but “Garage Can-Opener Massacre” is definitely worth a watch — as are . . .
New research finds that credit-card holders pay down their debts more slowly when their statements suggest a minimum monthly installment. The Economist reports on the study, by University of Warwick psychologist Dr. Neil Stewart: Mr. Stewart presented 413 people with mock credit-card bills of ?435.76 (about $650) that were identical — except that only half mentioned a minimum payment of . . .
Which cars do thieves prefer these days? (HT: Raj Haas) A personal savings website uses the nosy-friends-and-family incentive. (Earlier) From the Department of Oops: mistakenly using a brothel ad as your magazine cover. (Earlier) How is buying a plane ticket like getting a seat at a baseball game? (HT: Patrick McGrady)
The author and Financial Times columnist Tim Harford is the presenter of the BBC podcast More or Less, a 25-minute program about numbers and statistics. Based on the following list of recent topics, it would seem to be of interest to Freakonomics readers: Nassim Taleb and Paul Wilmott on a simple conceptual error that contributed to the credit crunch; the . . .
If Barack Obama‘s inaugural address could be just six words long, how would it read? Back in February, we ran a contest asking for a new six-word motto for the U.S. (The winner: “Our worst critics prefer to stay.”) We were riffing off of a then-new book, Not Quite What I Was Planning, which contained six-word memoirs by people from . . .
Some of us saw it as a sign of the times when Metacritic suddenly stopped compiling book reviews. For those of you unfamiliar with the site, Metacritic carries aggregate review scores for video games, TV shows, movies, and music. For a time, it was also a cheat sheet to literary taste-making. Then in 2007, CNET, Metacritic’s parent company, killed the . . .
The Book Design Review has released its picks for the best-designed book covers of 2008. We’re a little disappointed not to see any economics books on the list. In the category of excellent cover design for an economics book, we’d like to nominate Robert Shiller‘s The Subprime Solution, Michael Heller‘s The Gridlock Economy, and Loretta Napoleoni‘s Rogue Economics. Any other . . .
There’s a scarcity of Obamas in the U.S. (HT: Going Like Sixty) Does having a weird name make you more likely to play football for L.S.U.? (HT: Nathan M. Gaudet) (Earlier) If you still didn’t get a flu shot, take a look at some vaccine economics. In election predictions, the bettors beat the pundits. (Earlier)
About 140 million people in the U.S. will attend a major-league sporting event this year, according to this NPR article. But as the same article says, museums will draw about 850 million attendees this year. So why do more people make trips to museums than to sports games? Well, they are obviously cheaper, and more abundant, but it may also . . .
It looks like David Gregory has been selected by NBC to replace the late Tim Russert as host of Meet the Press. I predict he will flourish. Why? I don’t know much about his talent, since I’ve rarely seen him on TV. My prediction is based on the fact that he is, by my reckoning, approximately 17 feet tall. He . . .
We blogged a while back about how human capital can shift from one industry to others, especially when there’s a major shock to the economy or to social mores. Here’s another interesting take on human capital, provided by the actor Jeffrey Wright in a brief New York magazine profile: Wright, a precise and logical conversationalist, doesn’t just vaguely sympathize with . . .
Everyone seems to have advice for President-elect Obama these days: physicists, economists, Willie Nelson — even Freakonomics commenters are getting in on the act. Why are we always so eager to advise new presidents? Rarely do new congressmen, major league sports coaches, and corporate executives generate the same flood of unsolicited advice. So why are we so eager to share . . .
What was Paul Krugman thinking when he met President Bush last week? Here’s a list of over 300 photo captions from readers of this blog, and another couple hundred from Marginal Revolution here (with others here and Tyler Cowen‘s favorites here). Krugman, who graciously agreed to judge our Freako-versus-MR caption-that-photo contest, has spoken: Actually, I think it’s a tie — . . .
Photo: cobalt123 According to this collection of turkey statistics, “more than 45 million turkeys are cooked and eaten in the U.S. at Thanksgiving.” In a country of some 300 million people, that’s one whole turkey for every 6.67 people. According to this report, the average Thanksgiving gathering has about 11 people. So that’s nearly two whole turkeys on every single . . .
I’m wondering if any blog readers can explain something to me. Back in the old days, banks didn’t package and resell the mortgages they wrote. So when a homeowner got into trouble, they could go down and talk with the bank about working out some solution other than foreclosure. For instance, the bank could allow the borrower to pay back . . .
I love my TiVo. And like a good economist, I’ve been trying to quantify this love. Here’s what I came up with. I watch about six hours of television programming per week. The miracle of the “30-second skip” button means that I haven’t watched an advertisement in years. Consequently, six hours of programming only takes me four hours to watch, . . .
This piece from Tom Ricks, the military correspondent at the Washington Post, has some excellent stories about creative anti-terrorist strategies used by the British to fight the I.R.A., including a laundromat where they run the clothes through a machine that tests for bomb residue before they dry clean the clothes. To pin down where the bomb makers live, they mail . . .
Mercedes-Benz plant in Tuscaloosa, Ala. (Photo: Gary Tramontina/The New York Times) My University of Chicago colleagues Josh Rauh and Luigi Zingales have written an insightful essay on G.M.’s plight and what the government should do about it. They, like virtually all economists, think the auto industry bailout under consideration is not the right solution. They believe the best option is . . .
This is the time of year when we like to announce that if you are planning to give a copy of Freakonomics as a holiday gift, whether via Amazon.com, at a Barnes & Noble, or from a street vendor in India, we will send you a free autographed bookplate to stick in that book for your extra-special someone. Just follow . . .
According to a new study, a statewide workplace smoking ban in Massachusetts may be responsible for a steep drop in heart-attack deaths since 2004. The Massachusetts Department of Public Health, which produced the study, says the biggest health gains came among those people the ban saved from regular exposure to second-hand smoke. The rate of heart-disease-related deaths has been cut . . .
Somali pirate town Boosaaso. (Photo: Jehad Nga/The New York Times) Who’s making money from the piracy that’s flourishing off the coast of Somalia? The pirates themselves seem to be raking it in. As the Guardian reports, pirates have made about $30 million from ransom payments this year, according to U.N. estimates; and they are demanding $25 million for the return . . .
Since last Wednesday, the torrent of junk e-mail coursing through the internet has been slowed dramatically, with 40 percent or more of it cut off at the source. The source of all that spam? San Jose, California. That’s where a group of servers responsible for much of the world’s spam had been operating until they were severed from the internet . . .
Blog reader Nick Turner sent along this photo of a Body Shop ad in San Francisco: Photo: Nick Turner He was surprised that the ad guarantees fair-labor conditions for workers in Italy: I thought fair-trade protections were for third-world workers. I wonder how the Italians feel about this designation. The ad didn’t outright call Italy third-world; but if it had, . . .
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