Freakonomics

This book was very popular, and looked interesting enough, so I gave it a shot. It was ... okay. This book was described as, 'A Rogue Economist's Explores the Hidden Side of Everything." Well, "everything," being parenting, real estate, teaching, and cime. The discussions about children's names and parenting styles were fun, but a good deal of their other theories seemed a bit less believable. The arguments are interesting, but I'm not so sure if everything was well-researched. Spoiler alert! The authors claim that the number one reason why crime rates have gone down is due to legalized abortion. Now, their argument seems plausable, after all, if all the "at risk" children were aborted, then they wouldn't be around to commit crime. But I'm sure various police officers would have other things to say about this topic, as would various humanitarian groups. Another claim the book made was that people would be better off selling their homes themselves, rather than through a real estate agent. They made it seem as though people in real estate were greedy, lawyer-types who only look out for their own interests. Well, my mother is a real estate agent, and I will have to say that the authors know next to nothing about the real estate market. Yes, it is true that you can save money by selling your house on your own, but you will be up a crap creek if you do this without knowing all the laws and paperwork that go along with it. Selling and buying a house can be very complicated depending on where you live, but the book never even brought that up. Anyway, I've probably gone on too long about this. In summary, the book was entertaining, but many of the arguments need to be taken with a grain of salt.