I don’t know why Sudhir Venkatesh is still alive. After hanging out with some of Chicago’s most violent gangs as a sociology graduate student for over three years, Gang Leader for a Day tells how gangs work, why most public policy aimed at poverty is useless, and what we might do as a society to make things better for the poor. Venkatesh takes insane risks, but lives to tell the tale of the Dark Side of life in America.

So I was all proud of myself for actually posting the review of the Einstein book, which I had finished reading a week or so ago when I decided to sit down and start reading one of the new books I had purchased for myself today. Freakonomics was brought to my attention during a discussion about politics, legislation, and abortion. Now I must admit to being a big fan of economic theory, but I feel that almost anyone would have their interest piqued if I were to tell them that its been shown that Roe vs Wade was responsible for the sharp decline in crime in the late 90’s.

So already suckered in I sat down to read. That started about 6 hours or so during which I read on and off. Those six hours have earned me an even greater respect for the methods of economics when applied to real life. The book covers a number of recent issues seemingly unrelated to economics, but when viewed through the economic lens of incentives, are suddenly illuminated with new light. The topics range from the aforementioned abortion and crime link to why teachers help their students cheat on standardized testing, and cover in between why real estate agents rip you off, why sumo wrestlers cheat, why people name their kids stupid names, why people don’t steal as many bagels as they could, and many more.

The book itself is well written with Dubner smoothing out the economic theory of Levitt. The subject matter as mentioned above is relevant and interesting. The whole tone of the book is somewhat mocking and somewhat ironic, but most of all informative. Really what is encouraged is the challenging of conventional wisdom, which while conventional is not always right. The book I feel should be read by just about everyone it is that good, and while you may not agree with what the authors have to say you certainly will look at things in new ways. Now on to the amazing history of salt I go.

Why more (options) is less (satisfying). This fellow did a great job at researching the effects of choice and the supposed freedoms associated with it. He outlines how the excess of alternatives, such as 250 types of cookies in a grocery isle, actually inhibits your decision making process and will probably leave you less satisfied than if you only had to pick between 4 kinds of cookies. He offers many scenarios to illustrate how people choose their partners (and thus how they are satisfied with them) as well as many other anecdotes from personal or research experience. Now while all that’s well and good, after the great research Mr. Schwartz performed, he didn’t really delve in to any one topic. In fact, he skipped over a lot of ideas and didn’t examine the psychology or history very much at all. He repeats himself throughout the book. He repeats himself throughout the book a lot. But, he also uses conjunctions at the beginning of sentences a lot too. Still, it’s a good read and very informative – you might just learn something about yourself.