Michael Mcbride's Key Ideas from Freakonomics
by Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner

Drug dealing looks glamorous from the outside—but the economic structure mirrors fast food chains:

• The top earners make huge sums
• Most street dealers earn less than minimum wage
• The salary is risk-heavy, unstable, and often subsidized by family
• Hope of promotion keeps people in the game

This isn’t about fast money—it’s about chasing slim odds of big power.

Parental traits influence child outcomes more than parenting choices:

• Education level of parents predicts test scores better than bedtime stories
• Passive traits (who parents are) outweigh active interventions (what they do)
• Correlation is often mistaken for causation in parenting outcomes

Being smart, stable, and safe matters more than obsessing over parenting hacks.

Names don't predict success—they reflect deeper social patterns:

• Lower-income parents often choose aspirational names
• Popular names shift across racial and class lines
• Social mobility influences naming trends more than names influence mobility

What matters is not the label—it’s the opportunities that follow.