Economy Shock

From:http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/24/the-spiked-drink-myth/

Drinking alcohol puts people at high risk for all kinds of misfortunes. Exposure to date-rape drugs, however, doesn’t seem to be one of them.

In a study published in the British Journal of Criminology, more than half of the 200 university students surveyed said they knew someone whose drink had been spiked. But judging from evidence in police and medical records, these numbers are probably highly inflated. For instance, one Australian study of 97 men and women who’d been admitted to an emergency room and claimed their drinks had been spiked found only 9 “plausible” cases. Forensic evidence supported none of those claims; for the most part, the complainants were simply drunk.

Alcohol can be dangerous enough without bringing date-rape drugs into the picture. Drinking is commonly implicated in sexual assault. At least 50 percent of rapes on college campuses are associated with drinking, among both perpetrators and victims. Still, too often, fear of a spiked drink outstrips fear of one drink too many.

“Young women appear to be displacing their anxieties about the consequences of consuming what is in the bottle on to rumors of what could be put there by someone else,” said Dr. Adam Burgess, one of the authors of the British study, in an interview with the Telegraph.

Why the displacement? Guarding against drink-spiking can be a proxy for discussions of problem drinking. Or, as Bruce Schneier wrote in a blog post about the study: the drink-spiking myth serves as a way for “parents and friends to warn young women of excessive drinking without criticizing their personal choices.”

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The Las Angeles Times

Hundreds of courses have closed, and once-exclusive country clubs have slashed fees or let in the public. Often linked to housing tracts, the greens and fairways have slumped along with real estate.

"People are cutting golf out of their diets because they’ve got to cut something," said Jeff Woolson, a real estate broker with Los Angeles-based CB Richard Ellis who specializes in buying and selling golf courses.

The recession has dealt a mean bogey to golf. Hundreds of courses have closed in the last two years and many formerly exclusive country clubs have slashed fees or opened their greens to the public.
Sales of golf balls, clubs and apparel — a multibillion-dollar industry — have dipped 10% this year as players trim spending, according to golf researcher Pellucid Corp.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fi-golf22-2009nov22,0,1546546.story

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A Rasmussen Report

The card made me do it, or so most Americans say.

Eighty-three percent (83%) of adults say credit cards tempt people to buy things they cannot afford, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Only eight percent (8%) disagree with that assessment. Another nine percent (9%) are not sure.

These results are nearly identical to those found during the holiday shopping season in December of last year.

Slightly more women than men believe credit cards tempt individuals into spending beyond their means.

Still, only 20% of adults say they do not have any credit cards, but that’s down five points from last December.

(Want a free daily e-mail update? If it’s in the news, it’s in our polls). Rasmussen Reports updates are also available on Twitter or Facebook.

Twenty-three percent (23%) say they have only one credit card, while another 19% say they have two. Just over one year ago, 34% reported having either one or two credit cards.

Thirty-six percent (36%) of adults report having at least three credit cards, including 18% who have more than three. At the end of last year, 38% said they had at least three cards.

More women (82%) than men (73%) report having at least one credit card. One-out-of-four men (25%) does not have a credit card.

Americans may be opting to hold fewer credit cards these days since 50% say interest rates on their cards have been raised in the past six months, as Congress seeks to limit the ability of banks to raise those rates.

Twenty-four percent (24%) of Americans also say they personally need to cut back on their use of credit cards and other borrowing.

Most Americans (57%) say there is a need for more government oversight of the credit card industry. But a Rasmussen video report shows that 50% worry that it will be harder for people to get approved for credit cards if Congress requires banks to reduce interest rates.

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A Carpe Diem Post

1. "Bill Belichick Is Great" by Steven Levitt

I respect Bill Belichick more today than I ever have. This decision may have hurt his chances for the Football Hall of Fame, but it guarantees his induction into the Freakonomics Hall of Fame.

2. "Bill Belichick as Frederic Bastiat"

It’s pretty evident that the degree of opposition to Belichick’s decision amongst the sports public and even so-called football experts is disproportionately high compared to the true probability that Belichick’s decision would fail. In fact, a few statistical geeks have even suggested that Belichick made the correct decision under the criterion that head coaches are supposed to use: maximize the probability of your team winning.
The type of response we see to Coach Belichick’s decision is too often what we also see in public policy debates: there is a bias for what is seen versus what is not seen.

Update (Wall Street Journal): Somehow in American football, the punt—a clear and unambiguous symbol of surrender and retreat—has become the hallmark of sensible coaching.
Brian Burke, a statistician who has studied the results of fourth-down situations in the NFL, says a team in the Patriots’ situation had a 79% chance of winning by going for it (either by converting the fourth-and-two or stopping the opponent thereafter). That compares favorably to a 70% probability of preventing a foe from driving down the field for a touchdown following a punt.

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