Here’s a stat and a half. A certain city mayor in the US (allegedly*) spent $260 MILLION on his campaigns to become and remain elected. He spent $184 per vote cast in 2009 alone.
What’s that quote about the finest politician money can buy?
* Legal reasons!
This can’t be right. A poll by Populus/The Times says that 14% of UK 18-24-year-olds and 12% of 25-34-year-olds have “warm feelings” towards Islamic State (IS). This compares to 5% of UK adults (?) and 1% of over 65s. If it is right it’s a weak signal and a worrying one.
Of the ten bloodiest conflicts in world history, two were world wars. Five of the other eight took place or originated in China.
Been talking with some asset managers about where the world is heading and a Danish dairy company about food trends. Also back from doing an after dinner speech at the Malvern Festival of Innovation. Who knew Malvern was a) so pretty and b) a cyber-hub?
Currently working on a talk for Hong Kong on global thematics. In between this reading a pile of articles for the next issue of What’s Next. One thing that caught my eye today (Economist 27 September, page 69) was this.
30% of CEOs of Fortune 500 Companies are 6 feet 2 inches or taller compared with 3.9% of the American population.
Was also visually assaulted by this particular gem from same issue (page 65)
“None of the ten board members (of Tesco) has direct experience of managing a retailer.” OMG!!!
If you borrowed £400 from Wonga (a UK payday loans company) at its standard rate for 7 years, you would end up owing them more than the UKs national debt (£900 billion last time I looked).
Just playing with some numbers!
Around 24,000 suicide attempts are made in the UK every year by 10-19 year-olds.
Some days I just love the internet. Thanks to Matt Doyle in Robertson for two of these.
Want to waste more time today? A few more here
And perhaps the best of all….
Whatsapp has 55 employees and a market valuation that exceeds that of the Sony corporation – from The future isn’t what it used to be (BBC Radio 4).
It’s been a while since we had a statistic, so here’s a good one. Of the 21 million homes in the UK with a front garden, around 33% have been turned into parking spaces for cars over the last 20 years. That’s 14,200 hectares of oxygen producing, sound absorbing, and water absorbing green space that’s vanished.