1. Question: “What Do Schoolteachers and Sumo Wrestlers Have in Common?”
Answer: Schoolteachers and Sumo Wrestlers do not have much in common other than the fact that they have both been accused cheating. While some deny the unlawful acts, others admit to them. Incentives cause many different reactions amongst people. “We all learn to respond to incentives, negative and positive, from the outset of life” (Levitt & Dubner, 16). A schoolteacher doesn’t seem like one to cheat and neither does a Sumo wrestler due to their dedication and the severity of the possible consequences. Incentives are a huge part of economics. Schoolteachers actually cheat for their students for various incentives such as a promotion, or even a raise in pay. This not
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Most people would think that drug dealers would make a lot of money, but in reality, they don’t make very much money at all. The only people who make good money in the drug trade are the ones at the top of the pyramid. “The top 120 men in Black Disciples gang represented just 2.2 percent of the full-fledged gang membership but took home well more than half the money” (Levitt & Dubner, 93). If you’re not at the top of the gang, you end up just selling the drugs while making a little profit on the side, when the people at the top are making a living off of you doing the work for them. “J. T. paid his employees $9,500, a combined monthly salary that was only $1,000 more than his own official salary. J. T.’s hourly wage was $66. His three officers, meanwhile, each took home $700 a month, which works out to about $7 an hour. And the foot soldiers earned just $3.30 an hour, less than the minimum wage” (Levitt & Dubner, 93). J.T. and the Black Disciples are actually a lot like McDonald’s. The Black Disciples consisted of about 100 branches or in McDonald’s case, franchises. They had three senior officers and anywhere from 20-70 foot soldiers depending on how good business was. McDonald’s also has senior officers and foot soldiers also known as the store employees. McDonald’s is obviously on a larger scale than the drug-trade, but in both, the people at the top are the ones making most of the money. The drug trade …show more content…
Correlation is a relationship between two or more things, while causation is something that is caused because of something else. Many people confuse the two because they say that if something has a correlation it will have a cause as well. I have witnessed a correlation of a kid stealing something from somebody else and later breaking his arm at the skate park. This is an example of a correlation of the word “karma”. The young man believed his correlation with theft caused the incident, when in reality it was just a freak accident that could have happened any other time to anybody else. “The wide-ranging ECLS data offer a number of compelling correlations between a child’s personal circumstances and his school performance” (Levitt & Dubner, 166). The ECLS is a study conducted by the United States Department of Education that measures about 20,000 students from Kindergarten up to the fifth grade. The main purpose of this study was to see how parental factors and child activities affected the children when it came to their academic performance. According to the data in the ECLS, what a parent is was more important when it came to taking standardized tests. “Parents who are well educated, successful, and healthy tend to have children who test well in school” (Levitt & Dubner, 175). In my opinion, parents who care about their children’s education and will do everything in their power to get them to succeed will lead to their
Parents looking for something free, healthy and fun for their children to do this summer need to look no further. Ultimate MMA Training Center on the Hamden/North Haven line will be offering free classes this summer for kids on Monday nights from June through August.
Chapter 1 of Freakonomics focuses on the beauty of incentives. It asks the question “What do teachers and sumo wrestlers have in common?” The answer is that they both
There are several differences between correlation and causation. Correlation is if an event happens and is not related to another event and it is a coincidence. This would be if an event happened but it was not connected to another. An example of this would be catching a foul ball at a baseball game. It would be a correlation because you just happened to be in that place where the ball was hit and were able to catch it. Causation on the other hand is a cause and effect. One thing happens because another thing previously happened. An example of this would be if a person drank caffeine late at night, then they would be up all night. Another example of this would be if someone slipped on ice coming out of class.
One of the main economic problems that many people, particularly gangs, in Robert Taylor faced was the fact that they didn’t want to trade in their status for entry-level jobs because in many cases, gang leaders made far more than they would have if they worked minimum wage jobs (72). Many of the gang leaders such as J.T. held the false belief that the drug economy was “useful for the community, since it redistributed the drug addict’s money back into the community via the gang’s philanthropy” (115). However, the drug economy is not a stable or lucrative economy compared to your average jobs because it was clearly very hard for people to get ahead in gangs, thus no one ever had a fair shot of earning more money in their life span. Nevertheless, the situation can tend to be a grey area of debate since a lot of the residents did attempt to hold blue-collar jobs but continued to get laid off (60). In this case, the underground economy of drug sales may have been the only choice for residents looking for an income. Another way the gangs play into the economic situation is when there are drive by shootings, in which case parents
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 the promise of money or goods. Social incentives motivate people to respond in a certain way because they care about how they will be viewed by others. Moral incentives motivate people on the basis of right and wrong. We look at four
Levitt next examines the incentives that cause people to cheat. The first example of cheating is a story of teachers cheating in Chicago public schools. To avoid the risk of getting fired or getting penalty by the government for low test scores, many teachers chose to cheat and inflate their students ' scores. They cheated by allowing the students to have more time during test, giving away answers, and even by changing students’ answers by themselves. In this case, we can see that the schoolteachers are driven by economic incentives. For them, moral and social incentives are not as strong as economic incentives. Similar cheating can be seen in sumo wrestling. In Japan, sumo wrestling is a very popular sports and the high-ranked wrestlers get great honor. Also, among sumo wrestlers, their rank determines their salary, reputation, how they are treated, and even how much he gets to eat and sleep. Because they are so desperate for higher rank, the incentive for cheating is very powerful. In the crucial matches that determines sumo wrestler’s ranking, they cheat by
In what way are schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers similar? At first, this question might be puzzling, but the answer is provided in the book Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything. Freakonomics is the result of a partnership between an award winning economist, Steven D. Levitt, and a journalist, Stephen J. Dubner. The duo decided upon making a book after Dubner was given an assignment to profile Levitt. Dubner realized that Levitt took a different approach to economics than other economists and he saw that Levitt had an interesting and effective way to explain statistics. This pushed the two to release the 315 page book to the public in 2005 in New York, New York. Since then, the book has flourished and has been republished numerous times. In Freakonomics, Dubner and Levitt reveal that fundamental ideas of economics can be used to interpret just about everything in modern society. The book focuses on a few key points including; incentives are the driving force behind everything, conventional wisdom is often wrong, small causes can often have dramatic effects, and the advantages of having information. The authors use many interesting stories and statistics to demonstrate these economic themes in the modern world. Stories include how some school teachers in the Chicago school system cheat, the influence that the legalization of abortions had on crime rates, and how real estate agents tend to sell their own homes for higher prices than if they
Correlation is usually when two things tend to happen together at the same time and causation is something happens because of something else. I think it is harder to prove causation because
The Black Gangster Disciple Nation and McDonald’s resemble each other in structural and organisational terms. Both are segregated into several
“Gangs have morphed from social organizations into full-fledged criminal enterprises” (Thomas, 2009, para 5). Gangs are highly sophisticated and more dangerous then ever. The number one reason to join a gang is money; and 95 percent of gangs profit comes from drug dealing
In chapter one of Freakonomics, the authors discuss several key themes. These themes include cheating and incentives. Cheating includes anything from a little white lie to get your way or even committing fraud. The authors use simple concepts like these and tie them into real-world situations using research and exploration of such topics. Among these cheaters are school teachers, sumo wrestlers, and office workers.
There seems to be a general tendency to attribute causation with correlation. People often conclude that causation exist when the association between variables is seemingly obvious but this is a common mistakes that people makes. It is important to note that correlation does not prove causation. Correlation just simply implies that a relationship between variables exists and that there is a possibility of a cause and effect relationship; however, it does not prove causation actually exist. Correlation do not indicate in which direction the relationship works such as Variable A could cause Variable B, or vice versa, or may a third (or fourth, or even fifth) variable may be the cause of both of the other related variables.
During the civil war, these young kid’s parents fled to America to find a means of making a living for their child because there were no jobs during the war. When the parents left, the kids were left in the care of their grandparents. “My grandparents saw me as a burden, and never gave me a penny or, even worse, love…” (55-56). Nonetheless, the kids are the blood of the grandparents and the grandparents neglected the kids and thought only about themselves and what they would do in order to survive during this time. For instance, the parents would send back money for the family and the grandparents would leave little to none for the kids. Families were taken apart because of this war and were driven to ravage in the streets. “…As a result, I left my home and bound for the streets.” What do you think was waiting for them on the streets? Gangs. These gangs “took in” the kids that were left alone, and taught them how to survive on the streets. Once again, violence through gangs were the only thing that they could do in order to earn money. “What is the only way gangs earn money?” Mr. Brubaker asked. The class had a verity of different answers, but the most pivotal role that money is involved, is with the trade and distribution of drugs. These drugs affect the people that are in the gangs. It goes against their morals and
In chapter 1, Levitt and Dubner describe how many people in different cultures and walks of life, which are otherwise inclined to be honest, find subtle ways of cheating to advance their position or increase monetary awards when incentives are strong enough. The authors define an incentive as “a means of urging people to do more of a good thing or less of a bad thing,” and identify three varieties of incentives. Economic incentives are those, which a person responds to in the marketplace. Social incentives motivate people to respond in a certain way because they care or are worried about how they will be viewed by others. Moral incentives appeal to a person’s sense of right versus wrong. Three case studies of the
Correlation is a relationship between two things or events. Causation is a relationship between two things in which one causes the other. Correlation does not necessarily mean causation. A common example of correlation would be the fact that, when more firemen are sent to a fire, more damage is done. There is a relationship between the amount of damage done and the number of firemen, but that doesn’t mean the larger number of firemen causes the damage. An example of causation would be the size of the fire, which actually does cause the damage, and determines the amount of firemen on the scene. An incentive is what motivates someone to do something. The three types of incentives are economic, social, and moral (21). An example of an economic