Freakonomics is Yabai in Japanese

I was looking for a book and I saw a book called Yabai in Japanese. Yabai means strange or weird.
I recognized the orange within an apple image. It is the freakonomics book.
Apparently my wife read this book and that is why she is reading stiglitz microeconomics textbook. She is fascinated by economics as presented by Levitz and disappointed by microeconomics as presented in standard microeconomics textbook. She asked for an easy to read Microeconomics textbook. I gave her a few, but I think she will be disappointed.
I wonder could we make Micro more interesting? There are the experiments of supply and demand but something more...

Price Floor and Quality

I was walking with my wife and talking about price floors. She is reading Stiglitz book in Japanese. She asked me the following question: "What is wrong with price floor if it brings quality to the good?"
It took me awhile to figure out what she was talking about. It was with the help of the electronic dictionary that I understood she is talking about price floors.
She followed that with : "Is quantity everything?"
I tried to remind her that in Japan watermelon costs around 8000 yen (about $90).
She paused and said the following: "At first I liked cheap watermelon but now...."
I waited.
She continued: " I wonder Is cheap cheap everything? What about taste?"
This made me think too.
There were three questions on my mind:
1) What is wrong with a price floor which is set up to encourage high quality goods. (This is different from U.S. farm subsidies which encourages quantity)
2) Are we happier with more? I dont know if the fruit were truly better in Japan or not but it was a treat to have a piece of fruit. Scarcity made it tastier.
3) Why is my wife (a non-economist) reading Stiglitz economic textbook?
4) How do the Japanese subsidize their farms? Is it a quota or a price floor?

Freakonomics (this is freaky)

I found this article on freakonomics like a car crash. I found it disgusting but could not stop reading.
Here is another site I could not stop reading:
http://blog.organomics.org/

Every Micro teacher should read and use

Every Microeconomics teacher should read this book by Steve Keen. Even if an instructor does not accept his arguments it is an interesting way to get the students to think about Economics. Usually students just memorize the formulas but I love the look in the students' eyes when I tell them about this book.
The better prepared students love to read this book and argue with me after class. I take on the neoclassical approach and I see these students (so far two) ace my standard microeconomics exam.
They love to argue and prove the teacher wrong and in the process learn about Micro.

Debunk Econ Site