July 2012
135 posts
“Goldman Sachs’ analysts conclude that Olympic games in Munich (1972) and Montreal (1976) lost big bucks, while Los Angeles (1984), Barcelona (1992) and Atlanta (1996) “each made a profit.”
—Olympic Economics, The Pre-Games Show
(via planetmoney)
Advice from 5 midlife millionaires →
money.msn.com
Each of these people learned valuable lessons that they put to use later in life in ventures that vaulted them into the ranks of the wealthy. Find out how they did it.
via-Kiplinger
That’s us! Thanks for Tumbling.
“If he is a top executive he lives on an economic scale not too different from that of the man on the next-lower income rung. He surrenders around 40 per cent of his salary to the Bureau of Internal Revenue (he may cough up as much as 75 per cent) but still manages to put a little of his income in stocks, bonds, life insurance. He owns two cars, and gets along with one or two servants. What time he has left from his work–on weekends and brief vacations–he spends exercising, preferably outdoors, and usually at golf. Next to golf, fishing is the most popular executive diversion.”
—From a fascinating 1955 Fortune article on how top executives live. Kind of like Mad Men without the trendy costume design.
Fun fact: Women spend more money on make-up, fragrances and other beauty products in a recession. →
lifeinc.today.msnbc.msn.com
It’s called the “lipstick effect,” and the fine folks at MSNBC have a very interesting article about it.
Do you have what it takes to be a millionaire? →
kiplinger.com
Worth the read for the dinner-party trivia and reality TV jokes, if nothing else. (Oh, and your friendly curator wrote it.)
“People have vices, and we’re not going to stop having them. When vice X gets harder to come by, we’ll supplement it with vice Y. Taking a cue from Jurassic Park, ‘Nature finds a way… [to party].’”
—
James Hamblin, in The Atlantic.
Apparently, cigarette taxes have an unintended consequence — they make people drink more.
Why Millennials Don't Want To Buy Stuff →
fastcompany.com
Humanity is experiencing an evolution in consciousness. We are starting to think differently about what it means to “own” something. This is why a similar ambivalence towards ownership is emerging in all sorts of areas, from car-buying to music listening to entertainment consumption. Though technology facilitates this evolution and new generations champion it, the big push behind it all is that our thinking is changing.
“
The walls of the Cash Bar are papered in dollar bills. The bathrooms are decked out in gold, from the toilet seats to the walls, and framed portraits of Abraham Lincoln (face of the $5), George Washington (who appears on the dollar) and Benjamin Franklin (whose image is on the $100) are dotted throughout the space.
[Bar-owner] Lemieux, who is also a singer and has performed with the USO, said the cocktail menu was also meant to pay homage to money, with several drinks that were so-called cocktails of choice for past presidents.” The Abraham Lincoln, for example, consists of Crown Royal, apple Schnapps and cranberry juice. Other cocktails on the menu are named after various currencies from around the world.
As might be expected, the bar owners prefer cash over credit, but beginning next week, they will be accepting credit cards, with a $100 minimum purchase amount.
‘We’ll be fancy and have a $100 minimum because I just like to be fancy,’ said Lemieux, whose business card is a fake, folded $100 bill.
” —A money-themed lounge called “Cash Bar” just opened in New York City. Happy Friday!
Self-healing airplanes, super-charged batteries, cameras that focus *after* you take the picture ... →
kiplinger.com
The future might not be here, but it’s close enough for our friends on the Letter staff to see. They just released their annual list of new technologies that will rock your world.
