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Betting on Peak Oil

…for inflation to be in 2005 dollars). The bet was designed in the spirit of the famous bet between Julian Simon and Paul Ehrlich, which the economist Simon won when…



Is France Due for Riots?

…I predict that the world will watch French cities light up in youth unrest in 2009, 2010 at the latest … 2011 for sure. I have been traveling to the…



The Estate Tax Stays

…with a very low exemption in 2011). President-elect Obama will quickly push to abolish the repeal and instead freeze the exemption at $7 million for a couple, with a marginal…



Let's Avoid Other New Deal Policy Blunders

…offset the recession. A significant part of the spending will not begin until 2010 and 2011 when most economists believe we will be into the next recovery. With unemployment rates…



The Debt Clock

In the spirit of its Big Mac Index, The Economist rolled out its Global Debt Clock, which features a running global-public-debt tally. It also provides specific data for different countries,…




Death and Taxes, Slightly Less Certain

…have passed along all $100 million to his or her heirs. But, with a scheduled resumption of the tax in 2011, such heirs would have surrendered more than $40 million…



Incentivized Altruism

…new policy “provides an incentive for individuals to agree to help each other.” The policy will be widely publicized and will take effect in January 2011. (HT: Marginal Revolution) [%comments]…



No Cannibalism Among the Donner Party?

…be published in the July issue of the journal American Antiquity. The archaeology team also is finishing a book manuscript for University of Oklahoma Press to be released in 2011….



Can LeBron James Learn From Karl Malone?

…too loaded with talent.? If LeBron won a championship in 2011 as a Laker, it wouldn’t be clear that he was the but-for cause.? I predict that he goes to…



The Communist Approach to Obesity

2011, and 70% of the workforces of the government,” says Zhang Yujing of the Beijing Federation of Trade Unions. “We want all state-owned enterprise workers to have restarted this routine…



Why Not? The NHL Tries Some Experimentation

…Martian-looking innovations. The players-who were, in an attention-getting wrinkle, mostly top junior stars eligible for the 2011 draft-road-tested everything from two-on-two overtime to shallower nets to having the second referee…



The Rational War on Fat

…efforts failed, but considerable evidence suggests that whatever success they’ve achieved has been conspicuously countered by a national waistband seemingly guided by the imperatives of Manifest Destiny. 68 percent of…



Communism and the Market

The Economist reports that the city of Shanghai has been auctioning car license plates. The average auction price has recently been $6,900, truly remarkable considering average family income in China,…




A Gym Where It Costs You to Skip a Workout

…in 2011. Currently, participants are fined $25 if they fail to follow the schedule in any given week, but Gym-Pact’s founders are still refining their model. “Zhang and [Geoff] Oberhofer…



How to Respond?

From: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@hotmail.com> Date: February 14, 2011 2:50:11 PM EST To: Subject: Free Book Hello, i live in brazil and i would like to receive the book Freakonomics at no cost….



The Real Cost of Unnecessary Breast Biopsies

2011 (my ultrasound was in 2005). Later in the article, the surgical cost is given: “Hospitals charge $5,000 to $6,000 for a needle biopsy, and double that for an open?[surgical]…






FREAK-est Links

…a fortune. Maybe. Someone actually yelled “Stop the Presses” in 2011. The real reason machines and the internet won’t replace secretaries. Space shuttle launch delay has a big price tag….



The Happiness Wars Continue

Photo: iStockphoto There’s a growing sentiment among economists that GDP is a poor measure of a country’s well-being. (See our recent podcast on the topic; also, the research of Joseph…




Volvo XC60: A New Green Machine? Not Exactly

2011, p. 5 of the optics supplement). The article touted laser-based “green technologies,” including their use in reducing carbon-dioxide emissions: Volvo’s Johnny Larson says it is possible to shave a…




How to Best Incentivize Organ Donations?

…About 7,000 people who could benefit from an organ transplant will die in 2011. Most of those who will die are patients on the transplant wait list. The patients who…



How Is This Economic Recovery Unlike the Rest?

Photo: Saad.Akhtar A recent study by a team of economists at Northeastern University’s Center for Labor Market Studies argues that the current economic recovery is the worst since World War…