Life Expectancy is going up. In general. But what really matters isn’t the general but the specifics. I know it’s hard to work through maths and actual calculations, but it doesn’t help if you run your analysis off slogans. US Life Expectancy is going up. But not as much “at retirement” as it is up…
Here is another interesting story with a gender angle. A study shows that stockholders in companies with women in the Board achieved better returns than those without. The obvious and likely correct point is that women add something valuable to the Board and is the company performs better. Diversity is a good thing in general,…
More women than men get home loans in South Africa up to the age of 39 or so. This is fascinating in itself and needs further analysis. Unfortunately, the analysis in the linked story misses a key point. 30 year old women and 50 year old women differ in that there is a 20 year…
Some serious research, pointed out to me by FT Alphaville, showing that the 2010 Soccer World Cup had a marked impact on JSE trading volumes, patterns and correlation with global markets. I’m not sure what to do with this information, but it’s remarkable all the same.
The Make a Million competition, as I’ve mentioned before, is an awful idea. It doesn’t promote investing or even “normal” trading, but rather massive, speculative risk-taking trading because the prize for performing well is nothing and the prize for performing best is significant. I’m continually disappointed that Moneyweb continues to partner with this distraction. As…
The world’s population is now estimated to be 7 billion. That’s a big number, but with slowing growth rates (and negative population growth in several developed countries) the most headline grabbing stories of rapid overpopulation are nothing more than echoes of the same stories of the last few thousand years. Some of the stories around…
I really struggled when Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi announced (many sources, but here is one) that private healthcare costs have increased by 121% over the last decade. He continued: “Over the past decade, private hospital costs have increased by 121%, while over the same period, specialist costs have increased by 120%.” Anyone who measures growth…
From a TimesLive article on looting: A millionaire’s daughter, Laura Johnson, 19, was remanded in custody when she appeared in court in Bexley near London after being arrested behind the wheel of a car filled with stolen electrical goods and alcohol worth about £5000 (R56385.90). So the goods were worth about GBP50,000 GBP5,000 (a good…
