Just Read – Superfreakonomics – Levitt & Dubner

This book is a sequel to the previous bestseller, Freakonomics by the same authors.  Levitt & Dubner further their methods of looking at the various problems from an economist’s point of view.  Starting off with why the lives of women in rural India is on the upswing. Surprise, surprise its got nothing to do with either education or better law enforcement or women’s empowerment.  Its simply because of the proliferation of cable and satellite television in the rural parts of India.  The rural women with access to information about their rights and seeing women in the urban cities of India are starting to demand more when it comes to their rights and demands of products.

Levitt and Dubner also point to the fact that most of the mothers who survive child bearing and in the emergency wards today goes back to a simple procedure of the doctor washing his hands with antiseptic and nothing much to do with advancement of medical science.

And the most important of all how Levitt and Dubner point to a batch of scientists who are working to solve problems like global warming and preventing hurricanes with cheap and simple solutions like using a method to sink the warm waters of the oceans to the bottom and bringing the cold water to the surface and thus reducing the power of the hurricanes.

Lots of interesting and practical solutions are provided to daily problems that have been dubbed by media and society today as the biggest problems of all times and problems that can lead to the end of our planet.

You might not agree with everything the authors have to say, but I must admit that its a must read.

SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance
Author – Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner
Pages – 288
Publisher – William Morrow

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