Why do crack dealers still live with their moms?

[pchristensen]

Short answer: because drug dealing gangs are organized like McDonalds franchises where most "foot soldiers" make minimum wage or less while the leaders make hundreds of thousands of dollars.

[vaksel]

its a typical case of multi level marketing

[time_management]

I'd be surprised if the average McDonald's franchiser is making anything close to $100,000 per year. I'd guess that it's around $60,000 in a good location and year. McDonalds is known to be especially bad at fleecing franchise owners.

I worked at a chain grocery store one summer and had observations pretty similar to Barbara Ehrenreich's in Nickel and Dimed. "Four digits" (per week) was considered to be rarefied compensation. The #3 man in the store was making around $50k, and this was a huge store with about 150 employees.

[jwesley]

Side note: I wish TED talks were available in text format. They're always interesting, but most of the time I'm unable (or unwilling) to hunker down and watch a 20 minute video. Web content needs to be scan-able.

[cdr]

This particular talk, at least, is from chapter 3 of Freakonomics.

[zaius]

The best part of that was hearing Steven Levitt say 'bling bling'

[gritzko]

Another explanation why Google underpays its employees.

[josefresco]

Google underpays because they have a 'cult' following similar to Apple which allows them to recruit not based on pay, but on their credibility as a cool-smart company, and other non financial perks.

[medearis]

There are a number of other interesting (though perhaps dubiously supported) similar arguments (including this one) in his book freakonomics.

[brentr]

Would your mom narc on you?

[auston]

Although it isn't true - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blow_(film)

[albertcardona]

For those not acquainted with the book: "Freakonomics"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freakonomics

[point]

Let's not jump to conclusions here. Maybe they are just saving money to make their own web 2.0 todo list app, so they can finally get rich.