Results for “markets in everything” 1897 found
Markets in everything, personal fire hydrant edition
The latest sought-after home amenity? Personal fire hydrants. The logic is that when there’s a major disaster there may not be enough fire engines to protect every house in an area. If homeowners have their own hydrant ready to go—along with hoses, nozzles and adapters—and are trained to use it all, that could help reduce the number of homes destroyed.
Real-estate agents say mentioning a personal fire hydrant in the marketing materials now helps sell homes. “People notice it. It’s definitely a plus,” says Stephen Kotsenburg of Christie’s International Real Estate, who has the listing for a four-bedroom, three-bathroom, 3,388-square-foot home in Park City, Utah. It’s on the market for $2.1 million and advertises a fire hydrant, which is painted bright red and is visible as you come up the driveway.
Victoria Waldorf is the listing agent for a five-bedroom, three-bathroom, 4,691-square-foot house that is for sale for $1.775 million in Agua Dulce, Calif. She says she points out the personal fire hydrant to everyone who comes through for a viewing. “There’s relief in people’s faces,” she says.
Here is more from the WSJ, via Daniel Lippmann.
China markets in everything
This is very interesting, and I think a world first: a local government in China has just sold its sky, literally. This is the government of Pingyin County, Jinan, Shandong Province who sold for 924 million yuan (approximately $130 million) a 30-year concession to operate and maintain its low-altitude economic projects to a company called Shandong Jinyu General Aviation Co., Ltd. The “low-altitude economy” is a big trend in China at the moment. XPeng, one of China’s leading EV manufacturers, recently released a low-altitude flying car for instance. Drone deliveries are becoming increasingly common in Chinese cities, and various regions are actively developing low-altitude transportation networks. Shanghai, for instance, plans to establish 400 low-altitude flight routes by 2027. But this is the first time a local government has monetized its low-altitude airspace…
Here is more from Arnaud Bertrand. Via Jesper.
Schengen eroding, child legal arbitrage markets in everything
“We are increasing surveillance, in part to increase security, but also to prevent hired Swedish child soldiers who come to Copenhagen to carry out tasks in connection with gang conflicts,” he added.
Hummelgaard revealed on Thursday that there had been 25 incidents since April where Danish criminal gangs had hired what he called “child soldiers” to commit crimes in Denmark. In the last two weeks alone, Danish police have linked three shootings to Swedish teenagers…
Swedish police say that powerful criminal gangs often use children to commit murders as they will receive light sentences. Drug gangs — many of whom are led by second-generation immigrants now living outside the country — have infiltrated parts of the welfare, legal and political systems, meaning the fight against them could take decades, according to Swedish officials.
Here is more from Richard Milne at the FT. Elsewhere, “Brown bears are protected under EU law,” solve for the equilibrium (FT).
Houston France markets in everything
Houston First, the city’s tourism department, revealed that it is paying $90,000 per year for three years — meaning the city will invest a whopping $270,000 to have the Michelin Guide here in Houston. Holly Clapham-Rosenow, Houston First’s chief marketing officer, says the city redirected some of its budget from various departments to the guide, which is standard for opportunities that come about during the year or when business strategies shift. “Budgets have some fluidity if the right opportunities come about, and opportunities like Michelin, Top Chef, and James Beard — we’re going to jump on them,” she says, adding that the investment seemed worth it considering the culinary scene is one of Houston’s biggest traveler draws.
According to Houston First’s 2023 Strategic and Budget Summary, money spent on food and beverage accounts for around 32 percent of the money spent during day trips to Houston and 24 percent of the money spent during overnight trips — the highest cost behind lodging.
Here is the full story, via the excellent Samir Varma.
Markets in Everything: Fentanyl Precursors
Reuters: To learn how this global industry works, reporters made multiple buys of precursors over the past year. Though a few of the sales proved to be scams, the journalists succeeded in buying 12 chemicals that could be used to make fentanyl, according to independent chemists consulted by Reuters. Most of the goods arrived as seamlessly as any other mail-order package. The team also procured secondary ingredients used to process the essential precursors, as well as basic equipment – giving it everything needed to produce fentanyl.
The core precursors Reuters bought would have yielded enough fentanyl powder to make at least 3 million tablets, with a potential street value of $3 million – a conservative estimate based on prices cited by U.S. law enforcement agencies in published reports over the past six months.
The total cost of the chemicals and equipment Reuters purchased, paid mainly in Bitcoin: $3,607.18.
I don’t doubt that Reuters did what they say they did. I have trouble believing, however, that the implied profit margins are so high. A gram of cocaine costs about $160 on the street and $13 to $70 trafficked into the US and ready to sell. Thus, the street price to production cost is at most 12:1 and perhaps as low as 2.3:1. Note that this profit margin includes the costs of jail etc. I think Reuters overestimates fentanyl street prices by a factor of 2 which would still give a ratio of 415:1 which is way too high. Let’s say fentanyl sells for $1.5 million on the street then to get the ratio to a very generous 20:1 we need costs of $75,000 so my guess is that Reuters has underestimated costs by a significant amount in some manner.
Happy to receive clarification or verification from those with more expertise in the business.
I do accept Reuters point that fentanyl is cheap and easy to produce.
The whole story is excellent.
Rhino capital markets in everything?
In 2022 the World Bank priced the world’s first wildlife bond, raising $150 million that will be partially used for the conservation of black rhinos at two reserves in South Africa. Returns on those five-year bonds will be determined by the rate of population growth. It said at the time that it hoped that the structure would be emulated…
Under the rhino bond’s structure the issuer makes contributions toward conserving the animals instead of paying coupons and the buyers of the bond receive a payment based on preset targets for population growth. Black rhino numbers have dropped to about 2,600 from 65,000 in 1970, and may once have been as high as 850,000, according to documentation from the World Bank. They are smaller than the more common white rhino.
Here is more from Antony Sguazzin at Bloomberg. As the article notes, Rand Merchant Bank is considering issuing wild dog and lion bonds as well, with the exact structure still being discussed.
Cross-border gunshot arbitrage markets in everything, Jean Baudrillard gone wrong edition
Federal prosecutors on Friday announced charges against five people in connection with a Chicago-based scheme that staged armed robberies so the purported victims could apply for U.S. immigration visas reserved for legitimate crime victims…
Officials believe hundreds of people, including some who traveled from out of town, posed as customers in dozens of businesses across Chicago and elsewhere, all hoping to win favorable immigration status by becoming “victims” of pre-arranged “armed robberies.”
During a staged hold-up in Bucktown last year, one of the “robbers” accidentally fired their gun, severely injuring a liquor store clerk, according to one source. During that caper alone, five “customers” were “robbed.”
Here is the full story, via Ian.
Thwarted markets in everything, antiquities remain underpriced
An auction house has withdrawn 18 ancient Egyptian human skulls from sale after an MP said selling them would perpetuate the atrocities of colonialism.
Bell Ribeiro-Addy, the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Afrikan reparations, believes the sale of human remains for any purposes should be outlawed, adding that the trade was “a gross violation of human dignity”.
The skulls of 10 men, five women, and three people of uncertain sex, were listed by Semley Auctioneers in Dorset, with a guide price of £200-300 for each lot.
They were originally collected by the Victorian British soldier and archaeologist Augustus Henry Lane Fox Pitt-Rivers, who founded the University of Oxford’s Pitt Rivers Museum in 1884.
Here is the full Guardian story, indirectly via Samir Varma.
Scrabble markets in everything, okie-dokie edition
For the first time in 75 years, Mattel is making a major change to the iconic board game Scrabble — and touting a “No More Scoring” gameplay option.
The new launch is a double-sided version of the famous board game — one side with the original game for those who want to stick to the long-time traditional version, and one side with a “less competitive” version to appeal to Gen Z gamers.
The flip side of the classic game, called Scrabble Together, will include helper cards, use a simpler scoring system, be quicker to play and allow people to play in teams.
“The makers of Scrabble found that younger people, Gen Z people, don’t quite like the competitive nature of Scrabble,” Gyles Brandreth, who co-hosts the language podcast Something Rhymes With Purple, told BBC Radio 4 Today. “They want a game where you can simply enjoy language, words, being together and having fun creating words.”
And:
So what’s new exactly? In addition to a dual-sided board, there are helper cards, which provide assistance, prompts and clues and can be selected to match the player’s challenge level of their choice.
In the new version, scoring is a thing of the past — now all one has to do is finish a goal and collect the goal card.
Goal cards include challenges such as: “Play a horizontal word,” “play a three-letter word” or “play a word that touches the edge of the board.”
Here is the full story. I have read that 33 out of the world’s top 100 Scrabble players are Nigerian — I wonder what they think of this?
The $20 bill gets picked up, body parts markets in everything
At the 1815 Battle of Waterloo, Napoleon Bonaparte’s final battle, more than 10,000 men and as many horses were killed in a single day. Yet today, archaeologists often struggle to find physical evidence of the dead from that bloody time period. Plowing and construction are usually the culprits behind missing historical remains, but they can’t explain the loss here. How did so many bones up and vanish?
In a new book, an international team of historians and archaeologists argues the bones were depleted by industrial-scale grave robbing. The introduction of phosphates for fertilizer and bone char as an ingredient in beet sugar processing at the beginning of the 19th century transformed bones into a hot commodity. Skyrocketing prices prompted raids on mass graves across Europe—and beyond.
Here is the full article, via William Meller. And, as Alex has stressed in the past, never underestimate the elasticity of supply!
Markets in everything, Korean opening bid edition
“We will continue to do what we can as a company to solve the low birth issue,” Lee Joong-keun, the chairman of Booyoung Group, a Seoul-based construction company, said last week after awarding a total $5.25 million to his employees for 70 babies born since 2021.
Both male and female employees at Booyoung are eligible for a $75,000 payout each time they have a baby — no strings attached.
Here is the full story.
University betting markets in everything
Gray and Kornbluth, individually. Via Kalshi. Here is Manifold.
Wisconsin DEI markets in everything
In a deal months in the making, the University of Wisconsin System has agreed to “reimagine” its diversity efforts, restructuring dozens of staff into positions serving all students and freezing the total number of diversity positions for the next three years.
In exchange, universities would receive $800 million for employee pay raises and some building projects, including a new engineering building for UW-Madison.
“This is an evolution, and this is a change moving forward,” UW System President Jay Rothman told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “But it does not in any way deviate from our core values of diversity (and) inclusion.”
Here is the full story, via HB, it is rare that the real world is actually so Coasean.
Markets in everything those new service sector jobs
The video, posted by the 39-year-old Tampa resident under her stage name Roxie Rae, is one of dozens on Clips4Sale, an adult-video-sharing website where content creators cater to all types of sexual fetishes, including one that is rarely discussed outside of niche kink circles: political humiliation. There are people who get turned on by the idea of having their political views mocked, usually (but not always) by members of the opposing political group. Liberals desire being dominated by conservatives and called pejoratives that imply they are weak and unintelligent, while conservatives want to be mocked for supporting former president Donald Trump, among other perceived transgressions, according to those who participate in this subculture.
Here is the full Washington Post article by Hallie Lieberman.
Expensive markets in everything
…testimony in the trial revealed that Google spent a total of $26.3 billion in 2021 to be the default search engine in multiple browsers, phones, and platforms.
That number, the sum total of all of Google’s search distribution deals, came out during the Justice Department’s cross-examination of Google’s search head, Prabhakar Raghavan.
$18 billion of that goes to Apple. Here is the full story.