How Texas avoided the worst of the real estate meltdown – by limiting what you can do with home-equity loans. (until 1998, they weren’t allowed at all)
Personality and the Census – response rates have been highest in the states whose people are more agreeable and extroverted. (apparently, that doesn’t mean Texas!)
Yes, 47% of American families owe no income tax, but when you take payroll taxes into account that number drops to 10%. Payroll taxes are pretty regressive…
Tina Fey doing another Sarah Palin bit.
Price anchoring, and why even knowing how it works isn’t enough to protect you from it.
Optimizing Your Wife – this is an old problem (if you know you’re going to meet 100 candidates and can rank them relative to each other but have to decide when you meet one whether to marry or not), but with more data on what to do if you care about maximizing happiness, not just finding the best one.
Greg's Blog 
Home equity loans weren’t allowed back when I was applying to colleges (1995). I really really really wanted to go to Duke, and I can remember sitting in a financial aid seminar there when I visited and their standard recommendation to people was to have their parents take out a 2nd mortgage. Didn’t leave me feeling too hopeful since that was illegal in my state. 😛 (Not that I would have asked my parents to do that anyway…their house was paid off by then and I didn’t want them taking on more debt on my behalf.) Ultimately, Duke was a lot more expensive than Rice, and Rice offered much better financial aid. 🙂
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Jeez, really? That’s terrible advice! You should never take on that kind of debt to send your kids to a private college – that’s what in-state schools (or even out-of-state public schools) are for. You also never raid your retirement account. If you’re that strapped for cash, consider community college, or graduating in three years – but private school does *not* offer enough of a relative benefit to justify that.
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It seems incredible to me that that was part of their standard advice! Wow, I wish Texas hadn’t changed that law. 😦 It was mostly a protection.
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