"But if Oswald is right, then much or the world's unemployment is caused by home ownership-----which puts an interesting gloss on the fact that home ownership is subsidized by governments almost everywhere in the Western world." ID at 143.
"Over two centuries ago, a lawyer named William Blackstone declared that it's better for ten guilty persons to escape than for one innocent to suffer. Why ten, as opposed to, say twelve or eight? Because Blackstone said so, that's why. By pulling the number ten out of thin air, Blackstone defiantly refused to think about the trade-offs that go into designing a criminal justice system. But for two centuries, legal scholars have cited Blackstone's refusal to think and mistaken it for an example of a thought. Of course it's a bad thing to convict the innocent. We all know, that, just as we know it's a bad thing to acquit the quilty." ID at page 222.
Unfortunately, imo, we all don't don't that it is bad to convict the innocent. More importantly "we know it's a bad thing to acquit the quilty"??? Shit, I don't belief for a second that even the author, Mr. Steven E. Landsburg, actually believes it's necessarily a bad thing to acquit the guilty. My guess is, and I could be very wrong, more often than not it is better for the guilty NOT to be convicted.
Anyway, the reason I supplied the snippits, supra, is so that readers could get a little more of a glimpse of what his book is about. Also, I liked it much better than Freaknomics. :) The starter, imo, is "Free to Choose: A Personal Statement," by Milton Friedman and Rose Friedman. amazon.com
