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Lin Chi-Ling or Jolin Tsai for dinner date? : A Freakonomist's Perspective

Freakonomics, co-authored by University of Chicago economist Steven Levitt and New York Times journalist Stephen J. Dubner, ever since being released years ago, has become a bestseller across many bookstores. To best explain this book's popularity and convince you readers of it being worth of such an achievement, I think it would be better for me to explain to you the field of Freakonomics, rather than the book itself. I strongly recommend this book to Economics students of all levels.

I remember my ex-Economics tutor Mr Thaddeus Lawrence exclaiming in class one fine day "Everything in this world can be explained using economics!" as he showed how prostitutes actually earned more than accountants on the average. Earlier at a lecture, he had used economics to decide whether to date Taiwanese model Lin Chi-Ling or famous singer Jolin Tsai for that night.

Indeed, everything is this world can be explained by Freakonomics a rogue economist's way of looking at the world. Who ever said that economics was purely business and marketing?

Well, this is what this book tries to suggest as it attempts the usage of simple microeconomics concepts to tackle light-hearted questions such as "Why do drug dealers still live with their mothers?" and "Does your name affect your destiny?".

Often, students complain about the boringness of Economics and serving as the art of "common sense". Well, common sense it is not always, as this book will have you find out how legalized abortion eventually leads to reduced crime rates and make you doubt your own sense of what you always knew as "common sense". Indeed, the freaky economics in this book will have you gasping in horror, trembling with fright and wetting your pants as you suddenly realize how smart your Economics teachers always were.

Allow me to use an example in this book: The Ku Klux Klan was an infamous racist political group in the USA in the World War II era. They had been well-positioned to take over America then with their network of intelligence operatives and placed the entire country under a climate of fear, leaving a trail of destruction and murder wherever they went.

The basis, of their power, was in economic theory. Now, that sets you on guard against your economics tutors, whom you always thought were incapable of harm and great destruction. Freakonomics explores how the antidote, of how the power of the Ku Klux Klan was ultimately destroyed using yet

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