Tim Harford --- How to lie with Economic Statistics

Tim Harford is a member of the Financial Times editorial board. His column, “The Undercover Economist”, which shows the economic ideas behind everyday experiences, is published in the Financial Times Newspaper and formed around the world. He is also the only economist in the world to run a problem page called “Dear Economist”, in which readers personal problems are answered with the latest economic theory.

He's first book, “The Undercover Economist” had a good sale which is nearly one million copies worldwide in almost 30 languages. His second book, “The Logic of Life“, was published early in 2008 in English, and been translated
Tim presented the BBC television series “Trust Me, I’m an Economist” and now he presents the BBC radio series “More or Less”. He is a regular contributor to other radio and TV programs, including the Colbert Report, Marketplace, Morning Edition, Today, and Newsnight. he has been published by the leading magazines and newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic, also including Forbes, Wired, New York Magazine, the Guardian, the London Times, the Washington Post and the New York Times. He won the 2006 Bastiat Prize for economic journalism.
Before becoming a writer, Tim worked for Shell, the World Bank and as a tutor at Oxford University,and earned there an M.Phil(Master of Philosophy) in economics in 1998. And he lives in London with his wife and two daughters.

He's Topics:

Explaining the huge rise in teen oral sex.

Here Tim states that teenagers having sex causes huge problems. Every year Percentage of people having sex is increased. Commonly it's about 75 or 80% of teenage and adults are having sex. Tim says that oral sex is much more safer than penetrative sex. But still if this keeps on diseases like HIV are transferred among teenagers. Many teenagers are catching those illnesses and spreading it worldwide. But products like condoms are made to prevent from those diseases and having birth. Still it's not enough because diseases still can pass it's not a 100% protection.
He discussed and made explanation for this. For example Teenagers would have less risky sex if the cost of risky sex went up. If Legislation's were tightened for example a teenager can't abort at least without having 1 parent to sign. This would decreases the amount of sex, teenagers will be more scared to have sex.



Article by by Tim Harford

How To Save Smarter

Not very long ago Americans were terrible savers. In 2007, the average person put aside 60% of every $100 . As of February personal saving estimations were more than 4% but it's still not enough. Why is it so difficult to save money?

Behavioral economists and researchers found three reasons why people find it so difficult to save. The first is temptation: We just can't resist spending we should spend in order to live . The second is lack of understanding: Our brains can't understand the profit's of savings. The third is optimism: We are so optimistic that everything will be ok if we don't save.

Fortunately, researchers have found solutions to these problems. Temptation can be cured if you make saving as much fun as spending. For example we can spend money to buy a car. But instead we can just daydream and imagine that we already bought a car and save money, because we can still buy a car. We can just make plans buy savings for example we can think if we save now later we can buy more stuff, new car, Triton fees etc.

Or try this effective technique: Remind yourself to save whenever your paycheck comes. Set up a calender or set and alarm on your phone.

Researchers Jonathan Zinman of Dartmouth College and Victor Stango of the University of California, Davis, have discovered another reason that we don’t save: We forget about the power of compound interest e.g $10,000 invested at a 5% interest rate will almost triple in 20 years. So more money is lost.

“Almost everyone severely underestimates how much interest they can earn on their savings,” Zinman says. And is also applied how we think about debts, millions of Americans pas 20% or higher interest rates on their credit-card balances. Those debts will rise if we don't save. We can't underestimate the debts and the usefulness of savings.

Over the last 20 years stock prices rose strongly. As a result, those who grew up during this period became optimistic about future investments and willingly took big risks. Older investors, shaken by the poorly performing stock market of the 1970s, acted with much more caution.

Tim says Thanks to the present financial disturbance, today’s teenagers will probably have much less trouble saving when they hit adulthood. They’ll have seen firsthand that saving is not about using your money to invest and make a killing on stocks or to own some business; it’s about putting some of your money safely aside in an uncertain world. That’s a lesson we should all start to learn.