Show me the numbers
September 17, 2017 Leave a comment
….humanity was spending 39,757 collective years on [Facebook], every single day. Jonathan Taplin points out that this is ‘almost fifteen million years of free labour per year’. That was back when it had a mere 1.23 billion users.
Source: you are the product
3 day’s Facebook activity = a new set of Pyramids at Giza
January 4, 2016 Leave a comment
A fundamental change over the 20th century, paraphrased from a Paul Graham article:
In the early 20th century, big companies were synonymous with efficiency, as compared to delivering a product using a network of cooperating companies.
Today computers enable far easier coordination, reducing the transaction costs that Coase argued are the raison d’etre of corporations.
December 19, 2015 Leave a comment
The ratio of global worker:dependant has passed a local maximum:
October 27, 2015 Leave a comment
The BBC currently use this graphic in Tax Credit articles:
The middle-earning couple are NOT better off due to changes in the Tax Credit system, it has no impact on them whatsoever, so the chart title is deliberately misleading.
The low earning single parent needs to do an extra 20 minutes of work per day to avoid being worse off financially (that’s merely an observation of the mathematics, not a suggestion or endorsement of the policy change).
October 11, 2015 Leave a comment
I went to a brunch briefing recently, titled ” The Future of Europe: An Investor’s Guide” where I was especially impressed with one of the panelists, Louise Cooper. A couple of her observations struck me:
January 4, 2015 Leave a comment
According to several sites, today, the first Sunday in January, is the busiest of the year in online dating.
If you’re a guy, use a profile picture where you look away from the camera and don’t smile:
If you’re female, “selfie above the head” shots are best:
Or have a bed in the background. Men are like that.
December 22, 2014 Leave a comment
I’ve seen this in several places today, “Amazing fact. Tiny Bangladesh has more people than Russia”:
The projection used in maps can distort thing (the land area of England and Bangladesh is just about equal for example) but Bangladesh is genuinely 100x smaller than Russia whilst having pretty much the same population (they’re the 8th and 9th most populated, respectively).
Though I’m not sure it’s that much of an amazing fact. Out of 200 countries to pick from we’re comparing the world’s largest country with the world’s densest (leaving aside Singapore and a few others with <5m inhabitants). What did you expect?
Bangladesh is in a heavily populated portion of the world
I also read recently, but can’t find back the exact numbers, something like it was only in 1974 that the African continent reached the population density that Europe had in the middle ages. And you can fit a lot of countries into Africa
December 7, 2014 Leave a comment
% (n=100)
What’s the answer?
October 1, 2014 1 Comment
I recently looked at contributing to a bridging loan to a company to complete a residential care home for the elderly. I’ll keep the numbers round for confidentiality reasons.
The key financials seem fine, with the facility sited in a demographic sweet spot and forecast to command above-market fees of £600/resident/week due to positioning as a high end option.
But the low operational costs – 90% of which are wages and food – startled me.
Food and drink is budgeted at under £4/person/day. I swapped a few messages with a relative who manages food operations for a budget restaurant chain. Choice quotes:
“Three meals a day? They don’t eat that much I suppose”
“Drinks too? Haha. You’d struggle with that big time”
Back-calculating on staffing costs gives 3 hours of work by a minimum wage employee per resident per 24 hrs. Well, I guess they won’t be spending much time cooking food.
With the loan paying at 10% and secured with a first charge against the property itself at 50% LTV, I’m not sure I’m out. But I definitely wouldn’t want my mum to be in.
Marc Gawley 
