Donald Sterling is the owner of an American basketball team called the Los Angeles Clippers. He was recently caught on tape making racist comments and the National Basketball League is now trying to force him to sell the team. Jordan Weissmann looked at some of the economics behind this:

• Sterling bought the team in 1981 for $12.5 million. According to one estimate, today the team is worth $700 million.
• This means that Sterling’s “punishment” could gross him a profit of $687 million.
• He will have to pay Californian and Federal Capital Gains and other taxes of $420 million if he’s forced to sell.
• Sterling is 80 and may have never intended to sell the team. If instead he had left it to his heirs only about $280 million in inheritance taxes would be owed to the government.
• Therefore Sterling’s estate will lose hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes if he is forced to sell – though Sterling himself will make a tidy profit.

Read more about the breakdown of the taxes that Sterling will have to pay, other fines that have been imposed on him, and more over here.

Source: Slate

An avalanche on Mount Everest killed 16 mountain guides last week. Caroline Winter delved into the economics of those who help tourists make the climb:

• Nepal makes $3.5 million each year in climbing fees from Mount Everest.
• Climbers have to pay up to $150,000 to attempt to get to the top of the mountain.
• Yet Sherpas only get between $2,000 and $8,000 per climb.
• This isn’t bad for a country where the average income is less than $600. But in climbing Everest multiple times a year they take immeasurable risks.
• In the wake of the accident the Nepalese government has announced that the guides who die on the world’s tallest mountain will be covered by an insurance policy worth $15,000.

Read more about the pressures that the guides face, what climbers get for their money, and what Sherpas themselves have to say over here.

Source: Businessweek

On the face of it iced coffee should cost less than hot coffee. After all it has ice in it which is really just water. Yet we end up paying more for it. Kurt Soller found out why:

• Real iced coffee isn’t just hot coffee mixed with ice. It requires a process known as cold-brewing where room temperature water is mixed with coffee beans over a long period.
• This process requires more coffee beans than hot coffee, almost doubling the price of the coffee that goes into the drink.
• The plastic cups that iced coffee is served in cost twice as much as their hot coffee paper cup counterparts.
• Iced coffees come with straws which add a couple of cents to the cost of each cup.
• Sweaty customers get more napkins to wipe their glasses and brows further driving up costs.
• You need to rent out industrial ice machines which cost about $12 a day.
• Customers use about 20% more milk in their cooled beverages.
• On the plus side since the coffee is cold-brewed in advance the mixture is already ready and customers spend less time in line.
• The cold brewed coffee also doesn’t spoil as quickly so there’s less wastage.

Read more about the economics of the business, how one coffee maker approaches the iced coffee season, and what happens to demand after Memorial Day over here.

Source: Grub Street

Via: Vox

In America it’s increasingly common to see images that represent the members of a family on the back of cars. The Economist took a look at this:

• The trend appears to have begun in Mexico. Families didn’t want to put the names of their children on their car for fear of kidnappings. Instead they depicted figurines of them.
• It has spread rapidly in the US. One company allows families to order custom made stickers which can be accessorized as needed. The Economist writes that it is possible to “depict…a bearded, balding x-ray technician, married to a bee-keeping mother…whose kids enjoy ballet and baseball, and who own guinea pigs”
• Sometimes families will purchase crosses to mark out divorced spouses. Or a Halo for deceased ones.
• Others use it as a joke (as in the picture above). It is not uncommon to see the words “position open” where the spouse would normally be.
• Dogs frequently make an appearance as pets are like family for many.
• The stickers appear to be particularly popular with females.
• The fad is made possible by the internet and the era of mass customization. Just as knights in the medieval era advertized their family lineage, so to do families today use the customized individuality available today to share details of their own families.

Read more over here.

Source: The Economist

We all know that having a wedding is expensive. Turns out attending one isn’t that cheap on the wallet either according to Ben Popken:

• The average person pays $592 to attend a wedding. This is a 75% increase from two years ago.
• And that doesn’t even include the wedding gift. If you do then the cost of going to a wedding increases by $109 to $701.
• Members of the wedding party, of course, have to pay more, with the average wedding gift for a close family member costing $218.
• Unsurprisingly weddings are a more expensive affair for the wealthy. For those making over $100,000 going to a wedding costs $960.

Read more about why you should maybe encourage your friends and family members to consider celibacy over here.

Source: NBC News

Amazon makes an offer to its employees that it hopes they don’t take writes Jim Edwards:

• Once a year Amazon’s fulfilment center employees get a letter titled “Please Don’t Take This Offer”.
• In it they are offered up to $5,000 to quit their jobs.
• Workers who have stayed longer are offered more money.
• The hope is that those who aren’t satisfied with their jobs have an easy way out.
• Meanwhile the ones that remain are dedicated and enthusiastic about their careers.

Read more over here.

Source: Slate

In the fairytale Rumpelstiltskin a creature offers goods and services in exchange for a newborn child. Countries around the world have taken this fable to heart and are offering incentives to parents willing to have children writes Lily Kuo:

• With declining fertility rates across the world countries are looking to boost their infant populations.
• Japan spends $29.3 million on matchmaking events and robotic babies that are intended to inspire parents to try for the real thing.
• The “Do it for Denmark” campaign (pictured) encourages partners to go on vacation and offers prizes if they can prove they conceived on the trip.
• Singapore is allowing people to vote on what comes with the “goodie-bag” new parents will get for babies born in 2015.
• Russia announced that September 12^th is the country’s Day of Conception. Any babies born 9 months later – around Russia’s Independence Day – will have a chance to win an SUV and other prizes.
• France isn’t satisfied with just one child. Families with three or more children receive discounts across the country for things such as train fares and movie tickets.

Read more about the various measures that different countries are trying, how successful they are, and more over here.

Source: Quartz

If The Pope were ever to meet with a budding CEO he’d no doubt have many spiritual lessons to teach the young executive. But there are also a lot of business lessons to be learnt from him writes The Economist:

• Focus on core competencies. By refocusing the Catholic Church’s efforts to help the poor The Pope has bought a consistency of message and purpose that has helped to increase the Church’s popularity.
• The focus has also allowed the Pope to cut unnecessary costs such as those for elaborate ceremonies or unnecessary luxuries.
• Pope Francis has repositioned the Church’s “brand”. While he hasn’t broken with the Church’s stance on homosexuality he has shifted the Church’s focus away from it.
• The results speak for themselves. The Pope is popular and Church attendance has increased.

Read more about the steps that The Pope has taken, other lessons that can be learnt from him, and more over here.

Source: The Economist

Remember skywriting? When planes would trace out smoke-messages in the sky? Why did we stop doing that? Adrienne LaFrance took a look:

• Skywriting used to be incredibly popular. In 1940 Pepsi wrote over 2,000 messages in the sky.
• It was so popular that critics called it “celestial vandalism” and worried that high-rise residents would have to keep their windows closed to avoid the smoke flooding their apartments.
• Engineers were working on a way to develop glow in the dark letters, and cloud slicing technology that would let skywriters work in bad weather.
• But the dream of giant sky billboards with images of merchandise came to an end with the advent of television.
• Television took the world by storm and advertizers realized that they could use that platform to reach customers – rather than hoping that the weather would be clear on the day and time they want to sell.
• In 1961 a skywriter had to go up, fly a line of smoke through the error-ridden sky message, and write a new corrected one next to it. Executives realized that they wouldn’t have to contend with such issues in TV ads.
• Today the service is seeing a resurgence. People immediately Facebook and Instagram the messages quickly amplifying the audience of the message.
• Skywriters are pricey though. Depending on the message you could be paying as much as $15,000.

The full article is a good read and has many more details. Read about the plans for “extraordinary palettes of colored smoke”, some notable ads from days gone by, and what current skywriters think over here.

Source: The Atlantic

Every time a major international sporting event rolls around and happens to be hosted by a lower income country there’s an article about the resulting boom in the demand for prostitution. This year’s no different and Olga Khazan provided the details:

• 500,000 tourists are expected to visit Brazil for the football world cup later this year.
• Brazilian sex workers are gearing up for the surge in demand.
• One town offers English classes where prostitutes can “learn how to work out financial deals and also use a specialized vocabulary with sensual words and fetishes”.
• International governments though are on the watch out for the rampant child prostitution in Brazil. British Airways will be running ads warning against purchasing such services on flights to Brazil.
• It might not matter anyway. According to one study during the 2010 World Cup South Africa did not see a surge in demand for sex workers.

Read more about the dreams of a Pretty Woman style romance, how one prostitute is preparing for the World Cup, and more over here.

Source: The Atlantic