The Counterfeit Paper Trade
| Why write a college term paper when you can pay $20 for someone in Nigeria, Ukraine, or — well, O.K., Texas to do it for you? The Chronicle of Higher Education took a look at a leading essay mill with international ties. Says one writer-for-hire: “I took [an assignment] on Christological topics in the Read More »
Thank God It Was $65 Billion
When Bernie Madoff turned himself in, his firm owed investors $65 billion, but had only about a billion dollars on hand. Never before have we seen anything close to a $64 billion fraud. But in an important sense, the unprecedented vastness of Bernie Madoff’s fraud is a good thing. “If I hadn’t invested in Madoff, Read More »
Rubbish With Your Name On It
| A shop owner in England is tackling the litter problem in her neighborhood by marking sweets wrappers and drink bottles with the names of the children buying them. This way, she tells the BBC, she can easily identify and reprimand litter “offenders.” Waste-personalization is hardly a novel ideal; it’s been done before (to Dubner’s Read More »
Time's 100 Most Influential People
For the last few years, Time magazine has compiled a list of the 100 people who “shape our world.” In the past, they’ve made some pretty questionable choices. Economists have not figured very prominently on the previous lists; there has been roughly one economist in the top 100 per year, including people like Jeff Sachs Read More »
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