Freakonomics

I sat alone in my bedroom yet again finding myself recollecting Andy. I sat knelt on the end of my bed gazing into the reflection before me. All I could think of was little Marie, our daughter. She frequently asked about her father, Andy, but I had been too scared to tell her. Tonight was the night. It had been seven years to the day that he tragically died, and tonight I was going to tell Marie about her father's…...

Amazon is not moving away from its core competency of being a leading online retailer. In fact only if Amazon keeps on with its original venture, which has become its identity can it flourish in other fields because this segment lends the company an impression of reliability that future customers of other ventures would associate it with and prove to be the agents of the company’s success. An organization can be termed healthy only if it keeps track of the…...

Common Sense Economics: What Everyone Should Know About Wealth and Prosperity by James D. Gwartney, Richard L. Stroup, and Dwight R. Lee is an easy read that I found informative and manageable. It teaches the ideas of macroeconomics but in a way that people can use to understand and evaluate the process of our economy and the government's impact. It is not a textbook with charts, graphs, and formulas which allowed me to be able to read it and understand…...

As Antonia Peacocke quotes in her essay, “The show Family Guy is one of the first in history that has been canceled not just once, but twice” (300-301). The show was brought back in August 2000 and again in July 2001 when fans could not get enough of the adult cartoon. As well as being a fan favorite, Family Guy is also a controversial topic for critics all over the world. In the essay, “Family Guy and Freud: Jokes and…...

Freakonomics is a relatively controversial book using economics to describe unconventional and equally radical thoughts and state of mind. The concept of economics was applied to different everyday situations, including situations that an average person will never correlate to economics or the market. The book caught the attention of many because its premise is very contentious evident when Steven Lewitt pointed on abortion as the primary reason why there was a noticeable drop in crimes before the beginning of the…...

In chapter one of Freakonomics, Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt describe how when incentives are strong enough, many usually honest people from different walks of life will cheat in order to gain financially or climb the ladder in their careers. The authors define an incentive as “a means of urging people to do more of a good thing or less of a bad thing.” This chapter covers three varieties of incentives: Economic, Social and Moral. Economic incentives motivate people with…...

"Lies, damned lies, and statistics" is an expression describing the convincing power of numbers, especially the use of data to strengthen weak arguments. It is also in some cases colloquially utilized to question statistics used to prove an opponent's point. The term was popularised in the United States by Mark Twain (to name a few), who attributed it to the 19th-century British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli (1804-- 1881): "There are 3 type of lies: lies, damned lies, and data." This…...

Freakonomics, by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, is book that not your typical economist would write it was co-authored in 2005 and if morality represents how we would like the world to work, then economics represent how it actually does work in this award-winning book. Steven D. Levitt is a not your typical economist. He is a much-heralded scholar who studies the riddles of everyday life- from cheating and crime to sports and child rearing and whose conclusions…...

How Rich Countries Got Rich and Why Poor Countries Stay Poor By Erik S. Reinert The book How Rich Countries Got Rich and Why Poor Countries Stay Poor is written by Erik S. Reinert and it is published in 2007. Reinert is a 62-year-old Norwegian economist who specializes in development economics and economic history (Wikipedia). Reinert attended the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland (where he studied economics), Harvard University for MBA, and Cornell University for Ph.D.(Wikipedia). In addition to…...

INTRODUCTION Negligence is a part of that branch of Civil Law known as Tort Law. Hence, negligence is a tort. Other torts include nuisance, trespass (to person or goods or land), deceit, passing off, defamation and so on. This lecture will examine the tort of negligence, and will focus on the first two ‘essentials’ needed to prove an actionable case. Lecture 4 will consider the third essential, defences and remedies in Negligence. On successful completion of this lecture, you should…...

With the growing trend of volunteer vacations, research has been warranted in regard to understanding the motivational factors of individuals who participate in such endeavors. With this understanding, the goal is to increase these travel offerings in the industry, which will bring better understanding between cultures. This study examines different travel motivation factors for someone who chooses to use part of their vacation participating in volunteer or humanitarian activities. Considering that ‘mission’ often has connotations of a religious purpose, the…...