Chapter 6 (finally)

I agree to some extent with the fact that parents name their kids in someway to set them up for their future, however I also think that sometimes parents name their kids to get a reaction out of people or to just be different. Like the name Shithead. No matter how you want to pronounce it the name is still spelt Shithead and her daughter will hate that name for her whole life and probably get it changed.
You next have to think about the point that names go down from high end to low end. So if a name that was at the high end moves to the low end what does that say about the the people who were named it at the beginning? I believe nothing, by that point in time they have already started on their path either being one of greatness, mediocrity, or failure. If a name is to determine where someones life is going to take them wouldn't everyone try and name their kids something spectacular that is going to set them up for life? However we find that is not the case at all. So what does a name actually do? If it doesn't guide your life them does it matter what your name is? I do feel that to some extent that a name, like the example given says, could lead to more job offers just based on the name. A name is a first impression even before you see that person in real life. Would you want to hire someone named Shithead for an important position? The answer is no.

Chapter 5

Before reading this chapter you have to assume that the parents had the children and didn't have an abortion to lower the crime rate like the last chapter stated. It was very interesting to see how many schools of thought are actually out there when it comes to parenting. My sister had a kid 2 years ago and I know she is always paying attention of new studies telling her to do this or not to do this. It seems crazy that one day you are doing something with your child that he or she enjoys and the next day someone comes out saying that action is detrimental to your child's success. I agree with the fact that parents do play an essential role in the development of their children, without them who is going to tell them wrong from right? If it is all just nature and the way they are born is the way they are going to be forever than what is the need of staying with your parents for so long? I do believe to some extent that if your parents are smarter or far more well off that you will have a better chance of success, because if you don't get into the public school that is good there is always that private one you can afford. The bottom-line is that there are tons of factors that contribute to how a child is going to turn out, there is everything that a parent does, there is the outside force from friends and the environment they grow up in, there is the child itself who from all of these forces combines what they feel are important and use them all at the same time to model their behavior.

chapter 4

Once again in this chapter is the role that incentives play in our everyday decisions. If you are going to commit a crime you have to first consider the reward and punishment. When they were in the period of low sentencing times of course you expect the crime rate to rise because the risk is worth the reward and even if you are caught the punishment would not be that severe. Some of the factors that this chapter mentioned that would lower the crime rate hit on some very touchy subject, especially the one about abortion. This brought up the point how much is a live baby worth compared to a fetus. And is the drop in the crime rate able to balance the losing of life? Also are these babies if born necessarily going to be the ones that commit the crime? I don't believe that you can prove that they will all commit crime, maybe that a higher percentage of them will but that is not justifiable by killing the ones that may or may not. Also I believe that there could be many factors that contributed to this lowering of the crime rate some that weren't even listed. These factors could have all just happened around the same time and now people are satisfied that they have the reasons they were looking for.

Chapter 3

It is very hard to believe that an organization whose values defy what is considered normal behavior, and break the laws could have established such a corporate-like structure. Normally when you think about drug dealers you think about uneducated individuals, however after reading this I realize that it takes some very unique business skills to be able to pull off such and elaborate operation. Once again incentives come into play. These foot soldiers earn next to nothing and could easily get a higher paying job, however they continue to work for next to nothing for the opportunity to advance. Some of these people will never advance and have to quit the game, which now the time they spent doing this activity could have been put to use on something that could be far more productive. Also the chance of death for these foot soldiers was 1 in 4! That is another astonishing figure that blows the mind. The only reason that you can conclude as to why people would continue putting themselves in these situations is that the ends must justify the means.

Chapter 2

It is crazy to think that you can compare two things that seem so different but in the end have one common underlying feature, Information. The only reason that someone would seem to have a edge over another person is information. If you knew everything that a real estate agent does would you need to hire them? Such professions only exist because the asymmetric information. As with the discrimination/racism, people might say one thing so to look favorable in others eyes, but do the complete opposite. It could not mean that they are racist though, it could just mean that they prefer a certain characteristic or that it is what they are use to having. Or like on the dating site when they say race/religion/anything else doesn't matter it could be that they will go for one set of characteristics, however if someone of the other characteristics approaches them they will consider choosing them. Now that we know some of the information that real estate agents use it is up to use to choose to use this information in our decision making process, or we are just letting the asymmetric information problem continue.

Chapter 1

I really like how they compared things that seemed not to be correlated in any way with one another. It really helped their point that people are influenced by incentives. There are two kinds of incentives good and bad, people are influenced by both however the good incentive can lead to corrupt practices. In the case of the teachers cheating it was unbelievable that a teacher would cheat, though you think it is to help the students in the long run it only proves that it hurts them. In the case with the sumo wrestlers, you would think that a sport with such a high prestige would be hard to make corrupt, but where there is a will there is a way. There is always a time that one must decide which way to go, if you cheat on something small and get away with it what is going to stop you the next time? Or could this lead to you cheating on something even bigger? There always isn't a clear victim in the case either as was mentioned with the bagel story. But I believe that life is a zero sum game, in that if there is someone gaining from a behavior, there has to be someone losing or at least feeling some effects from your action.