The playwright David Mamet, writing in the Village Voice, declared that he had renounced his unabashed liberal world view for a more conservative one, due primarily to the influence of economists like Milton Friedman and Thomas Sowell. Mamet found: … that I agreed with them: a free-market understanding of the world meshes more perfectly with my experience than that idealistic . . .
We’ve blogged fairly regularly about prediction markets, so the next step would seem pretty logical: make our own. Enter the folks at Predictify (see the latest news here), who have been kind enough to create the official Freakonomics Prediction Center. It can be found in the right-hand column of our home page. We’ll post questions and you’ll supply the predictions. . . .
Bill James If the name Bill James doesn’t mean anything to you, then you are probably not a baseball fan and have no need to read further. If, however, you are a baseball fan — ranging from fairly serious to obsessively statistical — then the name Bill James probably sets your brain and heart a-clattering. Here’s what his bio says: . . .
I recently whined about some of the historical inaccuracies in the HBO mini-series John Adams. If I had seen this list first — the Ten Most Historically Inaccurate Movies — I would have held my tongue. Here, according to Yahoo!’s list, are the ten worst offenders: 10,000 B.C., Gladiator, 300, The Last Samurai, Apocalypto, Memoirs of a Geisha, Braveheart, Elizabeth: . . .
Between 2004 and 2007, the spot price of uranium more than quadrupled, reaching more than $140 before falling off sharply in the past several months to less than $80. Why was there such a huge spike in price? One reason is because there’s been an increased demand from nuclear power plants around the world, as nuclear energy becomes more palatable . . .
Sudhir Venkatesh’s book Gang Leader for a Day has been optioned for a film to be directed by Craig Brewer, who wrote and directed Hustle & Flow. Who should play Sudhir? And J.T., and Ms. Bailey?
With this third and final post, we wrap up our day of divorce. Find our other D-day contributors here and here. History shows that we Americans generally like to elect politicians who have a stable family life, or at the least the appearance of one: a spouse, perhaps a couple of children, etc. Among candidates running for national and statewide . . .
Here is the latest from our Indexed friend Jessica Hagy. Her past pieces can be found here, her own blog here, and her new book here. This piece is called “Impressions & Press”:
The black-white gap in U.S. education is an issue that continues to occupy the efforts of a great many scholars. Roland Fryer and Steve Levitt have poked at the issue repeatedly; a recent study by Spyros Konstantopoulos looked at class size as a possible culprit, to little avail. We gathered a group of people with wisdom and experience in this . . .
This week in reader e-mail brings a note from a 46-year-old man in Rockland County, N.Y., a director in a private company that outsources invoicing for telecommunications companies and newspapers. It turns out that he and I have something in common. Here is a tale of identity theft I am happy to report: Hello Stephen, My name is Steven Dubner. . . .
Last night, I watched the first two parts of HBO’s new seven-part series John Adams, based on the wonderful book by David McCullough. It was very, very good — as intricately crafted as any theatrical release and totally compelling. But I don’t think I’ll be watching the other five parts. Why? In part because Paul Giamatti just doesn’t work for . . .
Levitt had some advice last week for our friend Sudhir Venkatesh, who went on The Colbert Report to talk about his book, Gang Leader for a Day. Sudhir sure seemed to take the advice to heart, especially the smiling part. He did great, and Colbert was no slouch either. In case you missed it, here’s the clip, which might well . . .
… the new editor of this blog, Annika Mengisen. She comes to Freakonomics from TheStreet.com, where she was small-business editor and staff reporter. She studied journalism and fine arts at Rutgers; her current extracurriculars include boxing, small-scale theater, and serving as a rape-crisis counselor at New York-Presbyterian Hospital. Her name alone would seem to be fitting for this job. You . . .
Photo: Callista Gingrich, Gingrich Productions Last week, we solicited your questions for Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House whose latest book is “Real Change: From the World That Fails to the World That Works.” His answers, below, are comprehensive, measured, and often fascinating. I think this is easily one of the best Q&A’s we’ve had on this blog. . . .
This is a few months old, but still well worth a listen: an NPR interview with Lia Scholl of Star Light Ministries, an outfit in Springfield, Va., that counsels exotic dancers. Here, from Star Light’s Web site, is its mission statement: Most exotic dancers are young women who come from varied socio-economic backgrounds. Their education levels vary — some have . . .
James Hurman, a 30-year-old man from Auckland, N.Z., is selling his smoking habit to the highest bidder. (Apparently, he hasn’t run across StickK, or been offered a 0 percent interest bank account to quit.) Here’s what Hurman has to say for himself: I’ve smoked cigarettes for twelve years and I’ve tried all the usual ways to quit smoking. Now that . . .
Astute readers of this blog know that we have an abiding interest in the economics of prostitution. One of the people who will be featured in our next book is a high-end call girl who goes by the name of Allie. Without giving away much detail here, let me just say that Allie is a very bright and attractive blonde . . .
When Anders Ericsson and his colleagues in the “expert performance” movement — we’ve written about them before, and we’ll write about them again — try to explain what it is that makes someone very good at what he or she does, they focus on “deliberate practice.” This means that, your level of natural talent notwithstanding, excellence is accomplished mainly through . . .
Why are there so many fake memoirs in the world? The latest is Margaret Seltzer‘s Love and Consequences. (I would link to its Amazon page but, alas, it no longer has an Amazon page.) If you had written a memoir that was, say, 60 percent true, would you try to present it as a memoir or as a novel? If . . .
We’ve written in the past about the (presumed) worthlessness of book blurbs. But I just came across one blurb that I think might be an exception. The book in question is Why Blacks Fear “America’s Mayor”: Reporting Police Brutality and Black Activist Politics Under Rudy Giuliani. You may recall that this was the book Al Sharpton was reading on a . . .
In a recent post revealing the answer to our latest pop quiz, commenter “nemo” asked, “Do you have stats regarding the average [number] of comments per post versus the average number of comments per post that promises schwag?” Excellent question. Over the past few months, for typical posts (i.e., not including “FREAK-est Links” or other similar short posts), here is . . .
Photo: Callista Gingrich, Gingrich Productions Readers of a certain age may think of Newt Gingrich as a book critic, prolific author, and regular TV guest. But before that, he was one of the most powerful politicians in the land. A former history professor at West Georgia College, Gingrich was a long-serving congressman who, in 1994, masterminded the Contract with America, . . .
On Dan Hamermesh‘s always-interesting blog, I read the first sentence of a recent entry: My grandson will be 13 in 13 months. I had to read it three times to realize that this was not a clever way of saying that he had a brand new grandson. The “months” at the end of the sentence tied to the second “13,” . . .
Last week, we asked for your vote to decide the best of the top five entries to our “6-word motto for the U.S.” contest. As promised, we tallied the votes received in the first 48 hours after posting. There was a clear winner: Our Worst Critics Prefer to Stay (194 votes) Here are the runners-up: Caution! Experiment in Progress Since . . .
We posted a pop quiz yesterday asking you to guess the identity of a mustached man on a long flight who read and snoozed before departing in his cashmere coat. My hat is off to the wisdom of the crowds. Even with these very thin clues, and even though it took quite a while — it was the 315th guess, . . .
I sat next to someone fairly famous yesterday on a long flight. He wasn’t at all talkative. Also, I think he had a cold. He read for a while, snoozed for a while, and watched a DVD on his Macbook. Disembarking, he put on a long cashmere coat. He also had a mustache. Who was he? The first person to . . .
That was the question I found myself asking while reading through the Times sports section in recent days. I understand that we are sort of between seasons here. The Super Bowl is over, baseball has yet to begin, the N.B.A. is slogging through its long wintry slog, and the N.H.L. — well, I’m afraid I just don’t pay attention, as . . .
We ran a contest recently asking you to come up with a new six-word motto for the U.S. Your response was quite strong, with more than 1,200 replies to date. Anyone looking for a good snapshot of public sentiment during this most interesting election year would do well to scroll through the comments: they are pretty damn illuminating, and not . . .
Go and read this profile of the artist/author/songwriter Sandra Boynton. Not only is it nicely written (by Phyllis Korkki — great last name, BTW, with 50 percent Ks) but it is also a fascinating business story about how Boynton juggles and, more importantly, measures such variables as time, enjoyment, money, creative thrill, etc. The article is full of surprises — . . .
MySpace is to Facebook as Yahoo! is to ___________. The answer, according to Hitwise, is: Google. Just as Facebook users are higher on the socioeconomic ladder than MySpace users, people who use Google as their search engine are better off than those who use Yahoo!. Google is most popular among users defined as “Affluent Suburbia,” “Upscale America,” and “Small Town . . .
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