Rogue in Vogue - Freakonomics !

Freakonomics – A Rogue Economist: Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner

I like the ‘Rogue’ part……..has the right amount of irreverence and mockery to convention as is done by some of the other 21^st century lingo of ours:

All of which snook at the corporate straight-facedness.
It is also in keeping with the latest edition of:  

The book is also unconventional from the angle of teasing out answers for disparate but interesting curiosities……so the title of this could as well have been ‘Problem Solving Skills – applied to the questions you always had but never knew how to solve!’.

Steven is an Economist with an uncanny ability to solve these social issues from an Economist standpoint. Normally these questions can be debated in any which way one wants to using conventional wisdom. But in here, using a ‘treasure-hunt approach’ and analytical-tools of Economics the author has a go at solving these issues with an unconventional wisdom in knowing what & how to measure relevant parameters:

What is common between Sumo Wrestlers and School teachers ?

Steven brings his analytical eye to this cheating and human behavior cracking the tough nuts of such diverse domains. Summary from this chapter:

·        Money doesn’t win elections

·        Drinking 7 bottles of water a day doesn’t really help

·       Introducing a low monetary penalty for a default – will legitimize the mistake morally and encourage it actually. Baby sitting of toddlers for late pick-ups by parents illustrates this point.

·        People are honest about 87% of the time even though no one is watching them. This is drawn from data of a bagel business with corporate employees free to pay by themselves without monitoring.

How are Ku-Klux-Klan (KKK) Members like Real-Estate Agents?

‘Information Is King’:

·    The KKK met its waterloo when its operational details (roles/rituals/activities…) were disassembled and circulated to all by a certain Kennedy to the public at large.

·    Similarly Real-Estate Agents play on their advantage of having deeper and broader real-estate data and information. However studies reveal that a Real-Estate Agent don’t wait for the best deal possible…..their business thrives on throughput and so after a certain basic asking price is met and minimum shelf-life has passed, the incremental % commission they earn does not warrant waiting on  for a possible higher sale value which the Seller might be more interested in! Online Internet Portals for Rentals could prove to be their Nemesis !

·      Life Insurance Premium peddlers have met similar fate when the best policies in the market are available for ready comparison through online portals.

·        Same is the case for Second-hand-car prices, Casket sales etc.

However there is a slight variation of this in the case of Dentals (root-canal is an almost blind prescription  I understand for any dental ailment just as full diagnostic tests are becoming a norm for any ailment !) and Surgical Deliveries (compared to natural/normal deliveries of babies) etc – where the patients are preyed upon by the ‘Experts’ with a ‘Fear’ factor: why take a risk when the sure option is before you ?

·      In my opinion this has further exacerbated in a different angle due to publicity-quotient gained by the double hysterectomy case of Angelina Jolie. 

Why Do Drug Dealers Still Live with Their Moms?

With some meticulous analysis of the drug-money-accounting that serendipitously comes by the way of the author – it is shown that the hierarchy of Drug-Mafia is very similar to any McDonald's sort of MNC Corporate hierarchy! And the comparison extends to the kind of ridiculous salaries the top-honchos earn compared to the toiling-worker at the bottom of the crushing pyramid. So Drug Dealers stay with their Moms because they don’t earn enough to move out on their own!

·        Its not clear if some of the well paid dealers also stay with their parents? Have a suspicion about a cultural angle at play here (may be this is my Hollywood framed self speaking – since most peddlers I see in movies are of Latin-American / African origins) – knowing that Americans typically make a fetish out of moving / staying away from their parents. For many cultures including Indian and I suppose many Latin American countries as well – staying with parents is nothing downtrodden nor to be looked down upon at all actually. In fact the other way around is true! Though I must admit things are moving out the American way….

·        Have seen a similar theme in a book I came across recently viz. ‘Who will cry when you die’. This title doesnt fit to be the raison d'être of a persons life and it does sound like making amends for a guilty-feeling for a life lived well and then for dying (isnt it a paradox ? sounds confusing enough: one needs to live so that maximum people 'quality/really' cry after one dies ! Reminds me of Nietche's joke in his 'Thus Spake Zorathustra' where a preacher teaches unto his followers the purpose of life thus: 'To Sleep Well' ! As only a clean soul free of all jealousy/envy/greed,  and who has honestly toiled right through the day earns a well deserved sleep from exhaustion). But I guess this is not the only unimportant aspect of life that is becoming the norm of today's world. For sure there are also no right/wrong issues involved here. Its a matter of a different point-of-view ! At least that is what I tell myself every morning when I see my neighbors drop their kid in a car - to cover a distance of about 20 meters to the gate (from here the school bus picks up) since it is getting wet (clouds) and cold (20 degrees centigrade) nowadays !

Where Have All the Criminals Gone?

With some meticulous analysis of various top-contestant theories – the author arrives at the best possible explanation for reduction of crime in the US starting the 90s : this is the legalization of abortion in the early 70s !

What Makes a Perfect Parent?

Risk = hazard + outrage.

A long drawn and silent death by heart-disease attracts no outrage compared to a dreadful gunshot. The ‘hazard’ in terms of % is much higher for a heart-disease or a swimming-pool (due to accidental deaths therein) are than a Gun-possession. But due to lack of sufficient outrage it loses out to Gun-theme which draws more attention (either way) !

• Similarly while the gain of using a car-seat-belt for toddlers is infinitesimal, the outrage at an odd parent (even to those parents) for not spending the $ 200 odd amount for this thing for whatever it does (or doesn’t) to protect their precious baby just does not stick. These are the parents who are obviously proud to have spent the $200 for this unnecessary contraption (even in case they are made to see this fact).  This is a variation of the fear-factor we discussed earlier. The author gives some more examples of such kind: child-resistant-packaging, flame-retardant pajamas, keeping children away from airbags in cars, and safety draw-strings on children’s clothing.
• What does it matter if parents are manipulated by experts and marketers? Shouldn’t we applaud any effort, regardless of how minor or manipulative, that makes even one child safer?

On the Nature-Nurture Debate on the effectiveness of parenting, again Steven gets cracking on data and comes out corroborating some of the age-old truths we have always possibly known -

• top-down influence of parents is overwhelmed by the grassroots effect of peer pressure, the blunt force applied each day by friends and school-mates.
• it isn’t so much a matter of what you do as a parent; it’s who you are.
• even in adopted children, the nurture effect takes place in the long run – if not in the immediate test-scores of the school going kid which might reflect the genetics of the child!