Results for “markets in everything” 1899 found
Increasing returns markets in everything
Some South Korean youth are so cut off from the world, the government is offering to pay them to “re-enter society.”
The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family announced this week that it will provide up to 650,000 Korean won (about $500) per month to isolated social recluses, in a bid to support their “psychological and emotional stability and healthy growth.”
About 3.1% of Koreans aged 19 to 39 are “reclusive lonely young people,” defined as living in a “limited space, in a state of being disconnected from the outside for more than a certain period of time, and have noticeable difficulty in living a normal life,” according to the ministry’s report, citing the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs.
Here is the full article, via Shruti.
Cinematic markets in everything
AMC Theatres is changing the way it charges for seats.
America’s largest movie chain announced that the prices of a ticket will now be based on seat location, meaning seats in the front will be cheaper while more desirable seats in the middle will now cost more. The ticket pricing initiative, called Sightline at AMC, will roll out at all of its roughly 1,000 movie theaters by the end of the year.
Three pricing tiers will soon be offered. For example, the highest-end “Preferred” tier are in the middle of the theaters and will be priced at a “slight premium” compared to its “Standard” tier, which the theater chains says will remain the most common choice and will be sold for the “traditional cost of a ticket.” The third tier is called “Value,” which are seats in the front row of theaters and will cost less than than its “Standard” tier.
Broadway and music concerts do this, so why not movie theaters? Here is the full story, via Natasha.
Medical markets in everything?
Or will they be thwarted?
To Nina McCollum, Cleveland Clinic’s decision to begin billing for some email correspondence between patients and doctors “was a slap in the face.”
She has relied on electronic communications to help care for her ailing 80-year-old mother, Penny Cooke, who is in need of specialized psychiatric treatment from the clinic. “Every 15 or 20 dollars matters, because her money is running out,” she said.
Electronic health communications and telemedicine have exploded in recent years, fueled by the coronavirus pandemic and relaxed federal rules on billing for these types of care. In turn, a growing number of health care organizations, including some of the nation’s major hospital systems like Cleveland Clinic, doctors’ practices and other groups, have begun charging fees for some responses to more time-intensive patient queries via secure electronic portals like MyChart.
…a new study shows that the fees, which some institutions say range from a co-payment of as little as $3 to a charge of $35 to $100, may be discouraging at least a small percentage of patients from getting medical advice via email. Some doctors say they are caught in the middle of the debate over the fees, and others raised concerns about the effects that the charges might have on health equity and access to care.
Demand curves do slope downward. And yet:
But a recent study led by Dr. Holmgren of data from Epic, a dominant electronic health records company, showed that the rate of patient emails to providers had increased by more than 50 percent in the last three years.
Perhaps there is a smidgen of room for AI here? But not under the current legal regime, I suspect. Here is the full Benjamin Ryan NYT article.
Switzerland markets in everything
Switzerland, one of the world’s richest nations, has an ambitious climate goal: It promises to cut its greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030.
But the Swiss don’t intend to reduce emissions by that much within their own borders. Instead, the European country is dipping into its sizable coffers to pay poorer nations, like Ghana or Dominica, to reduce emissions there — and give Switzerland credit for it.
Here is an example of how it would work: Switzerland is paying to install efficient lighting and cleaner stoves in up to five million households in Ghana; these installations would help households move away from burning wood for cooking and rein in greenhouse gas emissions.
Then Switzerland, not Ghana, will get to count those emissions reductions as progress toward its climate goals.
Here is more from Hiroko Tabuchi at the NYT. Note that most of Swiss energy already is renewable, through hydroelectric and nuclear, yet of course there are many people complaining about this scheme.
Markets in everything — sleep tourism
Going on a vacation might seem like a rather unconventional way to try to improve your sleep habits. But sleep tourism has been growing in popularity for a number of years, with an increasing amount of sleep-focused stays popping up in hotels and resorts across the world.
Interest has skyrocketed since the pandemic, with a number of high profile establishments focusing their attention on those suffering from sleep-deprivation.
Over the Over the past 12 months, Park Hyatt New York has opened the Bryte Restorative Sleep Suite, a 900-square-foot suite filled with sleep-enhancing amenities, while Rosewood Hotels & Resorts recently launched a collection of retreats called the Alchemy of Sleep, which are designed to “promote rest.”
Zedwell, London’s first sleep-centric hotel, which features rooms equipped with innovative soundproofing, opened in early 2020, and Swedish bed manufacturer Hastens established the world’s first Hästens Sleep Spa Hotel, a 15-room boutique hotel, in the Portuguese city of Coimbra a year later.
Here is the full story, via Mike Doherty.
Interview markets in everything
Some job candidates are hiring proxies to sit in job interviews for them — and even paying up to $150 an hour for one.
In a recent Insider investigation into the “bait-and-switch” job interview that’s becoming increasingly trendy, one “professional” job interview proxy, who uses a website to book clients and keeps a Google Driver folder of past video interviews, said he charges clients $150 an hour.
The proxy was approached by Aamil Karimi, who works at cybersecurity firm Optiv as a principal intelligence analyst. Karimi, who posed as a job seeker to talk to the proxy, told Insider’s Rob Price that the “bait-and-switch” trend has been on the rise because of more work-from-home jobs and overseas hiring.
The “bait-and-switch” interview works like this: a job candidate hires someone else to pretend to be them in a job interview in hopes they will secure the job. When the job starts, the person who hired the proxy is the one to show up for work.
Here is the full story. Let someone else say what your open browser tabs are! For the pointer I thank the excellent Samir Varma.
Markets in everything
That John is on his feet at all is impressive—and probably foolish—considering that only eight months prior, he was five feet eight and a half. Back in September, he paid $75,000 for the agonizing privilege of having his legs surgically lengthened. That entailed having both his femurs broken, and adjustable metal nails inserted down their centers. Each nail is made of titanium, which is both flexible and sturdy, like bone, and about the size of a piccolo. The nails were extended one millimeter every day for about 90 days via a magnetic remote control. Once the broken bones heal, ta-da: a newer, taller John.
Here is the full story. Oh and this:
With a procedure like this, there are, of course, some caveats. All the height gain obviously comes from your legs, so your proportions can look a little weird, especially when you’re naked. Also, the recovery can be long and taxing. When we meet, the bones in John’s legs are not yet fully healed, and a small section of his right femur is still a little soft, like al dente spaghetti; the smallest stumble could snap a bone in two. And it’s especially dangerous since he’s a big guy, over 200 pounds.
Then there’s the pain, which is relentless, ambient. The extension of the nails in his legs stretched the nerves and tissue around the bones—especially the thick, meaty muscles like the hamstrings—to an almost excruciating degree. He couldn’t walk for months. “They fill you with enough painkillers that it’s bearable,” John explains, but his biggest fear was becoming addicted to the drugs, so he weaned himself off the regimen earlier than he should have.
File under: “The costs of lookism.” The technique is originally a Soviet one. Via Anecdotal.
Insurance markets in everything
Xcel confirmed to Contact Denver7 that 22,000 customers who had signed up for the Colorado AC Rewards program were locked out of their smart thermostats for hours on Tuesday.
“It’s a voluntary program. Let’s remember that this is something that customers choose to be a part of based on the incentives,” said Emmett Romine, vice president of customer solutions and innovation at Xcel.
Customers receive a $100 credit for enrolling in the program and $25 annually, but Romine said customers also agree to give up some control to save energy and money and make the system more reliable.
Basically their AC was shut off and some of the homes had temperatures as high as 88 Fahrenheit. Sounds like an OK arrangement to me! Here is the full story, via Tom Hynes.
Cat food markets in everything
Fancy Feast is expanding into feline-inspired human cuisine, with a New York City Italian restaurant designed to celebrate the company’s new line.
Gatto Bianco, which means “white cat,” is described by Fancy Feast as an “Italian-style trattoria,” and will be open for dinner reservations on August 11-12 only, according to a news release from Purina, which produces Fancy Feast.
The human-friendly dishes were inspired by Fancy Feast’s new “Medleys” cat food line, which feature options like “Beef Ragú Recipe With Tomatoes & Pasta in a Savory Sauce” for the cat with discerning taste.
Here is the full story, via Balding.
DC markets in everything
ShutDownDC, a liberal advocacy group in Washington, D.C., said on Friday that it will offer up to $250 to service industry workers in the district for every sighting of the justices who overturned Roe v. Wade.
Here is the story, and like Charles Cooke (and presumably Dan Klein) I object to the word “liberal” in this context.
And maybe they won’t get the check right away either:
- “We’ll Venmo you $50 for a confirmed sighting and $200 if they’re still there 30 mins after your message.”
Colombia markets in everything those new service sector jobs
Ex-guerrillas offer birdwatching, hiking and hearty campfire cuisine as part of Tierra Grata Ecotours in La Paz, a town near the border with Venezuela. Over a two-day hike along boggy mountain paths, Jhonni Giraldo, a former farc footsoldier, leads hardy tourists to Marquetalia, a hamlet. In 1964 the military bombed an armed commune founded by refugees here into oblivion; the survivors headed to the hills and the farc insurgency was born. There is not much to see other than the rusted remains of a downed helicopter. Mr Giraldo is mulling over reconstructing the house of Manuel Marulanda, the founder of the farc.
Here is more from The Economist, via Yana.
Markets in everything those new service sector jobs
A woman who took about 150 theory and practical tests for other drivers has been jailed for eight months.
Police said she was taking tests for people who had difficulty with English.
…Det Ch Insp Steven Maloney said Kaur’s crimes were motivated by greed.
Here is the full story, via Michael B.
Illegal markets in everything
The operator of a Colorado funeral home who was accused of stealing body parts and selling them to medical and scientific buyers, making hundreds of thousands of dollars in what the authorities called an “illegal body part scheme,” pleaded guilty to mail fraud on Tuesday, the Justice Department said.
The woman, Megan Hess, 45, the principal figure in the scheme, was assisted by her mother, Shirley Koch, who is in her late 60s, prosecutors said. As part of a plea agreement, eight other criminal charges against Ms. Hess were dropped. She could face up to 20 years in prison.
“I exceeded the scope of the consent and I’m trying to make an effort to make it right,” Ms. Hess said in United States District Court in Grand Junction, Colo., on Tuesday, according to The Daily Sentinel. “I’m taking responsibility.”
Here is more from the NYT. And this service “retrieves your dead loved ones’ tattoos and preserves them as framed mementos.” Not illegal.
Barter markets in everything
The men’s grisly work gives a stark insight into the wartime repatriation of the dead, often conducted on an exchange basis: a corpse for a corpse...
Lawyer will not say where the truck is heading, but The Sunday Times understands that two exchanges of bodies have taken place in the past week, overseen by the International Committee of the Red Cross, which acts as a neutral intermediary. Ukrainian officials said the first was made on a basis of “160 for 160”, the second “50 for 50”.
Here is more from the London Times ($), grisly throughout.
Insurance markets in everything
In many golf circles, it was (and still is) customary for the lucky golfer to buy drinks for everyone in the clubhouse after landing a hole-in-one. This often resulted in prohibitively expensive bar tabs.
And an industry sprouted up to protect these golfers.
A newspaper archive analysis by The Hustle revealed that hole-in-one insurance firms sprouted up as early as 1933.
Under this model, golfers could pay a fee — say, $1.50 (about $35 today) — to cover a $25 (~$550) bar tab. And as one paper noted in 1937: “The way some of the boys have been bagging the dodos, it might not be a bad idea.”
Though the concept largely faded away in the US, it became a big business in Japan, where golfers who landed a hole-in-one were expected to throw parties “comparable to a small wedding,” including live music, food, drinks, and commemorative tree plantings.
By the 1990s, the hole-in-one insurance industry had a total market value of $220m. An estimated 30% of all Japanese golfers shelled out $50-$70/year to insure themselves against up to $3.5k in expenses.
Here is the full story, via Mathan.