Freakonomics

10 Things I learned from Freakonomics by Steven Levitt & Stephen Dubner

1. School teachers and Sumo wrestlers both cheat to get ahead but those that cheat are very much in the minority. Teachers will fix their students’ standardized tests (yes, the actual test) and sumo wrestlers will rig their matches to stay in the elite group of wrestlers. In an age of No Child Left Behind and ‘high stakes’ testing teachers have never felt more pressure to produce a certain outcome. The cheaters in the study were for the most part inexperienced and young and less qualified. Because of the change in 1996 of introducing ‘high stakes’ testing there was a profound increase in cheating. I won’t go into the sumo wrestlers but what the authors lay out for the readers is very compelling. I was drawn more to the educator storyline for obvious reasons.
2. Anyone is capable of cheating; some people just have a higher price than others.
3. Real estate agents have their own interest at heart. They leave their own homes on the market an average of ten days longer than if they were selling your home and make an additional 3% on their sale. It’s not worth that extra ten days if they only receive another hundred dollars or so. Next time we sell a home that will play a factor for me. Does this agent have my best interest or his?
4. A). The KKK headquarters were right here in Atlanta yet I cannot find one museum to visit celebrating the Klan. B). President Warren G. Harding was a Klan member during his presidency!
5. Drug dealers have a similar organization structure as McDonalds. Only the ones at the top really make the cash. The top 2.2% takes home more than half of the revenue (at least in the study listed of the Black Disciples). The problem is that the chance of being killed was 1 in 4 during a four year period of the same gang. The chance of being killed as a timber cutter is only 1 in 200 (considered the most dangerous job in America).
6. From the time Roe v. Wade was handed down by the Supreme Court until 2004 there were roughly 37,000,000 legal abortions performed!
7. There is no data that concludes that watching a great amount of TV as a child affects their scholastic achievement. So I’m going home to watch TV for the next 3 days straight.
8. The twenty white boy names that best signify low-education parents are as follows: Ricky, Joey, Jessie, Jimmy, Billy, Bobby, Johnny, Larry, Edgar, Edgar, Steve, Tommy, Tony, Michael, Ronnie, Randy, Jerry, Tylor, Terry, Danny, and Harley. These range from 11.55 years to 12.22 years of mother’s education.
9. The twenty white girl names that best signify low-education parents are as follows: Angel, Heaven, Misty, Destiny, Brenda, Tabitha, Bobbie, Brandy, Destinee, Cindy, Jazmine, Shyanne, Britany, Mercedes, Tiffanie, Ashly, Tonya, Crystal, Brandie, and Brandi. That list just makes me giggle. These range from 11.38 years to 12.17 years of mother’s education.
10. The “Jasmines” in ascending order of maternal education: Jazmine, Jazmyne, Jazzmin, Jazzmine, Jasmyne, Jasmina, Jazmyn, Jasmine, Jasmin, and Jasmyn. These range from 11.94 years to 13.23 years of education.