Category Archives: statistics

Book Review: David Graeber ~ Bullsh*t Jobs: A Theory (2018)

Posted on March 2, 2020 by odeboyz

Freakonomics (2005) unleashed populism amongst university professors. They realised they could sex up their academic work by judicious selection of the bizarre and get a best seller, fame and fortune. Graeber’s an LSE professor of anthropology has joined in. A … Continue reading →

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The generosity of billionaires

Posted on January 30, 2020 by odeboyz

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos made headlines earlier this month with his donation of $690,000 to the Australian wildfire relief effort- a sum roughly estimated to equate to less than five minutes* of his earnings. * For someone on £40,000 this … Continue reading →

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Are Constituency MPs Obsolete?

Posted on January 30, 2020 by odeboyz

The 2016 Brexit referendum was unlike a general election in that every vote was equal: there were no wasted votes in safe seats. The referendum and Boris Johnson’s cull in September 2019 of 21 Conservative MPs destroyed the alleged importance … Continue reading →

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Education divides society by wealth

Posted on January 27, 2020 by odeboyz

Economists have found that many elite US universities – including Brown, Dartmouth, Penn, Princeton, and Yale – take more students from the top 1% of the income distribution than from the bottom 60%. To achieve a position in the top … Continue reading →

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Spotify quantifies the Top Beatles Album

Posted on January 9, 2020 by odeboyz

What’s the best Beatles album?  This is a question any self-respecting fan wrestles with on a regular basis.  What criteria do we use to decide?  Level of experimentation and growth?  What we revisit the most?  The album with the most … Continue reading →

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Book review: Annie Duke ~ Thinking in Bets (2019)

Posted on January 6, 2020 by odeboyz

Gambling fascinates me and I like stories associated with gamblers. Kerry Packer is an endless source of pleasure for me. He was famously irritated by a braggart in a Las Vegas casino who wanted everyone to know he had a … Continue reading →

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What gambling really is

Posted on December 19, 2019 by odeboyz

…world-class poker players taught me to understand what a bet really is: a decision about an uncertain future. Duke, Annie. Thinking in Bets (p. 3). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. Chris

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Why the west is stagnant

Posted on December 5, 2019 by odeboyz

Thomas Piketty, the French economist, calculates that more than half of total wealth in Germany* today is inherited — an estimate confirmed by German economists. In the 1960s and 1970s, the share was just a little over 20 per cent. … Continue reading →

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Technology and beneficial job destruction

Posted on November 14, 2019 by odeboyz

Introduction Traditionally work was regarded as a necessity. This is challenged by constant improvements in technological devices and strategies. Entire sectors of employment have disappeared. The changes cause immediate pain through unemployment, which is the price of economic innovation. Constant … Continue reading →

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Book Review: Richard Davies ~ Extreme Economies: Survival * Failure * Future – Lessons from the World’s Limits (2019)

Posted on November 7, 2019 by odeboyz

Davies book has three parts. Each part is a case study. Davies’s book reflects global fieldwork, which is done brilliantly. Section one: Survival features an eye-catching analysis of Angola prison in Louisiana, USA. American justice(?) is barbaric,…average sentence for an … Continue reading →

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