College, at its best, is about learning to think. Stephen Dubner chats up three of his former professors who made the magic happen.
From a friend, who got them from a friend, who got them from someone else, here’s a collection of newspaper headlines that don’t quite accomplish what the writer set out to accomplish. Anyone who has ever written or published anything can surely sympathize — and laugh.
A very interesting response to our recent podcast “I Consult, Therefore I Am,” from a consultant who blogs here.
Thanks for the podcast. Six years in management consulting, and a tremendous amount of what you said is true. A few additional hypotheses on the rise of management consulting:
1) The massive turnover of executives (CMOs average less than 2 years) creates a type of rotating vacuum on the leadership team. Someone is either leaving, or just arrived.
2) CXO are running out of time to think. Drucker said that executives should have 1/2 of their time to think through problems. That is certainly not the case with reporting requirements (SOX), end-of-quarter sales push, conference calls all day long that stretch from India to California.
3) Executive have become a bit lazy. They seek “benchmarking” and “best practices” as a surrogate for real strategy (know what activities to NOT do).
4) Consulting costs have become a fixed cost (like audit, or advertising). For the budgeting cycle, it is copy/paste to the next fiscal year x 103 percent to adjust for inflation.
I am of course biased by my respect for Sudhir Venkatesh and his pathbreaking approach to sociology (even more here), but this Times article about him feels more like an oppo dump than reportage. Venkatesh is a low-key guy so I don’t envision him squawking back at the Times but he did respond here.
(HT: @ChrisLHayes)
I saw Argo the other night (yes yes, very good, and kudos to all involved). But then I watched this TV ad – for a newspaper, of all things!, the Guardian – and I think it may end up being more memorable than the film.
Anyone agree?
The ad, made by Bartle Bogle Hegarty, has been duly recognized.
Kenneth Chang, writing in the N.Y. Times about recent findings from the planet Mercury:
Mercury is as cold as ice.
Indeed, Mercury, the closest planet to the Sun, possesses a lot of ice — 100 billion to 1 trillion tons — scientists working with NASA’s Messenger spacecraft reported on Thursday.
Sean C. Solomon, the principal investigator for Messenger, said there was enough ice there to encase Washington, D.C., in a frozen block two and a half miles deep.
My first thought: encase Washington in miles-deep ice? — let’s do it!
Our latest Freakonomics Radio on Marketplace podcast is called “Free-conomics.” (You can download/subscribe at iTunes, get the RSS feed, listen via the media player above, or read the transcript below.)
The gist: economists are a notoriously self-interested bunch, but a British outfit called Pro Bono Economics is giving away its services to selected charities. Martin Brookes is one of its founders:
BROOKES: When we first set up Pro Bono Economics, there were some economists who thought it was wrong, in principle, to give a service to charity for free. That if the service of analysis of their data was valuable, they should have to pay for it.
If the supply side was reluctant, so was the demand side:
Economists are a notoriously self-interested bunch. But a British outfit called Pro Bono Economics is giving away its services to selected charities.
We recently solicited your questions for Peter D. Feaver, Sue Wasiolek, and Anne Crossman, the authors of Getting the Best Out of College. Your questions ran the gamut and so do their replies. Thanks to all for participating. And feel free to check out our podcast on the value of a college education, “Freakonomics Goes to College” (Part 1 here, Part 2 here, and together as an hour-long special).
Q. Michael Pollan summed up his philosophy of nutrition in seven words: “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.” Do you have similarly pithy advice for students trying to maximize their college experience? Don’t feel limited to seven words – I’m just looking for something aphoristic. –Glen Davis
A. Your choices in college matter more than your choices of college, so choose wisely.
Absolutely fascinating article in the Wall Street Journal, by Charles Levinson and Adam Entous, about Israel’s “Iron Dome” missile-defense shield. Nothing I can excerpt here will do justice to the article; it reads like a cross between an HBR case study and a Tom Clancy novel. Perhaps not so surprising from a startup nation. Meanwhile, there are unintended consequences of having built such strong aerial defense; see this one in particular.
InTrade, the Dublin-based prediction market (i.e., betting platform) that we’ve written about regularly over the years (including a Q&A with its founder, John Delaney, who has since died), is under legal scrutiny from U.S. regulators and will therefore stop taking bets from U.S. customers. Here is InTrade’s statement, and here is the CFTC’s press release on the shutdown. What will U.S. regulators do next, outlaw online poker?
There are enough management consultants these days to form a small nation. But what do they actually do? And does it work?
Hi everyone. We’re working on a Freakonomics Radio episode about — sorry, I’m going to be cryptic here — a person who expected to get/use something for free but was very surprised to learn that it wasn’t free after all.
I am looking for another good/fun example of this same idea. Do you have any? Ideally, it would be something that happened to you personally but it’s okay if you only read or heard about it, as long as we can verify it and maybe interview someone involved.
Thanks in advance.
Fourth-graders in Declo, Idaho, faced an unusual incentive scheme for reading: if they didn’t complete their work they could either forgo recess or have others kids draw on their face with marker. Several kids chose the latter punishment and, as you can imagine, this didn’t go over so well. It should be noted that the teacher had let the students choose these rules. From the Times-News:
When Cindy Hurst’s 10-year-old son arrived home from school Nov. 5, his entire face, hairline to chin, was scribbled on in red marker — including his eyelids. He also had green, red and purple scribble marks over the red, and his face was scratched by a marker that had a rough edge.
“He was humiliated, he hung his head and wanted to go wash his face,” said Hurst. “He knows he’s a slow reader. Now he thinks he should be punished for it.” …
As more and more schools look for better ways to motivate students, I am guessing this tactic won’t gain a lot of traction.
(HT: C.P.)
From a reader named Kyle Gregory:
I decided about a year ago that I am not going to vote and happened to find a neat little trick for those of us who take this stance.
I’m not sure about other states, but in Virginia, jury duty is determined by voter registration. I moved a couple of years ago, but never changed my voter registration since I didn’t plan on voting. I recently received notification of jury duty at my parents’ address where I am still registered to vote. The notification form has a section to fill out stating that you have not lived in that county in the past 6 months, which automatically disqualifies you from jury duty! So, as long as I do not want to vote, I am also exempt from having to do jury duty!
Seen at a Starbucks in Westchester County:
New York City’s subways and buses carry roughly seven million passengers a day, which goes a long way toward explaining why New Yorkers have one of the smallest carbon footprints in the U.S. Doesn’t that mean that mass transit is inevitably good for the environment?
Yes, no, and sometimes.
Our latest Freakonomics Radio on Marketplace podcast is called “Mass Transit Hysteria.” (You can download/subscribe at iTunes, get the RSS feed, listen via the media player in the post, or read the transcript below.)
Adding more train and bus lines looks like an environmental slam dunk. Until you start to do the math.
We recently released our third set of hour-long Freakonomics Radio programs to NPR stations across the country. If you regularly listen to our podcast, there isn’t much new to hear but if you prefer to take in your radio program via the actual radio, now is your chance. Check your local station for listings. If you’re in the New York area, you can hear Freakonomics Radio on our flagship station, WNYC, for the next five weeks at the following times:
The other day, Levitt and I participated in a brainstorming session on how to fight childhood obesity, sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. (FWIW, we recorded the event and will try to turn it into a podcast.)
One topic that got a lot of traction was a targeted tax on sugary drinks and fatty foods. (This is often called a “fat tax” but should not be confused with a tax on overweight people.) Many people in the session were in favor of the idea but a few were skeptical, primarily because such a tax will be tricky to implement well. One objection that I was surprised no one raised: the simple fact that taxpayers might hate the tax and rebel against it to the point where it becomes politically and economically impossible.
In support of the idea, one person reminded us that Denmark recently instituted a “fat tax” on foods containing more than 2.3 percent of saturated fat.
We recently put out a two-part podcast called “Freakonomics Goes to College” (Part 1 here, Part 2 here, and together as an hour-long special). The main question we tried to answer was if, and on what dimensions, a college education is “worth it” — i.e., whether the returns to education are as robust as we’ve been led to think. (Short answer: yes.) Along the way, we talked to economists including David Card, Betsey Stevenson, and Justin Wolfers, and poked into the market for counterfeit degrees.
But let’s say you’re interested in the question from a practical, rather than a theoretical, perspective. That is, let’s say you’re an actual college student, or related to one, already deep in the throes of higher education, and that your primary question is: Okay, now what? Now that I’m here, what do I do to get the very most out of this expensive, time-consuming endeavor?
Glad you asked. Peter D. Feaver, Sue Wasiolek, and Anne Crossman are the authors of Getting the Best Out of College: Insider Advice for Success From a Professor, a Dean, and a Recent Grad, and they have agreed to field questions from Freakonomics readers.
From the inbox:
Gentlemen:
I am a big fan — one who especially appreciates your willingness to (perhaps enjoyment in?) exploring solutions that many would consider repugnant. In that spirit, I would love to get your thoughts on a seemingly unconscionable idea that I recently became aware of.
Every year the U.S. euthanizes approximately 3 to 4 million companion animals (mostly dogs and cats). To put it bluntly, what do you think about using these carcasses as a meat source? We expend enormous resources — land, money, and energy — in producing animal feed and ultimately meat. Given this expense, as well as the world’s need for protein sources, I’d love for you to weigh in on this rather repugnant idea.
Our recent podcast “The Cobra Effect” continues to draw listener/reader mail, with further examples of bounties-gone-wrong. This one, from Dan Banks in Indiana, may be my favorite:
How about a failed bounty on houseflies?I run a group home for criminal youth. They are generally manipulative and not too smart. We have a “point” system where they do work to earn points that they can spend on various tangibles and intangibles. It’s a great system as we print all the “currency” we want and exchange it for labor.
One summer we seemed to always have houseflies in the home. A frustrated staff offered 5 points for every fly carcass that was brought in and handed out flyswatters to the kids.
Yes, it could all go up in smoke — legal challenges, including from the Federal government, and all that — but among the interesting developments from last night’s election (do yourself a favor and look at this map) is the news that Colorado and Washington voters chose to legalize marijuana. Here’s how the issue was phrased on the Colorado ballot:
Shall there be an amendment to the Colorado constitution concerning marijuana, and, in connection therewith, providing for the regulation of marijuana; permitting a person twenty-one years of age or older to consume or possess limited amounts of marijuana; providing for the licensing of cultivation facilities, product manufacturing facilities, testing facilities, and retail stores; permitting local governments to regulate or prohibit such facilities; requiring the general assembly to enact an excise tax to be levied upon wholesale sales of marijuana; requiring that the first $40 million in revenue raised annually by such tax be credited to the public school capital construction assistance fund; and requiring the general assembly to enact legislation governing the cultivation, processing, and sale of industrial hemp?
Very interesting backgrounder on Stephen Salter, the British scientist who, in the course of trying to turn ocean waves into electric power, discovered a potential way to prevent, or at least limit, the impact of hurricanes:
Devastating tropical storms of the kind that battered the U.S. last week could be weakened and rendered less deadly using a simple and cheap technology based on a surprising component – old car tyres.
One of Britain’s leading marine engineers, Stephen Salter, emeritus professor of engineering design at Edinburgh university and a global pioneer of wave power research, has patented with Microsoft billionaires Bill Gates and Nathan Myhrvold the idea of using thousands of tyres lashed together to support giant plastic tubes which extend 100m deep into the ocean.
Wave action on the ocean surface would force warm surface water down into the deeper ocean. If non-return valves were used, he says, the result would be to mix the waters and cool the surface temperature of the ocean to under 26.5C, the critical temperature at which hurricanes form.
This is the same hurricane-prevention invention we discussed in a brief Freakonomics Radio segment and in greater depth in SuperFreakonomics
Today is the last day to vote for Freakonomics Radio in the 2012 Stitcher Awards. Freakonomics is running in the “Most Original Journalism” category. The price of a vote is a Facebook “like” for Stitcher. And yes, we appreciate the irony of asking for your vote in a season when we’ve been talking about the worthlessness of voting.
Turkey sex and chicken wings, selling souls and swapping organs, the power of the president and the price of wine: these are a few of our favorite things
Our recent podcast “The Cobra Effect” explored the unintended consequences of bounty programs. The episode was inspired by a visit to South Africa not long ago, where I was told about a rat problem in the Johannesburg township of Alexandra. For whatever reason, that story didn’t make the episode. But now the Guardian comes to the rescue, reporting on Alex’s efforts to fight off the rats by offering a cellphone for every 60 rats caught:
[C]ity officials have distributed cages and the mobile phone company 8ta has sponsored the volunteer ratcatchers.
Resident Joseph Mothapo says he has won two phones and plans to get one for each member of his family. “It’s easy,” he told South Africa’s Mail & Guardian newspaper, wielding a large cage containing rats. “You put your leftover food inside and the rats climb in, getting caught as the trap door closes.”
But there were signs that the P.R. stunt could backfire, as animals rights activists criticised the initiative on social networks.
Will this lead to rat farming or other shenanigans? The Guardian reports that owls have also been distributed to help hunt down the rats.
(HT: Joe Sternberg)
Is it as simple as going to the richest neighborhood you can find? Of course not …
A few weeks ago, we got an e-mail from a reader Vishal Dosanjh, who lives in St. Louis:
My daughter asked me this morning why the fancy neighborhoods are the best places to go trick-or-treating. It puzzled me for a moment and then realized it was an economic question. I gave her an answer about disposable income and societal expectations. Anyway I thought it might be up your alley, and I wonder if it’s even true. Do wealthy neighborhoods/people actually give out better candy? She’s 8 by the way.
We set out to answer Vishal’s question in our latest Freakonomics Radio on Marketplace podcast.
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