Marya Hannun posted a roundup of a crisis gripping Israel: their Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has a crippling ice cream addiction:

• Netanyahu spends $2,700 a year on ice cream.
• His favourite flavour appears to be pistachio.
• Netanyahu claims that the ice cream is used to entertain guests. Skeptics point out if this was the case then he wouldn’t always be ordering pistachio.
• Obama, for one, prefers chocolate. Perhaps that’s why the two leaders don’t really see eye to eye.

Read more over here.

Source: Foreign Policy

Denise Winterman looked at the key points in the history of the frozen dinner:

• The modern frozen dinner started in 1953 when one retailer had a surplus of Turkey after Thanksgiving. They decided to freeze it up and sell it as a meal.
• While that wasn’t the first TV dinner, it was the first one to pack the food into an aluminum tray that could be used to both cook the food and as a plate for the food.
• The frozen dinner’s popularity was held back until household freezers became more popular.
• The dinners were boosted by changes in family life. More women were working meaning that there wasn’t time to cook. Retailers advertised the dinners to the increasing number of divorced men.
• In recent times frozen food has suffered as consumers have become more concerned with the freshness of their food. But with people unable to afford restaurants due to the recession, frozen dinners have once again become a staple.

Read more about why they were known as TV dinners, the rise of premium frozen food, and “exotic” dinners over here.

Source: BBC

The Economist looked at tourist visas and the varying legal regimes that country’s employ:

• In general poorer countries charge the most for travel visas.
• Some countries such as Bhutan and Sudan appear to prefer that all tourists stay out.
• Others target specific groups. Chinese people visiting Britain need to fill out a 10 page form with biometric information in English. This keeps them away, robbing the country of £2.8 billion a year.
• Those with an American, British or Danish passport are the luckiest. They can go to over 166 countries without a visa.
• Afghans have it the worst. They are only allowed visa-free travel to 21 countries. None of them have direct flight connections from Kabul.

Read more about how Sierra Leone’s tourist visa system compares to Gambia’s, how much the average Chinese tourist spends, why some countries charge America “reciprocity charges”, and more over here.

Source: The Economist

Silicon Valley is looking to model itself upon Las Vegas for its next generation of profits writes David Streitfeld:

• Tech startups are looking to create casino-style games where real money is wagered on platforms such as smartphones and tablets.
• These startups are currently focused on countries other than the United States as the legal framework for online gambling is clearer there.
• Traditional casinos and those opposed to gambling on moral grounds are lobbying against Silicon Valley’s efforts.
• Yet the rewards are so lucrative the market will inevitably open up. Online betting generates $32 billion in revenue outside the US – almost as much as the entire American casino market.
• Games like Diablo III have already sort of experimented with it. Players can sell their randomly generated online items for cash.

Read more about the Valley’s efforts, examples of some of the case studies around, and why Chris Christie has spoken against it (not for the reason that you may think) over here.

Source: The New York Times

The New York Times and Tesla are currently engaged in a fight over a negative review that the Times posted about one of Tesla’s electric cars. Patrick George notes that this isn’t the first time that the auto and journalism industries have been at odds with one another. Here are some of the more interesting examples of the two disagreeing:

• In 1986 CBS aired a special about the unintended acceleration problems of the Audi 5000 sedan. The special included footage of an accelerator pedal pushing itself down. The footage was faked, the charges were baseless, and the news coverage almost destroyed Audi.
• In 1993 Dateline tried to show that GM vehicles had a propensity to explode in cases of side collisions. Footage of such an explosion terrified audiences although most cars would likely have the same problem if Dateline strapped explosives onto the side of other vehicles as well.
• In 2011 ABC produced a segment about random incidents of uncontrollable acceleration in Toyota vehicles. Sales of the vehicles tanked and recalls were initiated. Subsequent analysis has suggested that there was nothing wrong with the cars themselves.
• The history of bad blood between the two industries might be, in part, a result of journalists not truly understanding how cars actually work.

Read other examples of the media both fairly and unfairly targeting automobiles, why journalists do it, and thoughts on the Tesla review over here.

Source: Jalopnik

The latest Sports Illustrated: Swimsuit Edition is out now. Dina Spector looked at some of the economics behind it:

• The swimsuit edition sells 1 million copies – up to 15 times as many as other issues.
• Not only has it brought in more than $1 billion for its parent company, it also boosts sales of the products that are advertised in its pages.
• It is the single best-selling issue produced by Time Inc.’s entire portfolio of magazines.
• Before it became its own stand-alone edition, it started off as a small supplement to the main magazine in 1964 to give readers something to be interested in during the winter when no major sporting events take place.

Find out how much the magazine brings in ad sales, the best-selling issue of all time, the future of the issue and more over here.

Source: Yahoo Finance

The Economist argues that there’s a lot business can learn from the military. Highlights of the article include:

• Behind enemy lines, cut off from communication, soldiers are expected to think on their feet and find ways to complete their mission. This kind of delegation and trust is invaluable in business.
• Businesses try very hard to develop a corporate culture. The military has done a great job of preserving its culture.
• Soldiers also have to have soft skills. They spend long periods of time with strangers, and this requires them to be amicable people that others enjoy working with despite difficult circumstances.
• Business would envy a training program that so effectively teaches soldiers to do arguably the most difficult thing imaginable: take another human life at the risk of your own.
• The military’s training also has the advantage of preparing troops for the next rung of leadership. Businesses must do something similar if they want to train the next generation of effective leaders.
• All of these make the military an important case study and veterans an invaluable asset. Perhaps the reason why Israel has so many high-tech startups is because they have mandatory military training.

Read more about how businesses used to be in awe of the military…but have since lost interest, how businesses can capitalize on this arsenal of talent, and other lessons that they can learn over here.

Source: The Economist

Most men shave their faces. Matt Siltala put together some interesting pieces of information about the practice:

• The word ‘barbarian’ comes from ‘unbarbered’ – men with beards who did not shave. (Centives commenter jamapa writes that this is incorrect.)
• Alexander the Great required his troops to be clean-shaven so that the enemy couldn’t grab onto their beards.
• In the United States men on average shave 4.6 times a week.
• They take about three and a half minutes to shave. This adds up to 38 days of shaving over a lifetime.
• Across the world 15% of men shave in the shower. The rest shave at the sink.

Read more about beard and mustache records, as well as beard taxes over here.

Source: Visua.ly

Robert Lerman believes that low income housing should be abolished. His arguments are not as heartless as they may seem:

• Government sponsored low income housing restricts the areas that those with lower incomes can live in.
• Instead the government should boost the purchasing power of those with low incomes so that they can live where they want.
• This could be done by giving low income individuals ‘rent vouchers’. Not only would this empower them to choose where they live, studies suggest it would also be cheaper for the government than building low income housing.

Read more over here about how bad terminology can create bad policy, and other advantages of the voucher idea.

Source: The Atlantic Cities

Derek Thompson looked at the economics of greeting cards:

• The premium paper that card makers use is expensive…and is getting more so. Workers in China who help print out the cards are also beginning to demand higher wages.
• There isn’t much competition. Two companies control 90% of the market and their relationships with retailers and suppliers prevents other entrants to the market.
• E-cards are threatening the industry and cardmakers are now experimenting with gimmicks such as a $20 card with an LCD screen that displays a 50 photo musical slideshow.
• The biggest reason though, is that consumers are willing to pay. Of the $20 billion we spend on Valentine ‘s Day only 4% goes to the card. Compared to the overall cost of the occasion, the cards are a bargain.

Read more about ‘value cards’, the various teams that come together to make a card, and some notes about the psychology of using high prices over here.

Source: The Atlantic