Freakonomics Chapter 3 Summary

In chapter three of Freakonomics, Levitt answers the question “Why Do Drug Dealers Still Live With Their Parents?” The chapter begins with a quote by economist John Kenneth Galbraith who said “We associate truth with convenience” . This means that the public will not challenge or doubt a reasonable statistic. For example, an advocate for the homeless named Mitch Snyder compared the recent history of homelessness in the United States, and most of the people being crack dealers. To determine the condition of dealers a man named Sudhir Venkatesh was sent into the field. His assignment was to visit Chicago’s poorest black neighborhood with a clipboard and a seventy-question, multiple-choice survey. The first question started with “How do you

1. Chapter three, Why Do Drug Dealers Still Live With Their Moms?, expresses an intriguing thought by authors, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. The Freakonomics authors follow a courageous man, Sudhir Venkatesh, a student at the University of Chicago, in his effort to understand and research the mysterious drug dealing business. Venkatesh first approached dangerous gangs and dealers in Chicago with a simple survey to learn more about them. After stumbling upon a branch of the “Black Gangster Disciple Nation”, Venkatesh wanted to take his study further. J.T., this specific branches leader, was interested in Venkatesh’s survey and initiated him as a spectator to his group. Venkatesh was integrated with this group for six years an acquired an immense amount of information on drug and gang groups. Thankfully, J.T. kept documents on the group 's wages. By looking at these books, Venkatesh was able to identify the hierarchy of a typical drug cartel. Which is where the main question of chapter is answered. Only the people on the top of the system made good money, for example, J.T. Contrary to popular belief, lower jobs of this business like foot soldiers make only $3.30 an hour, below minimum wage. Despite the fact that the foot soldiers are the ones who physically put their life on the lines. This style is compared to major corporations such as McDonald 's for a more context comparison. However, the people that are

Chapter three of Freakonomics by Steven Levitt lays out an argument against the population’s capacity to hastily believe conventional wisdom. Commencing the chapter with anecdotes about faulty statistics and facts provided by so called “experts,” Levitt sews a seed of suspicion in the reader’s mind. Citing anyone from homelessness experts, to women's rights activists, to police departments, Levitt walks the reader through erroneous proclamations by individuals who drive the common knowledge of everyday people. After introducing each fabricated fact, Levitt not only invalidates each one respectively, but also goes on to explain why each expert provided such bogus information. To summarize Levitt’s commentary, each expert holds different motivations

Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh moves through the major themes of public safety and informality to illustrate the importance of underground networks in a Chicago community rich with social history, traditions, and gang involvement. In describing the various activities he witnessed in his book, Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor, Venkatesh alludes to a system that is based mostly on social interaction and interpersonal relationships. Residents in this area follow laws that some scholars call “informal,” in that there are existing rules that are far more complex than what is described in judicial law. The author’s observations and partake in the community contribute to the broader understanding of the lives of the urban poor and

Chapter six of Freakonomics shows a comparative study done by Roland G. Fryer Jr. He compares children’s first names throughout different decades in California. The study references between black children and white children names, and low income families along with high income families name choices. We also look to see if these names have an effect on the outcomes of these children’s lives.

Regardless of Levitt’s claim that “this book boasts no unifying theme,” Freakonomics consists of one motif, the use of data to explain the unexplainable, or Levitt’s study of Economics, Freakonomics (Levitt, Dubner 14). For example, in the late twentieth century the crime was at an all time high, but by the turn of the century crime dropped to the lowest rate in the last 35 years. Many proposed that this massive drop resulted from gun control, a strong economy, or new police strategies, but what if the criminals that would have plagued the twentieth century were never born? Levitt would argue that the supreme court decision of Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion, is the cause of the drop in crime. He qualified his claim by disproving the

The book Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner consists of a series of essays in which a journalist and an economist work collectively to find, by applying everyday economic principles, how the world truly works, which reveals some fascinating truths about the world. Some background history of the authors, Steven D. Levitt interviewed Stephen J. Dubner for New York Times Magazine and this is where they initially met and became good friends. With them having similar ideals about the world in an economic lens, they decided to write this book for other enthusiasts that wanted to analyze the world as an economist.

The book Freakonomics about how there are some mysterious cases about students getting high scores in tests but then score less the next year they are put in a higher classroom. Then the immediate question that comes to mind is why did they score less? No one would think that the teachers would were the ones to blame. THEY cheated. That’s how the video and the book are similar, both talk about the teachers changing test scores to make the school look good. The book Freakonomics says, “ ...she might collect her students’ answer sheets and, in the hour or so before turning them in to be read by an electronic scanner, erase the wrong answers and fill in the correct ones.” The video as well shows that the teachers cheated changing test scores.

This essay will focus on sociological theories of crime and their description, the strengths and weaknesses of each; sociological control theory, strain theory, differential association theory and neutralization theory. This essay will also focus on Rajartnam who was convicted for inside trading in 2011.

An analytical assertion that I found the most interesting is the connection between violence and the crack market. Crack trade has been associated with high levels of systemic violence, which is regulated through the illegal aspects of the drug market. However, in Seattle, only 2.3 percent of crack arrests involved guns, but 25.9 percent of all heroin arrests involved guns. The available evidence indicated that crack arrests are unlikely to involve guns, especially in Seattle. Seattle’s crack market is not more violent than other drug markets. This evidence challenges the idea that crack trade and violence are consistently coordinated with one another. I believe that this is due to the specific areas of where crack transactions occur. An area with less opportunities and wealth is likely

Pearce also explores how white collar crime is hidden from the masses and this puts them in a state of false consciousness so they do not see the full extent of the white collar crime, this is ideological social control, this is often linked to the media which often portrays stereotypes and demonises the poor as criminals.

Freakonomics, written by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J, Dubner, is divided into six main sections that all show the similarities between a variety of completely different things. By utilizing statistics and history, the authors are able to create a book that shows that everything is correlated together and that everything is influenced by these statistics.

Roche, Rick. "Organized Crime in Chicago: Beyond the Mafia." Booklist, 1 Nov. 2012, p. 6.General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=GPS&sw=w&u=j123914&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA308599315&it=r&asid=9b95e1d8aa5e209aa05bcf92f7ee3820. Accessed 7 Apr. 2017.

Steven Levitt in Freakonomics strives for anything outside of convention, as he applies his background in economics to answer unusual questions (particularly focused on crime). In the chapter we were assigned, Levitt explains the financial statements of a gang’s drug dealing activities, and how

"Anybody living in the United States in the early 1990s and paying even a whisper of attention to the nightly news or a daily paper could be forgiven for having been scared out of his skin... The culprit was crime. It had been rising relentlessly - a graph plotting the crime rate in any American city over recent decades looked like a ski slope in profile... Death by gunfire, intentional and otherwise, had become commonplace, So too had carjacking and crack dealing, robbery, and rape. Violent crime was a gruesome and constant companion...