TED.com does it again with its brilliant insight. If you thought crack dealing and gangster life was a lucrative and glamorous life, then think again. You’d earn more and be better off working at your local MacDonalds. Most street dealers live with their moms. You would only know that if you spent time with the big gangs analysing their books and studying their organisation academically.

“Freakonomics author Steven Levitt presents new data on the finances of drug dealing. Contrary to popular myth, he says, being a street-corner crack dealer isn’t lucrative: It pays below minimum wage. And your boss can kill you.”