1. Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor
In this revealing study of a Southside Chicago neighborhood, sociologist Venkatesh opens a window on how the poor live. Focusing on domestics, entrepreneurs, hustlers, preachers and gangs linked in an underground economy that “manages to touch all households,” the book reveals how residents struggle between “their desires to live a just life and their needs to make ends meet as best they can.” In this milieu, African-American mechanics, painters, hairdressers, musicians and informal security guards are linked to prostitutes, drug dealers, gun dealers and car thieves in illegal enterprises that even police and politicians are involved in, though not all are criminals in the usual sense. Storefront clergy, often dependent “on the underground for their own livelihood,” serve as mediators and brokers between individuals and gang members, who have “insinuated themselves—and their drug money—into the deepest reaches of the community.” Although the book’s academic tenor is occasionally wearying, Venkatesh keeps his work vital and poignant by using the words of his subjects, who are as dependent on this intricate web as they are fearful of its dangers.
2. Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
Economics is not widely considered to be one of the sexier sciences. The annual Nobel Prize winner in that field never receives as much publicity as his or her compatriots in peace, literature, or physics. But if such slights are based on the notion that economics is dull, or that economists are concerned only with finance itself, Steven D. Levitt will change some minds. In Freakonomics (written with Stephen J. Dubner), Levitt argues that many apparent mysteries of everyday life don’t need to be so mysterious: they could be illuminated and made even more fascinating by asking the right questions and drawing connections. For example, Levitt traces the drop in violent crime rates to a drop in violent criminals and, digging further, to the Roe v. Wade decision that preempted the existence of some people who would be born to poverty and hardship. Elsewhere, by analyzing data gathered from inner-city Chicago drug-dealing gangs, Levitt outlines a corporate structure much like McDonald’s, where the top bosses make great money while scores of underlings make something below minimum wage. And in a section that may alarm or relieve worried parents, Levitt argues that parenting methods don’t really matter much and that a backyard swimming pool is much more dangerous than a gun. These enlightening chapters are separated by effusive passages from Dubner’s 2003 profile of Levitt in The New York Times Magazine, which led to the book being written. In a book filled with bold logic, such back-patting veers Freakonomics, however briefly, away from what Levitt actually has to say. Although maybe there’s a good economic reason for that too, and we’re just not getting it yet.
3. Ragnar’s Guide to the Underground Economy
Through detailed case studies Ragnar shows you how carpenters, woodcutters, farmers, housecleaners, computer consultants, mechanics, lawyers, vendors, locksmiths and others are cashing in on today’s booming economy - and keeping what they earn by not paying taxes. From these undergrounders you’ll learn how to locate work, get paid without supplying identifying numbers, prepare a realistic budget, advertise your services or product and finance your project when you can’t go to the bank. You’ll also learn the pitfalls of working off the books and what you can do to prepare for them.
4. How to Survive Without a Salary: Learning How to Live the Conserver Lifestyle
I thought that this book was so funny in places that I haven’t laughed so hard, so much, for a long time. Charles is a skilled writer; the book is very readable, intelligent, thoughtful,and well organized. It contains a copious (even prodigious) amount of tips, for a 200-page book. Very practical, and at the same time touches on abtruse philosophical areas, especially at the end of the book.
Hey, I used to think I was cheap. This guy is CHEAP. His anecdotes include waiting for it to rain to take a shower instead of installing indoor plumbing. He had a big hole in the floor of his entryway, or somewhere in his house, into which the kids and a few guests fell. He refused to spend one cent covering the hole, until a neighbor told him about a steel grate they threw away years ago, so he went to the dump and found it.
The point is that you can learn from a top-notch “conserver”; an applied example I would give is to buy two gallons of milk when it’s on sale and freeze one for later use (works well!). This guy probably drinks powdered milk though.
I disagree with his economic analysis; prudence CAN be a vice, as any virtue most certainly is in its extreme, or even overdone. But Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations is not just about “McPimple Burger” or keeping up with the Joneses. Any system on a mass scale is going to have gaping faults, and the weaker of us might succumb to our basest impulses. But perhaps Long goes a bit too far the other way…
At any rate, he sounds like an economic anarchist. Very well thought out book, great advice.
5. Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets
In Freakonomics, many people were fascinated by a section that described how most crack cocaine dealers lived at home with their mothers. Why? They make less money than minimum wage. The source of that factoid was research conducted on site by Sudhir Venkatesh, author of Gang Leader for a Day, who describes in this book how he did that research and came to make decisions one day for part of the Black Kings gang in Chicago.
In the process of reading this book, you’ll learn more than you ever expected to know about the ways that the poorest people support and protect themselves. You’ll also find how drug-dealing gangs are both a help and a hindrance to the poor.
More powerfully, you’ll be exposed to the great difficulties involved in observing the lives of the poor and the gangs that spring from them. The moral and ethical dilemmas this book presents are almost beyond belief.
6. Under the Table and Into Your Pocket: The How and Why of the Underground Economy
Under The Table And Into Your Pocket: The How And Why Of The Underground Economy by Bill Wilson will provide the non-specialist general reader with a complete education on a facet of the American economy rarely (if ever) covered in school. Beginning with an introduction to just some of the ways governmental regulations strangle business, overtax the little guy, and enable Washington to be the drunken big spender that it is today (if you overpay your taxes by $7,000 and don’t reclaim it within three years you’re out of luck - but underpay it by $7,000 and the IRS can and will come after you no matter how much time has passed!), Under The Table proceeds to demonstrate how the little guy can circumvent taxes by doing business away from Big Brother’s prying eyes. From boarding houses and flea markets to roadside merchants and dominatrix work, Under The Table covers the benefits, disadvantages, tips, tricks, techniques and much more of common underground ways to earn a living. Under The Table is emphatically not a legal guide; neither the author nor the publisher assume any responsibility for the use or misuse of information contained within - but the eye-opening ins and outs of a truly free economy make for quite fascinating and advantageous reading.
Are you fed up with giving so much of your hard earned cash to the government, then watching it get spent on ridiculous pork-barrel special-interest projects? Would you like to hold on to more of your money for your own special-interest boondoggles? The underground economy continues to grow in spite of ever-widening atttempts by the government to regulate and tax everything we do. Millions of Americans are practising fee enterprise in today’s increasingly unfree tax society. This is the most comprehensive how-to book ever written for those entrepreneurial individuals who have decided to end their slavery to a wage and to government taxation as well. Discover how you can keep more of what you earn for yourself. Here you will find complete and up-to-date information on the ins and outs of guerrilla capitalism and the underground economy in this country.
In December of 2001 Jeff Ferrell quit his job as tenured professor, moved back to his hometown of Fort Worth, Texas, and, with a place to live but no real income, began an eight-month odyssey of essentially living off of the street. Empire of Scrounge tells the story of this unusual journey into the often illicit worlds of scrounging, recycling, and second-hand living. Existing as a dumpster diver and trash picker, Ferrell adopted a way of life that was both field research and free-form survival. Riding around on his scrounged BMX bicycle, Ferrell investigated the million-dollar mansions, working-class neighborhoods, middle class suburbs, industrial and commercial strips, and the large downtown area, where he found countless discarded treasures, from unopened presents and new clothes to scrap metal and even food.
9. McMafia: A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld
In McMafia, Misha Glenny draws the dark map that lies on the other side of Tom Friedman’s bright flat world. That connected globe not only brings software coders and supply-chain outsourcers closer together; it’s also opened the gates to a criminal network of unsettling vastness, complexity, and efficiency that represents a fifth of the earth’s economy, trading in everything from untaxed cigarettes and the usual narcotics to human lives and nuclear material. Glenny’s a Balkans expert, and he begins his story there, with the illicit–but often state-sponsored–underworld that grew out of the post-Soviet chaos, but he soon follows the contraband everywhere from Mumbai and Johannesburg to rural Colombia and the U.S. suburbs. It’s not just a hodgepodge of scare clips, though: Glenny reports from the ground but follows the leads as high as they go, showing how the dark and bright sides of the flat world are more connected than we imagine.
10. Living Well on Practically Nothing
Living Well on Practically Nothing: Revised and Updated Edition is for people who need to live on a lot less money. If you have been fired, demoted, retired, divorced, widowed, bankrupted or swindled - or you just want to quit your job and remain financially self-reliant - this book is for you. In it are hundreds of tips, secrets and necessary skills for living well on little money. Chapters include: Save Up to $37,000 a Year and Live on $12,000 a Year; Low-Cost Computers for Fun, Profit, and Education; Some Ways to Live on No Money at All; A Day of Cheap Living; A New Career or Business for You; Fix Things and Make Them Last; and Protect Your Investments and Make Them Grow. From cover to cover, this book is stocked with proven methods for saving money on shelter, food, clothing, transportation, entertainment, health care and more. The author left the “system” in 1969 and has worked for himself ever since. Let him show you how you, too, can live happily, comfortably and with complete financial freedom.
P.S. If you’d like to know how I make my money (it’s not really “shadow” or illegal at all, but it give me freedom to do anything I want to, while providing steady stream of income), feel free to check out my websites - PickyDomains.com, NicheGeek.Com, StandupKings.com, SoftwareJudge.Com, Best Free Documentaries.
Link of the day - Free $50 Kmart card.1. Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior
Why is it so difficult to sell a plummeting stock or end a doomed relationship? Why do we listen to advice just because it came from someone “important”? Why are we more likely to fall in love when there’s danger involved? In Sway, renowned organizational thinker Ori Brafman and his brother, psychologist Rom Brafman, answer all these questions and more.
Sway introduces us to the Harvard Business School professor who got his students to pay $204 for a $20 bill, the head of airline safety whose disregard for his years of training led to the transformation of an entire industry, and the football coach who turned conventional strategy on its head to lead his team to victory. We also learn the curse of the NBA draft, discover why interviews are a terrible way to gauge future job performance, and go inside a session with the Supreme Court to see how the world’s most powerful justices avoid the dangers of group dynamics.
2. Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions
What Ariely has done here is shift a lot of the thinking developed by such pioneers as Kahneman & Tversky who worked in behavioural economics, and moved it into the everyday sphere. And he’s done a great, insightful job. Where the behavioural economists are focused on financial decisions (why we buy high and sell low - and confound the assumptions of the classic economists who assume ‘the rational man,) Ariely eschews the technical language and walks us through everyday examples of our often fuzzy and quite irrational decision-making.
3. The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less
I think “Paradox of Choice” does bring insight into shopping, but its range is actually much wider than that. Schwartz discusses people making difficult decisions about jobs, families, where to live, whether to have children, how to spend recreational time, choosing colleges, etc. He talks about why making these decisions today is much harder than it was 30 years ago, and he offers many practical suggestions for how to address decision-making so that it creates less stress and more happiness. He even discusses how so much additional choice affects children, and how parents can help make childhood (particularly young childhood) less stressful.
4. Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness
“Buy on apples, sell on cheese” is an old proverb among wine merchants. Taking a bite of an apple before tasting wine makes it easier to detect flaws in the wine, and the buyer who does so will not as easily make the mistake of paying more than the wine is worth. Cheese, on the other hand, pairs well with wine and enhances its flavor, so a seller who offers cheese may command a higher price for the wine (and may even deserve it, if the wine is intended to be drunk with cheese). The proverb captures important psychological nuances of choice. The same product - a bottle of wine or a risky medical procedure - may be perceived differently depending on its context, and it is often possible to arrange the context to influence a choice while still maintaining the decision maker’s autonomy.
5. Quirkology: How We Discover the Big Truths in Small Things
Richard Wiseman is an experimental psychologist and professor of “public understanding of psychology.” In this book, he discusses dozens of experiments performed by himself and other psychologists around the world over the course of the last hundred years. All these experiments have in common is unusual research methodology or amusing results.
Topics include studies of personal ads and pickup lines, determining which are most effective, how to detect liars, manifestations of prejudice and hypocrisy (are religious people or priests more honest or generous than others? it has been tested). Wiseman even ran tests to see which experiments in the book are the most interesting, to help the reader know what would be the best conversation starters at parties.
6. Blind Spots: Why Smart People Do Dumb Things
Clinical psychologist Van Hecke has compiled a list of 10 mental glitches that have infiltrated contemporary society, afflicting even the smartest among us, limiting thought, success and relationships. Van Hecke devotes a chapter to each blind spot, including “Not stopping to think,” “Not noticing,” “Jumping to conclusions” and “Missing the big picture.” Examining each in detail, Van Hecke details the root causes of these unconscious habits (”information overload,” “our tendency to habituate”) and tactics for overcoming them, using humorous anecdotes and other real-life examples to drive her points; the key is remaining open to new ideas and taking a step back from our busy lives in order to process information, situations and people. Filling in “the big picture” herself, Van Hecke demonstrates how embracing and understanding our weaknesses can not only improve personal and professional relationships, but also entire communities; this self-help is a welcome, highly readable first step.
7. Kluge: The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind
In “Kluge,” psychologist Gary Marcus looks to the many and varied foibles, inconsistencies, and inaccuracies of the human mind and concludes that our brains are not, in fact, models of brilliance and efficiency, but are rather cobbled-together systems, designed for one purpose and pressed into action for another - the classic definition of a kluge.
The most famous kluge is probably the case of the carbon scrubbers on the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission. Crunched for time, engineers managed to create a system out of duct tape and socks (seriously) that worked adequately enough to clean the air on the space module- even though none of the materials they used were designed for, or optimal for, the job at hand. The result was ugly and inefficient - but it kept the astronauts alive. Likewise, Marcus argues, evolution has endowed humans with a hodgepodge of genetic material - the DNA equivalent of duct tape - with which to build all the sophisticated systems that supposedly set us apart from other creatures, like language, memory, and reason. The result is, for example in the case of language, “a vocal apparatus more byzantine than a bagpipe made up entirely of pipe cleaners and cardboard dowels.”
8. The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives
The author writes to the layman, making the language of statistics, probability, randomness a fascinating read. It’s clear that he’s well aware of the fallacies and delusions (and consequent harm) to which most of us are easy prey. But he leaves it to the reader to draw any philosophical-theological inferences about the need for greater humility. His immediate goal is to help the reader understand the distinction between 1. the “common-sense” logic employed by self-serving finite beings coping with problems in the material world and 2. a “scientific method” that takes nothing for granted in a universe of perpetual flux. More miraculous than either the accomplishments of the romantic hero or the intercessions of a supreme being (everyday stuff for most of us) is the rare discovery that two things (or “events” in the spatial-temporal order) suspected of being connected (a hypothesis) in fact cannot be shown “not” to have such a relationship (the proof).
9. Guesstimation: Solving the World’s Problems on the Back of a Cocktail Napkin
Somehow, guessing at numbers is unsettling, even though I’ve done it all my life. John Adam is a professor of applied mathematics, with a degree in physics. Larry Weinstein is a nuclear physicist. Their book is devoted to proving that intelligent guessing is useful and fun. The book lays out some general principles but its great strength lies in the interesting problems, a series of hints to help you solve each problem, and an interesting discussion of the pitfalls and triumphs involved.
10. Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion
Cialdini believes that influence is a science. This idea attracted me. As a rhetorician, I have always thought of persuasion as more of an art. Cialdini, however, makes a first-rate case for the science point of view. But maybe most importantly, he makes his case in a well-written, intelligent, and entertaining manner. Not only is this an important book to read, it is a fun book to read too.
He introduces you to six principles of ethical persuasion: reciprocity, scarcity, liking, authority, social proof, and commitment/consistency. A chapter is devoted to each and you quickly see why Cialdini looks at influence as a science. Each principle is backed by social scientific testing and restesting. Each chapter is also filled with interesting examples that help you see how each principle can be applied. By the end of the book, I had little doubt that these are six important dimensions of human interaction.
Fart Gene Isolated. Now, That’s A Breakthough!
Mariage Annulled, After Bride Turns Out To Be Not A Virgin.
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We seem to be bombarded constantly by doom and gloom tales of new animals becoming extinct and being told that we should be stopping it - something that is usually impossible for the average person. I thought it might be nice to show a positive list about extinct animals, so here is my list on the top 10 animals that were thought to be extinct but are actually still around!
10
New Holland Mouse
The New Holland Mouse is a rodent first described in 1843. It vanished from view after that and was presumed extinct until it was rediscovered in 1967. It is found only in Australia. The mouse is currently listed as endangered and a number of the populations are now considered extinct - some due to the Ash Wednesday Wildfires in 1983.
9
Terror Skink
The terror skink (Phoboscincus bocourti) was long thought extinct until a specimen was discovered in 2003 in New Caledonia. The skink measures around 50cm and has long sharp curved teeth - unusual for a skink as they are normally omnivores. The only other known example of the skink was also discovered in New Caledonia in 1876.
8
Giant Palouse Earthworm
The Giant Palouse Earthworm, from North America, was considered to be extinct in the 1980s but recently it has resurfaced. Little is known about the worm, but what is known is very strange. It can grow up to 3 feet in length and when handled, gives off a smell like lilies. The creature is believed to be able to spit in defense. It is albino in color.
7
Takahe
The Takahe is a flightless bird native to the South Island of New Zealand. It was thought to be extinct after the last four specimens were taken in 1898. After an extensive search for the bird, it was rediscovered near Lake Te Anau in 1948. The bird is currently endangered. Takahes have an unusual eating habit, in which they pluck grass with their beak, grasp it in one claw, and eat only the softest parts at the bottom of the leaf. They then throw away the rest.
6
Mountain Pygmy Possum
The Mountain Pygmy Possum was first described as a Pleistocene fossil in 1896. It was rediscovered alive in 1966 in a ski-hut on Mount Hotham, Australia. The possum is mouse-sized and is found in dense alpine rocks and boulders. The female possums live at the top of the mountain while the males live lower down. In order to mate, the males travel up to the females. Because they need to cross a road, their survival was in danger, so the Australian government built them a “tunnel of love” beneath the road.
Just paying the bills…
5
Gracilidris
Gracilidris is a genus of nocturnal ants that were only know through the fossil record - in fact the only known fossil existing of this ant is a specimen in amber. The ants were discovered alive and were described in 2006, but to this day very little is known about them. The ants live in small colonies and nest in soil.
4
Bermuda Petrel
The Bermuda Petrel, a nocturnal ground-nesting sea-bird, was thought extinct for 330 years. It is the national bird of Bermuda and was rediscovered in 1951 when 18 pairs were found. It was believed to have been made extinct after the English settled Bermuda and introduced cats, rats, and dogs. The bird has an eerie call that caused Spanish sailors to believe the isles were haunted by Devils. For that reason, they never settled there.
3
Laotian Rock Rat
The Laotian Rock Rat (also known as the rat squirrel) was first described in 2005 by a scientist who put it in to its own family of creatures (Laonastidae). One year later, the classification was disputed by others who believe that the rock rat is actually a member of the extinct family Diatomyidae which vanished in the late Miocene period. The animals are like large dark rats with tails like a squirrel. Surprisingly, the first specimens were found on sale as meat at a market in Laos.
2
La Palma Giant Lizard
The La Plama Giant Lizard was thought extinct from 1500. It lived in La Palma in the Canary Islands and it is believed that the introduction of cats caused its final downfall. In 2007 it was rediscovered in its original location despite the belief that the only lizards left in the Canary Islands were on Gran Canaria. An interesting sidenote is that the islands are named after dogs, not canaries - the name comes from the Latin Insula Canaria which means “Island of the Dogs”. Canary birds are actually named after the islands.
1
The Coelacanth
This entry is number one because it is the coolest - the Coelacanth was thought to be extinct since the end of the Cretaceous period. In 1938 it was rediscovered in various African nations, making it a Lazarus Taxon - one of a group of organisms that disappears from the fossil record only to come back to life later. Coelacanths first appear in the fossil record 410 million years ago. They normally live near the bottom of the ocean floor but have, on some occasions, been caught closer to the surface. They have been known to grow past fifteen feet long, but there isn’t a single attack record on a human as the fish live so deep.
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Source - Listverse.com
The New Homeless Of America - Middle Class
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The qualification for this list is that the people were notable in their own right, and not simply because they disappeared, so no Madeleine McCann and the crew of the Mary Celeste. Some were simply accidental. Some have attracted conspiracy theories. One was definitely foul play. In chronological order:
10
Steve Fossett
2007
Steve Fossett, American businessman, aviator and sailor. Disappeared on 3 September 2007 while flying over the Nevada desert. Fossett was the first man to fly solo around the world non-stop in an airballoon. No trace found yet.
9
Richey Edwards
1995
Richey Edwards, member of the Welsh rock band the Manic Street Preachers. Disappeared on 1 February 1995, the day that he and fellow MSP James Dean Bradfield were due to fly to the USA on a promotional tour. His car was found abandoned near the the Severn Bridge (a renowned suicide location), but there was evidence that the car had been lived in, and there have been unconfirmed sightings.
8
Jimmy Hoffa
1975
Jimmy Hoffa, US trade union leader. Disappeared on 30 July 1975 while on his way to meet two Mafia leaders. Many conspiracies abound his disappearance and final resting place, with the most popular claiming that he is buried beneath the Giants stadium. No confirmed trace ever found.
7
Harold Holt
1967
Harold Holt, Australian Prime Minister. Disappeared on 17 December 1967 while swimming at a surf beach near Portsea, Victoria. Holt was controversial for expanding Australia’s role in the Vietnam War. No trace ever found.
6
Glenn Miller
1944
Glenn Miller, American jazz musician and bandleader. Disappeared on 15 December 1944 over the English Channel while en route from England to France to play for troops in recently liberated Paris. No trace ever found.
Just paying the bills…
5
Antoine de Saint Exupéry
1944
Antoine de Saint Exupéry, French aviator and author. Disappeared on the evening of 31 July 1944 over the Mediterranean Sea, while on a reconnaissance flight. An unidentifiable body wearing French colors was found soon after. In 1998 his identity bracelet was found. In 2000 the remains of the aeroplane were found. In March 2008 a former Luftwaffe pilot told a Marseille newspaper that he had engaged and downed a plane in the area where Saint Exupéry\’s plane was found. His story is unverifiable, and has met with criticism from some German and French investigators.
4
Amelia Earhart
1937
Amelia Earhart, American aviator and author. Disappeared on 2 July 1937 (along with her navigator) in the South Pacific, while attempting to circumnavigate the earth. No trace ever found.
3
Roald Amundsen
1928
Roald Amundsen, Norwegian explorer. Disappeared on 18 June 1928 with 5 others in a plane crash in the Barents Sea while searching for the team of a fellow-explorer Umberto Nobile. A pontoon improvised into a life raft was found, suggesting that at least some of the group had survived the crash.
2
Ambrose Bierce
1914
Ambrose Bierce, American journalist and author. Disappeared in Mexico some time after 26 December 1913 while travelling with rebel troops to gain a first-hand perspective of the Mexican Revolution. No trace ever found.
1
Joshua Slocum
1909
Joshua Slocum, Canadian/American sailor and author. Disappeared in the West Indies some time after 14 November 1909 aboard his boat Spray. No trace ever found.
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The New Homeless Of America - Middle Class