When To Rob A Bank

In celebration of the 10th anniversary of the landmark book Freakonomics comes this curated collection from the most readable economics blog in the universe. It’s the perfect solution for the millions of readers who love all things Freakonomics. Surprising and erudite, eloquent and witty, When to Rob a Bank demonstrates the brilliance that has made the Freakonomics guys an international sensation, with more than 7 million books sold in 40 languages, and 150 million downloads of their Freakonomics Radio podcast. When Freakonomics was first published, the authors started a blog—and they’ve kept it up. The writing is more casual, more personal, even more outlandish than in their books. In When to Rob a Bank, they ask a host of typically off-center questions: Why don’t flight attendants get tipped? If you were a terrorist, how would you attack? And why does KFC always run out of fried chicken? Over the past decade, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner have published more than 8,000 blog posts on the Freakonomics website. Many of them, they freely admit, were rubbish. But now they’ve gone through and picked the best of the best. You’ll discover what people lie about, and why; the best way to cut gun deaths; why it might be time for a sex tax; and, yes, when to rob a bank. (Short answer: never; the ROI is terrible.) You’ll also learn a great deal about Levitt and Dubner’s own quirks and passions, from gambling and golf to backgammon and the abolition of the penny.

A funny, filmic and fast-paced crime-caper by a hilarious new voice in middle-grade fiction, ideal for readers aged 10 and up.

Why don't flight attendants get tipped? If you were a terrorist, how would you attack? And why does KFC always run out of fried chicken? Over the past decade, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner have published more than 8,000 blog posts on Freakonomics.com. Now the very best of this writing has been carefully curated into one volume, the perfect solution for the millions of readers who love all things Freakonomics. Discover why taller people tend to make more money; why it's so hard to predict the Kentucky Derby winner; and why it might be time for a sex tax (if not a fat tax). You'll also learn a great deal about Levitt and Dubner's own quirks and passions. Surprising and erudite, eloquent and witty, Freaks and Friends demonstrates the brilliance that has made their books an international sensation.

Why do educated women get fewer responses on online dating websites? Is buying local food economically efficient? Does bribing kids improve their performance on school tests? Steven Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, the quirky geniuses behind Freakonomics, SuperFreakonomics and Think Like a Freak, are back at it. For the last ten years, they’ve used the tools of economics to answer some of our most unanswerable questions on the Freakonomics.com blog. Here, for the first time, the very best of their more than 8,000 posts are together in a single place. We learn why it’s so hard to predict the Kentucky Derby, why babies born in summer tend to score lower on standardized tests, and why rich people tend to be happier than poor people, but rich countries no happier than poor ones. When to Rob a Bank showcases the brilliance that has made Levitt and Dubner an international sensation, and the eloquence and wit that has always made them such a joy to read.

Literary ombudsman John Crace never met an important book he didn't like to deconstruct. From Salman Rushdie to John Grisham, Crace retells the big books in just 500 bitingly satirical words, pointing his pen at the clunky plots, stylistic tics and pretensions of Big Ideas, as he turns publishers' golden dream books into dross.

*Winner of the Irish Children's Book Award* 'Funny, warm as toast and packed full of ideas that fill up your head and burst in your brain like fizzy magic!' Noel Fielding 'A totally fun, madcap adventure that ends up robbing your heart' Stewart Foster, award-winning author of The Bubble Boy There's a feeling of relief that comes just after you've robbed a bank... Rex's parents have split up and, to make matters worse, he has to spend his summer holiday on a remote and rainy Irish island - with only unruly sheep for company. The only upside: he'll be staying with his strange and brilliant Uncle Derm. Then Rex discovers Uncle Derm is about to execute his most hair-brained plan yet . . . To rob the island's travelling bank! Like the local legend of medieval Pirate Queen Grace O'Malley, Uncle Derm plans to redistribute the money to local needy causes on the island. And he needs Rex's help . . . A chaotic robbery, plenty of sheep and a summer of discoveries come together in this hilarious and heart-warming novel from comedian, actor and author of Danger is Everywhere, David O'Doherty. A perfect adventure for fans of Frank Cottrell Boyce, Ross Welford and David Walliams. ---------- Praise for David O'Doherty's Danger is Everywhere series: 'I dislocated my jaw laughing' Eoin Colfer 'Imagine the Mighty Boosh crashed into the Wimpy Kid' The Times 'Brilliantly funny' Gransnet

5 young men. 32 destroyed police vehicles. 1 spectacular bank robbery. This “cinematic” true crime story transports readers to the scene of one of the most shocking bank heists in U.S. history—a crime that’s almost too wild to be real (The New York Times Book Review). Norco ’80 tells the story of how five heavily armed young men—led by an apocalyptic born–again Christian—attempted a bank robbery that turned into one of the most violent criminal events in U.S. history, forever changing the face of American law enforcement. Part action thriller and part courtroom drama, this Edgar Award finalist for Best Fact Crime transports the reader back to the Southern California of the 1970s, an era of predatory evangelical gurus, doomsday predictions, megachurches, and soaring crime rates, with the threat of nuclear obliteration looming over it all. In this riveting true story, a group of landscapers transforms into a murderous gang of bank robbers armed to the teeth with military–grade weapons. Their desperate getaway turns the surrounding towns into war zones. And when it’s over, three are dead and close to twenty wounded; a police helicopter has been forced down from the sky, and thirty–two police vehicles have been completely demolished by thousands of rounds of ammo. The resulting trial shakes the community to the core, raising many issues that continue to plague society today: from the epidemic of post–traumatic stress disorder within law enforcement to religious extremism and the militarization of local police forces.

Now updated with an extensive afterword that reveals how the bank failures of 2008 resulted from the lack of regulatory oversight discussed in this book, here is the acclaimed insider's account of how financial super predators brought down an industry by massive accounting fraud.The catastrophic collapse of companies such as Enron, WorldCom, ImClone, and Tyco left angry investors, employees, reporters, and government investigators demanding to know how the CEOs deceived everyone into believing their companies were spectacularly successful when in fact they were massively insolvent. Why did the nation's top accounting firms give such companies clean audit reports? Where were the regulators and whistleblowers who should expose fraudulent CEOs before they loot their companies for hundreds of millions of dollars? In this expert insider's account of the savings and loan debacle of the 1980s, William Black lays bare the strategies that corrupt CEOs and CFOs - in collusion with those who have regulatory oversight of their industries - use to defraud companies for their personal gain. Recounting the investigations he conducted as Director of Litigation for the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, Black fully reveals how Charles Keating and hundreds of other S & L owners took advantage of a weak regulatory environment to perpetrate accounting fraud on a massive scale. He also authoritatively links the S & L crash to the business failures of the early 2000s, showing how CEOs then and now are using the same tactics to defeat regulatory restraints and commit the same types of destructive fraud. Black uses the latest advances in criminology and economics to develop a theory of why "control fraud" - looting a company for personal profit - tends to occur in waves that make financial markets deeply inefficient. He also explains how to prevent such waves. Throughout the book, Black drives home the larger point that control fraud is a major, ongoing threat in business that requires active, independent regulators to contain it. His book is a wake-up call for everyone who believes that market forces alone will keep companies and their owners honest.