In this refreshing look at economics and its relevance, the author shows how to apply economic principles to headline issues from sex, drugs, arms, and music to energy, movies, farming, the Internet and AIDS.

In this refreshing look at economics and its relevance, the author shows how to apply economic principles to headline issues from sex, drugs, arms, and music to energy, movies, farming, the Internet and AIDS.

Like Freakonomics, Dollars and Sex takes economics and converts it into a sexy science by applying the principles of supply and demand, and other market forces, to matters of love, courtship, sex, and marriage. As she does in her hugely popular blog, author Marina Adshade explores the marketplace for sex and love using research, economic analysis, and humor to reveal just how central the interplay of libido, gender, love, power, and economic forces is to the most important choices we make in our lives. Call it "Sexonomics."

Now in paperback after six hardback printings, the damn funny...wild collection of bracingly intelligent essays about topics that aren't quite as intelligent as Chuck Klosterman'(Esquire). Following the success of Fargo Rock City, Klosterman, a senior writer at Spin magazine, is back with a hilarious and savvy manifesto for a youth gone wild on pop culture and media, taking on everything from Guns'n'Roses tribute bands to Christian fundamentalism to internet porn. 'Maddeningly smart and funny' - Washington Post'

New York Times Bestseller: The shadowy world of “off the books” businesses—from marijuana to migrant workers—brought to life by the author of Fast Food Nation. America’s black market is much larger than we realize, and it affects us all deeply, whether or not we smoke pot, rent a risqué video, or pay our kids’ nannies in cash. In Reefer Madness, the award-winning investigative journalist Eric Schlosser turns his exacting eye to the underbelly of American capitalism and its far-reaching influence on our society. Exposing three American mainstays—pot, porn, and illegal immigrants—Schlosser shows how the black market has burgeoned over the past several decades. He also draws compelling parallels between underground and overground: how tycoons and gangsters rise and fall, how new technology shapes a market, how government intervention can reinvigorate black markets as well as mainstream ones, and how big business learns—and profits—from the underground. “Captivating . . . Compelling tales of crime and punishment as well as an illuminating glimpse at the inner workings of the underground economy. The book revolves around two figures: Mark Young of Indiana, who was sentenced to life in prison without parole for his relatively minor role in a marijuana deal; and Reuben Sturman, an enigmatic Ohio man who built and controlled a formidable pornography distribution empire before finally being convicted of tax evasion. . . . Schlosser unravels an American society that has ‘become alienated and at odds with itself.’ Like Fast Food Nation, this is an eye-opening book, offering the same high level of reporting and research.” —Publishers Weekly

A leading economist's exploration of what our economic arrangements might look like if we applied basic principles without ideological blinders. There is nothing wrong with economics, Dean Baker contends, but economists routinely ignore their own principles when it comes to economic policy. What would policy look like if we took basic principles of mainstream economics seriously and applied them consistently? In the debate over regulation, for example, Baker—one of the few economists who predicted the meltdown of fall 2008—points out that ideological blinders have obscured the fact there is no “free market” to protect. Modern markets are highly regulated, although intrusive regulations such as copyright and patents are rarely viewed as regulatory devices. If we admit the extent to which the economy is and will be regulated, we have many more options in designing policy and deciding who benefits from it. On health care reform, Baker complains that economists ignore another basic idea: marginal cost pricing. Unlike all other industries, medical services are priced extraordinarily high, far above the cost of production, yet that discrepancy is rarely addressed in the debate about health care reform. What if we applied marginal cost pricing—making doctors' wages competitive and charging less for prescription drugs and tests such as MRIs? Taking Economics Seriously offers an alternative Econ 101. It introduces economic principles and thinks through what we might gain if we free ourselves from ideological blinders and get back to basics in the most troubled parts of our economy.