Take a trip to Slate Magazine

Two very interesting articles today that I feel the need to blog about.

First, Tim Hartford, the undercover economist, has I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do: The economic case for polygamy. You see, Russian Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov has ben quoted as saying "Each man who can provide for four wives should do it."

"In a society with equal numbers of men and women, each man with four wives gives women the additional pick of three men—the poor saps whose potential wives decided they'd prefer one-quarter of a billionaire instead. In the Sahel region of Africa, half of all women live in polygynous households. The other half have a good choice of men and a lot more bargaining power. If polygyny combined with women's rights, I bet we'd see more promises to wash the dishes. Not everybody would have to share a husband, but I can think of some who might prefer half of Orlando Bloom to all of Tim Harford—including my wife."

"The reverse is probably true, too: When women are taken from the marriage market, men suffer. In China, the policy of one-child families coupled with selective abortion of girls has produced "surplus" males. Such men are called "bare branches," and China could have 30 million of them by 2020. Perhaps polyandry—women with multiple husbands—would be the logical response to the situation in China. What will happen instead is that these lonely, wifeless men will end up sleeping with a relatively small number of women—prostitutes—with severe risks of sexually transmitted disease all around. "
To read the entire article, Click here

Secondly, there is an article on the best way to spend your charitable donations, Bang for your Buck By Daniel Akst.

"What is the best way to spend $1 to make the world a better place?
This turns out to be a complicated question that naturally raises another: why the best way? Doing some good, after all, is vastly better than doing none, and figuring out the very best target is bound to be as costly and unsatisfying as most maximizing behaviors—especially if you're really dealing with a single dollar, a sum best spent on a cup of coffee for a homeless person."

To read the whole thing, click here