Superfreakonomics

Award winning economist Steven Levitt and bestselling author Stephen Dubner have teamed up again to create a followup to their phenomenal hit Freakonomics.  In these two tomes, the authors show how seemingly irrational decisions are actually the result of misunderstood but entirely rational economic thought processes. Superfreakonomics is a refreshing blast of common sense in a world where common sense isn’t flashy enough to get headlines.

The authors cover a wide range of topics in an enjoyable and easy-to-read style.  They flit amusingly across topics as diverse as walking home drunk, prostitution, hospital mortality rates, and altruism.

One of the best parts of the book is about child safety seats. The authors show that child safety seats perform no better than seatbelts for children above the age of two, but that governments keep raising the ages to which child safety seats are required.  They show who benefits from these laws and why they get enacted, and they also talk about the real costs of these seats to consumers and their children..

The absolute best part of the book though, has to be the incredible expose of the global warming sillyness.  The authors explain why global warming isn’t a problem and describe several cheap solutions if it becomes a problem — solutions that no one is implementing because there is no problem.

Quoting the authors, “It would cost $50 million less to stop global warming than what Al Gore‘s foundation is paying just to increase public awareness about global warming.”  This is backed up by research data and interviews with Nobel winning climatologists.

Superfreakonomics is not just an enjoyable read, it’s also an important book to read when so many of the decisions in the world are made by government officials who believe that ordinary citizens are irrational and need to have decisions made for them.