100. Our 100th Episode!

[0] Oh, hang on.

[1] Why don't you say, why don't you pretend that you're introducing the episode of the 100th anniversary?

[2] So be like over -the -top radio guy.

[3] I'm Steve Levin from Freakonomics and I want to welcome you to the 100, whatever, something like that.

[4] You want to try that?

[5] No. No. You're better at that.

[6] Let me just, here.

[7] Let me just tell you what's, we'll do it line by line.

[8] Hi, I'm Steve Levitt.

[9] Hi, I'm Steve Levitt.

[10] From Freakonomics Radio.

[11] From Freak, Freak, Freakonics Radio.

[12] From Freak, Freakonics.

[13] And I'd like to say thank you.

[14] And I'd like to say thank you.

[15] For listening to our previous 99 podcasts.

[16] For listening to our previous 99 podcasts.

[17] And I hope you enjoy this number 100.

[18] I hope number 100 is the most special of them all.

[19] That's okay.

[20] Good job.

[21] From WOMPWOMP.

[22] From WNYC and APM, American Public Media, This is Freakonomics Radio, the podcast that explores the hidden side of everything.

[23] Here's your host, Stephen Dupner.

[24] This is the 100th Freakonomics Radio episode.

[25] And to thank you for listening to all the other 99, we wanted to put together a kind of greatest hits package.

[26] The problem is we didn't actually have any greatest hits or any hits of any kind.

[27] So instead, we decided to put together a kind of retrospective to show you what we think about the show, how the show is made.

[28] Maybe you're thinking of starting up your own podcast.

[29] So if that's the case, rule number one is this.

[30] Do not invite boring people to be on your show.

[31] I run a large organization composed of bounty hunters.

[32] For the first three years of my life, my mother told me we slept in an air raid shelter every night.

[33] I'm Stephen Dubner from New York.

[34] Thomas Payton, sir.

[35] Very nice to meet you.

[36] I hope you're being wary of the loyalists up there in New York.

[37] I trained as a physicist.

[38] And then I work with Stephen Hawking on quantum field theory and curve space time in the origin of the universe.

[39] I'm the editorial page editor of The New York Times.

[40] I'm Don Rumsfeld.

[41] I'm Alice Waters.

[42] Glenn Beck, I'm an entrepreneur, reluctant, believe it or not, commentator, and dad.

[43] My name is Steve Sexton.

[44] I am a PhD student at UC Berkeley studying agricultural and resource economics.

[45] I'm Allison Sexton.

[46] I'm a PhD student at the University.

[47] of Minnesota, studying health and information economics.

[48] All right, so I'm a little suspicious.

[49] Share a last name you've related to each other, perhaps?

[50] We are.

[51] We also shared a womb.

[52] My free economics partner is the inimitable Steve Levin.

[53] If you want to ask about what economists do, I'm probably the wrong person to ask because I do things that are quite different than what the typical economists do.

[54] I study strange things like sumo wrestling and prostitute.

[55] and terrorism and things like that.

[56] I don't think mathematics is necessary to understand reality.

[57] I always think to myself, why don't more people commit suicide?

[58] I just don't want to have to go places, talk to strangers, things like that.

[59] One of the easiest ways to differentiate an economist from almost anyone else in society is to test them with repugnant ideas because economists are pretty much immune to repugnance.

[60] I try to talk to my grad students into quitting all the time.

[61] Quitting grad school?

[62] In grad school, yeah.

[63] As I look back on my life, one of the greatest regrets I have is that I spent my youth thinking that I could get a date when I never could get a date.

[64] You love kind of teenage girl novels.

[65] That's kind of your favorite job.

[66] I know.

[67] The Hunger Games is next on my list.

[68] I haven't had a chance to get to that yet.

[69] Just take a little can, like say a baby food jar, and fill it with vomit, okay, and wear it around your neck.

[70] think about what a great conversation started that would be with what kind of people who are you trying to start a conversation with the ladies at ladies night at the bars and we can't figure out why people don't like economists I don't understand most of our stories fall into one of two categories the first category is things you always thought you knew but didn't one in five American adults said their greatest chance of accumulating hundreds of thousands of dollars was through the lottery.

[71] That number jumps to 40 % for folks making less than $25 ,000 a year.

[72] Signalling theory is another way of talking about showing off.

[73] It's all about what we do to look good, or at least not to look bad.

[74] The truth is, I don't have to be very financially literate in order to get along very well financially in life.

[75] Regions with a higher quality of life have a higher suicide rate.

[76] Believe it or not, violence has been in decline for long stretches of history, and we may be living in the most peaceful era in our species' existence.

[77] Walking drunk is one of the most dangerous activities you can engage in.

[78] In all honesty, I do sometimes think, you know, what if my kids don't turn out well and then everyone blames me?

[79] And I would still say, well, the data just say it was going to happen anyway.

[80] This is what in economics we call the cobra effect, where you have a well -intended scheme, but instead of solving the problem, it makes the problem actually worse.

[81] Amarcheson looked at the total number of women in Asia and compared it against the number of women who should be there if the continent had a natural sex ratio.

[82] And in 1990, he found that there were 100 million women who were missing, who hadn't been born, but who should have been born.

[83] And the second big category of Freakonomics radio material, things you never thought you wanted to know, but do.

[84] René Descartes had this, apparently this room sort of with heads of cows and livestock in different stages of disassembly.

[85] And he would sometimes, when dinner guests were over, he would open the door to this room and say, these are my books.

[86] And you kind of had to think that after a while, people didn't want to go over to Rayconnell.

[87] Renee's house for dinner very much.

[88] It's hard to imagine that there was any Bostonian during his time period who did as much damage to the environment as Henry David Thoreau did.

[89] I was talking with one of my colleagues here at Harvard.

[90] They confessed to me that they dyed their hair gray.

[91] And I said, why would anyone do that?

[92] And he says, well, I want people to take me more seriously.

[93] Americans will probably eat about 40 million turkeys this month.

[94] Now, I hope this doesn't kill your appetite.

[95] But what percentage of those 40 million birds do you think were the...

[96] The product of artificial insemination.

[97] Really?

[98] That's the question.

[99] That's the question.

[100] It is really the question this week.

[101] 82 .6, I don't know.

[102] It's a great, great guess.

[103] Great guess.

[104] The truth is it's actually pretty close to 100%.

[105] As we all know, Freakonomics Radio is kind of sort of about economics.

[106] When I met Dubner, he knew nothing about economics.

[107] But somehow, we almost always end up talking about food.

[108] Not just on the show, but while we're in the studio making the show.

[109] Hello.

[110] Stephen Levitt.

[111] Chicken wings, 45 -minute wave.

[112] What a pain in the ass.

[113] I would like to hear the tape.

[114] You know what?

[115] Let me grab my salad.

[116] Man, doesn't that make you want a Big Mac?

[117] I'm starving.

[118] Could we spare Jeff?

[119] I'm buying.

[120] Kind of made me want tacos.

[121] Hey, you want to go get tacos?

[122] Pizza time.

[123] Beef, pork, bacon, milk, cheese, yogurt, potato chips, corn chips, beer, wine, liquor, coffee, tea, soda pop, illegal drugs, which I don't really do anyway.

[124] You cheat with bacon.

[125] Not in my own kitchen, but I'll go out and order bacon and pancakes.

[126] But at home, it would be simply pancakes.

[127] Now, does your husband know about this?

[128] He knows.

[129] He knows because you tell him, or because you come home with the scent of your lover on your lips?

[130] A little of both.

[131] have to admit.

[132] If we did a bunch of them, even if they're all bad, it would be good.

[133] How to get the most bang for your buck, trick for your treat, snickers in your knickers.

[134] I got a laugh cramp.

[135] So, Levitt, this is our 100th episode of Freakonomics Radio.

[136] What do you have to say about that?

[137] That's 99 more than I expected when you started off on the first one.

[138] Maybe 100 more than I expected.

[139] And if you had to pick an adjective for how it makes you feel proud, blah, blah, what would the adjective be for having participated in 100 episodes of this podcast?

[140] It's gratified.

[141] Really?

[142] Truly?

[143] I'm so surprised.

[144] Why gratified?

[145] You know, because I just thought it was such a bad idea from the beginning, and I thought it was such a waste of your time and a little bit of my time.

[146] And it's turned out that wherever I go, nobody really wants to talk about the books.

[147] or the movie.

[148] Everyone wants to talk about the podcast.

[149] Somehow the podcast turns out to be the medium that works great for us.

[150] Why do you think that is?

[151] Sure.

[152] It's free.

[153] I think it's a fact that you can listen to the podcast while you do something else, and it takes about half of a person's brain to capture what we're trying to say.

[154] In addition to thanking people, what do you want to say to our listeners on the occasion of our 100th episode?

[155] I would say let's raise our glass to a hundred more.

[156] Freeconomics Radio is produced by WNYC, APM, American Public Media, and Dubner Productions.

[157] Our staff includes Susie Lechtenberg, Catherine Wells, David Herman, Beret Lam, Colin Campbell, and Chris Bannon.

[158] But many, many, many more people have helped produce the previous 99 episodes, and I'd like to thank them too.

[159] They include Amanda Aroncic, Jesse Baker, Jacob Berman, Corey Buttolier, Chrissy Clark, Sean Cole, John DeLore, Andrew Gartrell, Elizabeth Giddens, Dwyer Gunn, Diana Wynne, Justin Jimenez, Dylan Keith, Austin Killam, Shia Leavitt, no relation to Steve Levitt, Ethan Lindsay, David Maxon, Jeff Mosankis, Amy Machado, Chris Neary, Michael Rayfield, Kate Rope, Paul Schneider, Jake Smith, Stacey Vanek -Smith, Sean Wenn, Verlin Williams, and Molly Webster, whose voice you may recognize.

[160] It sounds like this.

[161] Are you ready?

[162] Okay.

[163] Africonomics.

[164] Sorry.

[165] Also, a big thanks to all the folks at American Public Media and Marketplace, especially Deb Clark, Peter Clowny, Megan Larson, Judy McAlpin, Satara Nieves, Coyote Risdahl, Celeste Wesson, and JJ Yore, who answered the door when we first knocked a few years ago.

[166] And thanks to everyone here at WNYC, especially Dean Capello, Ellen Horn, and Laura Walker.

[167] Thanks to Peter Fields, even though he's a lawyer, and thanks to the folks at iTunes and Stitcher and everybody else that gets this podcast into your ears.

[168] And most of all, thanks to you for listening, for spreading the word, and for sending us your comments, ideas, even your complaints.

[169] Keep those emails coming at Radio at Freakonomics .com or just come visit us at Freakonomics .com.

[170] And if you subscribe to this podcast at iTunes, you will will get the next episode in your sleep.

[171] Holy cow, I cannot believe you actually listen to the end of our credits.

[172] Well, you know what comes next then?

[173] Yep, it's the bloopers.

[174] Hey, give it, give me, give me, and give me a lonely don't blue.

[175] Okay, you ready?

[176] I feel like I sound froggy.

[177] Do I sound froggy or no?

[178] Froggy, froggy, froggy.

[179] Here's the thing.

[180] No?

[181] No?

[182] Okay.

[183] Does it sound as weird in there as a dozen ears?

[184] We go down, we go down, we go down, and we go down, we go down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down.

[185] We got tape and we got tape and we got tape and we got tape and we got tape and we got tape and tape, tape.

[186] Okay, you're still rolling?

[187] I want you.

[188] No, I can't do it.

[189] What?

[190] I didn't touch anything.

[191] No, no. You thought I was making my voice like helium revert?

[192] Oh my god.

[193] I'm on fire.