Happy Election Day, everyone! Please don’t read this before you vote.
And then don’t read this either. It’s a paper by Lauren Cohen and Christopher Malloy, both of Harvard Business School, and it’s called “Friends in High Places.”
A recent interview with the Rolling Stones reveals some of their business and wealth-protection strategies. “The whole business thing is predicated a lot on the tax laws,” said Keith Richards. “It’s why we rehearse in Canada and not in the U.S. A lot of our astute moves have been basically keeping up with tax laws, where to go, where not to put it. Whether to sit on it or not. We left England because we’d be paying 98 cents on the dollar. [This may sound like an exaggeration, but likely isn’t.] We left, and they lost out. No taxes at all. I don’t want to screw anybody out of anything, least of all the governments that I work with. We put 30% in holding until we sort it out.”
The N.F.L. is very good at making money. So why on earth doesn’t it sell ad space on the one piece of real estate that football fans can’t help but see: the players themselves? The explanation is trickier than you might think. It has to do with Peyton Manning, with Eli Manning, and with…wait for it…Tevye.
We recently solicited your questions for John Brenkus, author of The Perfection Point, a book about the limits of athletic achievements. Read on for Brenkus’s thoughts on those special swimsuits at the Beijing Olympics and the most surprising perfection point he encountered in his research. Thanks to everyone, especially John, for participating.
This is not the first time we’ve seen such call-and-response advertising from India. I am guessing this practice exists in the U.S., especially on the local-advertising front, but it is probably rarer.
I have heard a lot of reasons for planes being delayed, but this was a new one. My Delta flight out of JFK was just about to push back from the gate when the captain made an announcement. He explained that there is a wheelchair on board every flight, and the one on this plane had had a malfunction – the handle broke, he said – which made it unusable. It didn’t seem to matter that no passengers on the flight had needed a wheelchair to board: the plane couldn’t take off, he said, until a replacement was brought on board.
This year’s midterm elections promise to be a bit more eventful than usual, with predictions of seismic change in Congress and in many statehouses, most of it in a blue-to-red direction. But predictions aren’t elections; and even if the predictions hold true, what happens next?
While the New York Yankees’ 2010 season came to a disappointing close, it would still appear inevitable that the team will want to re-sign Derek Jeter, their franchise shortstop. But it appears just as inevitable that his on-field performance isn’t worth nearly as much as he will likely want to be paid.
We are pleased to announce the publication of a new book: SuperFreakonomics: The Illustrated Edition. It’s a large-format book built around the original text of SuperFreakonomics, with hundreds of new visual elements and quite a bit of new text as well.
Government and the private sector often feel far apart. One is filled with compliance-driven bureaucracy. The other, with market-fueled innovation. But something is changing in a multi-billion-dollar corner of the Department of Education. It’s an experiment, which takes cues from the likes of Google and millionaires who hope to go to the moon.
Last week, we solicited your questions for Matthew Kahn, the author of Climatopolis: How Our Cities Will Thrive in the Hotter Future. His answers, covering everything from water scarcity to Moscow’s recent heat wave, are below. A big thanks to Matt – and to everyone who participated.
Consider the ingredients: a frail economy, a toxic political environment, looming hard deadlines and massive uncertainty in the business community – the perfect circumstances under which to write some great federal tax policy!
But tax-code writing will be done – on the expiring Bush-era tax cuts, the estate tax, the Alternative Minimum Tax, capital-gains taxes and more.
Every year, athletes break records and accomplish physical feats previously thought impossible. But is there a way to know the upper bound of such accomplishments?
The recent financial crisis clearly had many contributing villains. But if you’re looking to sue someone to recover losses, Nassim Nicholas Taleb maintains, the choice is clear: the Swedish Central Bank, which awards the Nobel Prize in Economics,
There are plenty of dire predictions about what will happen to our cities if the worst predictions about global warming were to come true: flooding, droughts, famine, chaos and massive death. But Matthew Kahn, an economist at UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, sees a different future. He tells that story in his new book Climatopolis: How Our Cities Will Thrive in the Hotter Future.
It was a pretty good baseball season — especially if you’re a fan of the Yankees, Rays, Twins, Rangers, Reds, Braves, Phillies, or Giants, all of whom made the playoffs. But the post-season just opened with a telling event, a no-hitter pitched by the Phillies’ Roy Halladay, which shows what’s been missing all season: runs.
Last week, we solicited your questions for Steven Johnson, the author of Where Do Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation. Your questions were very good, as are his answers, which you’ll find below. (My favorite excerpt: “Governments are teeming with information that’s useful to our lives: information about services they offer, and information that they collect about society at large. But these public institutions are generally terrible at coming up with innovative ways of sharing that information and making it more relevant to people.”)
Reusable grocery bags may be unsanitary but at least they’re quiet. The same cannot be said for Frito Lay’s new environmentally friendly SunChips bag. The bag is so noisy that the company, after lots of consumer backlash (including Facebook campaigns), is ditching the effort.
Back in February, we started a podcast. It was generally well-received, but there were a lot of complaints, mainly about its frequency. Now, what began as a lark has become a real thing, thanks to New York Public Radio, American Public Media, and The New York Times.
Very interesting essay by James Collins in the New York Times Book Review about forgetting what you read.
What kinds of environments and societies give rise to good ideas? Author Steven Johnson takes your questions.
A Superior Court justice gutted the federal prostitution law in Ontario on Tuesday. This means that prostitution might become decriminalized throughout Canada, although it might not.
The next chapter in the adventures of Dubner and Levitt has begun. Listen to a preview of what’s to come for the fall season of Freakonomics Radio.
Last week, we solicited your questions for the actor and director Adrian Grenier, whose new documentary film, Teenage Paparazzo, just made its HBO debut. His answers touch on everything from paparazzi methods to the role of the consumer in media culture. Thanks to all, especially Adrian, for playing along.
One example was real-estate transactions. The more a customer can learn via the Internet about, say, a property for sale and similar properties, the less likely she is to make bad decisions. That said, there is still a lot of room for improvement. A reader named Sam Bauch describes his encounter with one particular area of information asymmetry in real-estate, and what he’s doing to stop it.
A reader named Linda Cass asks an interesting question that pokes into the self-interest/fairness/altruism area we’ve been writing about lately: Why do 99% of people dim their headlights for oncoming vehicles?
As security guru Bruce Schneier writes, “the arms race continues.” I do wonder if, when, or how there will be a computer users’ revolt against tracking tools like this one.
Here are two interesting items.
In Washington, D.C., this morning, the New America Foundation (in partnership with Arizona State University and Slate) is holding a “Future Tense Event” called “Geoengineering: The Horrifying Idea Whose Time Has Come?”
Steve Levitt likes to preach that experimentation should not be limited to scientists and other researchers; firms and other institutions stand to benefit from it a great deal, and yet often don’t engage. But here, from the Canadian magazine Macleans, is one institution that’s giving it a shot: the National Hockey League.
You want to listen to Freakonomics Radio? That’s great! Most people use a podcast app on their smartphone. It’s free (with the purchase of a phone, of course). Looking for more guidance? We’ve got you covered.
Stay up-to-date on all our shows. We promise no spam.
