Allison Schrager wants to change the way you take chances.
If you think that all economists spend most of their time sitting at a desk plotting supply and demand curves, you haven't met Allison Schrager, author of the new book An Economist Walks Into a Brothel.
As her title promises, she visited the Moonlite Bunny Ranch in Nevada to learn how sex workers and their clients manage the risks that come even with legal prostitution. A Ph.D. economist who writes for Quartz, Schrager traveled the country to see how people in high-risk, high-reward fields such as horse breeding, candid celebrity photography, professional poker, and big-wave surfing assess and manage risk. The result is a compelling blend of first-person reporting and high-level economic analysis that gives individuals a new way not to avoid risk, but to make more-informed choices.
"People should feel more comfortable taking risks," Schrager tells Nick Gillespie.......MORE, including video.
For the trains we have a choice of a couple dozen earlier posts.
Here's 2011's
Don't Argue Choo-choos With Reason: PolitiFact Gets High-Speed Rail Facts in Florida WrongSeriously Do Not Argue Trains With Reason.com. Our introduction to that post was:
This is as devastating a critique of a critique as I've ever seen.I never took PolitiFact seriously again.
If I was to take these guys on I would make sure I knew as much as they did and back it up with a tactical nuclear device....
They were crushed yet insisted on doing the "'Tis but a flesh wound" bit.
Okay, one more, five years after the above:
"California Hits the Brakes on High-Speed Rail Fiasco"
