When to Rob a Bank

I'm in the middle of four or five books right now. This is a terrible idea. But I see a book I'm interested in and tell myself I'll just check it out, but then I get too into it. I'm not sure how many books I'm reading because it depends on how you define that. At least one I'm kind of skimming. I've read When to Rob a Bank before, but I thought I should look at it again. It's by the guys who wrote Freakonomics and also have a blog of that same name. They look at economics issues, but not like the econ class I took in college, which almost killed me. They find entertaining stuff. Some of what they say is their opinion, but some are strictly factual. So you don't make my mistake and get bogged down in a book like this, let me share with you what I consider the highlights.

• The IRS pretty much knows who cheats on their taxes. With more agents they could go after them. They would collect a dollar for every three cents cost in extra staff. But Congress tends not to give them the money to do that sort of thing. The IRS has to farm it out, which is a lot more expensive. 
• A prescription at Costco that costs $12 might cost $117 at Walgreen's. How does Walgreen's keep any business? "If a retiree is used to filling his prescriptions at Walgreen's, that's where he fills his prescription." He assumes it will be pretty much the same price everywhere. That seems dumb, but I've made dumb assumptions kind of like that before.
• Why does the home team usually win? First of all, it does. Historically 54% of the time in baseball, 57% in the NFL and 61% in the NBA. They quoted a great book I read once called Sportscasting. They make the case it is that the home team gets generous calls from the officials. It's not blatant favoritism. It's just human nature that people would rather be cheered than booed. Subconsciously, it causes the refs to make calls that will result in them getting cheered. 
• The best time to rob a bank. You tend to get more money in the morning. There are more robberies on Friday's although each day has about the same chance of you getting caught, which is about 35% of the time. So chances are you won't get caught - if you do it once. If you press your luck and keep at it, you'll get caught. I was surprised how little is made. The average bank robbery nets $4,120. I'm thinking that's not worth it. You have a 35% chance of getting $4,000 dollars and a 65% chance of going to jail for 5 to 10 years. Nope. Doesn't seem worth it. 
• Some guy wrote a book called Good to Great analyzing companies that had been profitable for years. He looked at 11 companies and thought he found some that really had things figured out. Anyway he wrote his book about how they did it. But how about later, after the book came out - One of the 11 went bankrupt, two had profits down about 80%, and the rest were a mixed bag. Only one really continued to do well. I read a couple of those kinds of books and decided they were garbage. I'm glad I decided that. If you need help in an area, just think about it on your own for a while and you'll do just as well as the "experts".