think fast, talk smart.txt

1. POLITICAL AUTHORITY Plato, Crito Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan John Locke, Popular Basis of Political Authority David Hume, Of the Original Contract Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract 2. RATIONAL CHOICE Gary Becker, The Economic Way of Looking at Behavior David Schmidtz, Reasons for Altruism David Gauthier, Rationality: Maximization Constrained Gregory Kavka, The Toxin Puzzle 3. GAME THEORY Simon Blackburn, Game Theory and Rational Choice Thomas Schelling, Dynamic Models of Segregation Gerry Mackie, Ending Foot Binding and Infibulation: A Convention Account Geoffrey Brennan and Gordon Tullock, An Economic Theory of Military Tactics: Met hodological Individualism at War 4. PROPERTY John Locke, Of Property David Hume, Of Justice and Property Karl Marx, Capital, Primitive Accumulation Thomas Paine, Agrarian Justice David Schmidtz, The Institution of Property 5. MARKETS Market Advantages Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, Of the Division of Labor Friedrich Hayek, The Use of Knowledge in Society Leonard Read, I, Pencil Market Fairness St. Thomas Aquinas, Sins Committed in Buying and Selling John Locke, What is a Fair Price? Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, "Of the Expences of the Sovereign" Market Failures Tyler Cowen, Public Goods Jonathan Anomaly, Public Goods and Government Action David Friedman, Market Failures 6. COLLECTIVE ACTION Mancur Olson, The Logic of Collective Action Jean Hampton, Free Rider Problems in the Production of Collective Goods Elinor Ostrom, Collective Action and the Evolution of Social Norms Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, The Evolutionary Basis of Collective Action 7. JUSTICE John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism John Rawls, A Theory of Justice Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia Gerald Cohen, Robert Nozick and Wilt Chamberlain: How Patterns Preserve Liberty 8. EQUALITY Harry Frankfurt, Equality as a Moral Ideal Richard Arneson, Equality and Equal Opportunity for Welfare Amartya Sen, Equality of What? Robert Nozick, Equality of Opportunity Kurt Vonnegut, Harrison Bergeron

9. COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS Steven Kelman, An Ethical Critique of Cost-Benefit Analysis Elizabeth Anderson, Cost-Benefit Analysis, Safety, and Environmental Quality David Schmidtz, A Place for Cost-Benefit Analysis 10. PUBLIC CHOICE James Buchanan, Public Choice: Politics without Romance Anthony Downs, An Economic Theory of Political Action in a Democracy Michael Munger, Rent-Seek and You Will Find James Buchanan, How Can Constitutions Be Designed so that Politicians Who Seek t o Serve the "Public Interest" Can Survive and Prosper? Michael Huemer, Why People Are Irrational about Politics 11. REASONS TO VOTE Geoffrey Brennan and Loren Lomasky, Is There a Duty to Vote? Jason Brennan, Polluting the Polls: When Citizens Should Not Vote Geoffrey Brennan and Geoffrey Sayre-McCord, Voting and Causal Responsibility 12. LIBERTY AND PATERNALISM John Stuart Mill, On Liberty Gerald Dworkin, Paternalism Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, Libertarian Paternalism Is Not an Oxymoron 13. MARKETS ON THE MARGIN Sex Martha Nussbaum, Whether from Reason or Prejudice: Taking Money for Bodily Servi ces David Friedman, Marriage, Sex and Babies Drugs Michael Huemer, America's Unjust Drug War Peter de Marneffe, Against the Legalization of Drugs Jeffrey Miron, The Economics of Drug Prohibition and Drug Legalization Organs Arthur Caplan, Organ Transplantation Gerald Dworkin, Markets and Morals: The Case for Organ Sales Sweatshops Benjamin Powell and Matt Zwolinski, The Ethical and Economic Case Against Sweats hop Labor: A Critical Assessment Mathew Coakley and Michael Kates, The Ethical and Economic Case for Sweatshop Re gulation Price Gouging Michael Munger, They Clapped: Can Price Gouging Laws Prohibit Scarcity? Jeremy Snyder, What's the Matter with Price Gouging? Matt Zwolinski, Price Gouging, Non-Worseness, and Distributive Justice Be Slow to anger and deliberate of action. however, when pushed to voilence, str ike hard and fast and win at all costs. we the wiiling let by the unknowing, are doing the impossible for the ungratful. we have done so much, for so long, with so little, we are now qualified to do a nything with nothing. Don't be a bitch, man up, be decisive, dominate, be aggressive, high risks yield high rewards Rapid transformation: a 90 days plan for fast and effective change the inside out effect 2. When given a choice take both! 3. Multiple projects lead to multiple successes. 4. St art at the top, then work your way up. 5. Do it by the book . . . but be the author! 6. Wh en forced to compromise, ask for more. 7. If you can t win, change the rules. 8. If yo

u can t change the rules, then ignore them. 9. Perfection is not optional. 10. When fa ced without a challenge make one. 11. No simply means begin one level higher. 12. Don t walk when you can run. 13. When in doubt: THINK! 14. Patience is a virtue, but persi stence to the point of success is a blessing. 15. The squeaky wheel gets replaced. 16. The faster you move, the slower time passes, the longer you live. 17. The best way to predict the future is to create it yourself! 18. The ratio of something to nothing is infinite. 19. You get what you incentivize. 20. If you think it is imposs ible, then it is for you. 21. An expert is someone who can tell you exactly how so mething can t be done. 22. The day before something is a breakthrough, it s a crazy id ea. 23. If it was easy, it would have been done already. 24. Without a target you ll m iss it every time. 25. Fail early, fail often, fail forward! 26. If you can t measure it, you can t improve it. 27. The world s most precious resource is the persistent and passionate human mind. 28. Bureaucracy is an obstacle to be conquered with persis tence, confidence, and a bulldozer when necessary. 1. If anything can go wrong, fix it! (To hell with Murphy!) So let me lay out how to buy a car. It s very easy. Decide exactly what car you want to buy, make, color if it matters to you, options and so forth. Then do no t go to a dealership. Let your fingers do the walking. Telephone all of the de alers who sell the vehicle you re interested in who are, say, within a 50 mile rad ius, a 25 mile radius, 75, however far you re willing to go. To each of them make the same statement: Hi, my name is so and so. I plan to buy such and such a ca r today at 5pm. I m going to buy it from the dealer who gives me the best price. What is your best price? The dealer may say the person on the phone may say: Well sir or madam you can t buy a car on the telephone. Come in. We ll give you the bes t price. The response to that is: I know I can buy a car this way because I know many cars have been purchased this way, so if you don t quote a price to me I und erstand that you re telling me you know you don t have the best price. I appreciate you re saving my time. Now they will either say thank you good bye or they will q uote a price or they will say yes, but when I tell you a price you ll call the nex t dealer and that person will quote a price that is $50 lower than mine and then you ll go buy their car to which the response is: That s right, so if you can go $5 0 lower this is your opportunity because I will buy from whoever gives me the lo west price and I need the full total price, taxes, everything. I don t want you t o charge me $450 dealer prep to wash the car. I want a full end price. I will not discuss the price when I come in. I will come in with a check made out to w hoever gave me the lowest price. If they renege I will walk out. I will have t he second best price check in my pocket. I will go buy it from them. What is y our best price? I have now bought 10 or 11 cars this way. I just got an email from a Marine off icer who teaches an intelligence course. One of his students, another Marine re ad The Predictioneer s Game, went out, bought a book, had written down what his dr eam price was for the car. He beat the dream price by $2,000. I just bought a car for about $6,000 less than one would have expected. I have a student who ju st bought a car for several thousand dollars below invoice. An Irish Times repo rter bought a used car this way. He said this can t work, it s ridiculous. He tele phoned. He wrote an article. He said in ten minutes I bought a car for two and a half thousand Euros less than the highest price I was quoted, which was what I expected to pay. It actually works. So there is a good example of a simple p roblem just a little bit of logic. All the information flows from the dealers t o you. You never ask the question what will it take to get me in this car today other than to say you re having the lowest price.