Pew Pew Laser Blog

Freaky Topics.

Here are a couple of unusual topics that remind me of the stuff that those Freakonomics guys often talk about.

• The Zillow Trick-or-Treat Index: Zillow, Seattle-based real estate website, rated local neighborhoods on a combination of house value, walk-ability, density and crime data to identify the prime neighborhoods for the best candy haul on Halloween.
• A non-intuitive idea for why health care costs continue to rise: Health insurance companies have rather little motivation to keep overall health care costs down; they will just increase the premiums. The insurance companies profit as a percentage of overall costs. Patients, on the other hand, demand that that the insurance companies cover more new drugs and more procedures. (You don't think that pharmaceutical companies show all those expensive commercials out of the goodness of their hearts, do you?)

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