The Flood of 1927 in the United States was one of the worst in America’s history. With the exception of Mississippi, Arkansas was impacted substantially greater than any other state.The Flood of 1927’s massive destruction covered over 6,600 square miles, with thirty-six out of seventy-five Arkansas counties under water, up to twenty feet deep in places. Rural Arkansas City (in Desha County), where Johnny Johnson was born, was one of the cities gravely affected by the flood’s devasta...

While everyone is talking about "big data," the truth is that understanding the "little data"--the stats that underlie newspaper headlines, stock reports, weather forecasts, and so on--is what helps you make smarter decisions at work, at home, and in every aspect of your life. The average person consumes approximately 30 gigabytes of data every single day, but has no idea how to interpret it correctly. EVERYDATA explains, through the eyes of an expert economist and statistician, how to dec...

While everyone is talking about “big data,” the truth is that understanding the “little data”—the stats that underlie newspaper headlines, stock reports, weather forecasts, and so on—is what helps you make smarter decisions at work, at home, and in every aspect of your life. The average person consumes approximately 30 gigabytes of data every single day, but has no idea how to interpret it correctly. EVERYDATA explains, through the eyes of an expert economist and statistician, how to decip...

The best-selling author of Naked Economics defies the odds with a book about statistics that you’ll welcome and enjoy.Once considered tedious, the field of statistics is rapidly evolving into a discipline Hal Varian, chief economist at Google, has actually called “sexy.” From batting averages and political polls to game shows and medical research, the real-world application of statistics continues to grow by leaps and bounds. How can we catch schools that cheat on standard...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A former Wall Street quant sounds the alarm on Big Data and the mathematical models that threaten to rip apart our social fabric—with a new afterword“A manual for the twenty-first-century citizen . . . relevant and urgent.”—Financial TimesNATIONAL BOOK AWARD LONGLIST • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • The Boston Glo...

If you’ve ever bought a personal finance book, watched a TV show about stock picking, listened to a radio show about getting out of debt, or attended a seminar to help you plan for your retirement, you’ve probably heard some version of these quotes:“What’s keeping you from being rich? In most cases, it is simply a lack of belief.” —SUZE ORMAN, The Courage to Be Rich“Are you latte-ing away your financial future?” —DAVID BACH, Smart Women Finish Rich...

Why the free-market system encourages so much trickery even as it creates so much goodEver since Adam Smith, the central teaching of economics has been that free markets provide us with material well-being, as if by an invisible hand. In Phishing for Phools, Nobel Prize–winning economists George Akerlof and Robert Shiller deliver a fundamental challenge to this insight, arguing that markets harm as well as help us. As long as there is profit to be made, se...

“Clever, surprisingly fast-paced, and enlightening.” —ForbesMost new products fail. So do most businesses. And most of us, if we are honest, have experienced a major setback in our personal or professional lives. So what determines who will bounce back and follow up with a home run? What separates those who keep treading water from those who harness the lessons from their mistakes?One of our most popular business bloggers, Megan McArdle takes insig...

WHAT ARE THE ODDS YOU'LL WIN THE LOTTERY?How long will your kids wait in line at Disney World?Who decides that “standardized tests” are fair?Why do highway engineers build slow-moving ramps?What does it mean, statistically, to be an “Average Joe”?NUMBERS RULE YOUR WORLDIn the popular tradition of eye-opening bestsellers like Freakonomics, The ...

From New York Times bestselling author and economics columnist Robert Frank, a compelling book that explains why the rich underestimate the importance of luck in their success, why that hurts everyone, and what we can do about itHow important is luck in economic success? No question more reliably divides conservatives from liberals. As conservatives correctly observe, people who amass great fortunes are almost always talented and hardworking. But liberals ...

Left Brain, Right Stuff takes up where other books about decision making leave off. For many routine choices, from shopping to investing, we can make good decisions simply by avoiding common errors, such as searching only for confirming information or avoiding the hindsight bias. But as Phil Rosenzweig shows, for many of the most important, more complex situations we face -- in business, sports, politics, and more -- a different way of thinking is required. Leaders must possess th...

How to find companies with high long-term value by understanding key trendsWarren Buffett once said that his favorite holding period for a stock is “forever.” Now James Altucher shows how to find “forever” stocks—ones you can safely buy and hold for at least twenty years. These companies will profit from broad demographic trends and can ride out any short-term market fluctuations.For instance, Altucher says it’s smart to invest in:Obesity: 33 billion...