Freakonomics Research Paper

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Nick DeAngelis September 25, 2012 Government Period 8 Freakonomics Focus Question: How does a person balance the needs of private interest and the common (public) good? Incentives: Incentives are a big part of today’s society and that is why the authors of Freakonomics mentioned it so often. In the first couple of pages 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 comes in three varieties economic, moral and social. Economic incentives are those of which a person responds to the marketplace, moral incentives appeal to person’s sense of what is right and what is wrong, and social incentives motivate people to respond in a certain way because they care…show more content…
It describes a situation in which many laborers compete for a position in the market, but few actually succeed in finding employment. The crack business is like a big tournament where all the top guns try to make their way to the top with their teams and make the big money, “ In other words, a crack gang works pretty much like the standard capitalist enterprise: you have to be near the top of the pyramid to make a big wage.”(Pg. 100) So as long as the leader of a crack gang is making and dealing business to his consumers he is happy because he is making money and moving up the pyramid or tournament and the consumers or crack addicts are happy with their purchase. Something more opposite of the crack business is the NFL referee lockout that is currently happening. What has happened is that the referees are in labor dispute with the NFL and are therefore on strike until the two organizations reach an agreement. What you may be wondering is then who is filling in for these refs? And the answer to that is replacement officials who are not trained for this level of football. With lack of training these refs over the first 3 weeks of football have been flat out terrible. Missed calls, no control of the game, fans and teams frustrated you name it these refs have not been on top of things. So to refer back to the focus question this labor market is a negative one because the regular referee’s are not earning a salary as they are still in a lockout and with the replacement refs in they have been angering the common good (fans, teams, coaches) meaning the NFL’s reputation has been decreasing and if they don’t come to an agreement soon it could get out of
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