Centives

Afghans are looking to leave Afghanistan due to the looming withdrawal of most NATO troops from the country write Rob Taylor and Mirwais Harooni:

• In a country stricken by poverty, those who have the money are paying for new identifies, visas and flights to new lives in new countries.
• As the date of the NATO withdrawal draws nearer prices have shot up. Securing passage to Europe used to cost $16,000. Now it’s $25,000. Getting to Canada can cost as much as $50,000.
• One country not on the list of potentials is the United States where it is thought to be too difficult to illegally secure entry.
• Turkey has recently made it easier for foreigners to buy property, making it a top destination.
• Some living in western countries have realized the opportunity they have. One Germany-based middleman sends letters of invitation to Afghans for visas to Romania, Italy or Germany for $2,773.

Read more about the Afghan exodus over here.

Source: Reuters

We’re all set to live in a world where diplomacy is conducted in 140 characters or less writes Mimi Whitefield:

• About one third of all world leaders personally tweet. 100% of European governments do while only 71% of African governments have Twitter accounts.
• With 34.5 million followers the President of the United States has the widest reach among world leaders.
• But Obama’s tweets are only retweeted, on average, 2,309 times. In contrast the Pope’s 100 tweets have each been retweeted an average of 11,000 times making him the most influential world leader on Twitter.
• 68% of mutual leaders have mutual connections. Perhaps UN votes could happen through Twitter?
• Sweden’s Carl Bildt is the best connected, having 44 mutual connections with other world leaders.
• Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro sends an average of 41 tweets a day – the most for any world leader.
• Uganda’s Amama Mbabazi is the most conversational. 96% of his tweets are responses to other individuals.

Read more about the dead leader that has more followers than his (still breathing) regional compatriots, why the American government isn’t the best at tracking other countries, and more fascinating statistics over here.

Source: The Miami Herald

Benjamin Webb looked at why people hate those who work in PR so much:

• PR wasn’t always loathed. Those who worked in PR once helped changed the public perception of African Americans.
• PR then became increasingly ubiquitous and this is what caused people to turn against it. In 2008, for example, the UK had more people in PR than it had journalists.
• However society has become increasingly cynical of typical PR tactics such as misleading press releases and cheap media stunts.
• PR will likely sink back into the shadows…and perhaps then society will stop hating them so much.

Read more over here.

Source: BBC

In a story worthy of Bollywood itself John Letzing writes that the Indian film industry has fallen out of love with Switzerland:

• A song and dance scene shot in the Swiss Alps had, in the 80s and 90s, become a staple in Indian films.
• Before Switzerland the similarly picturesque Kashmir Valley had been the Indian filmmaker’s shooting location of choice. But tensions and clashes with Pakistan made it unsafe to shoot there.
• Now however Indian audiences have grown tired of shots in Switzerland which have become a tired old cliché.
• When Indian filmmakers need a snowy mountain scene they now increasingly use the Himalayas or a somewhat more peaceful Kashmir.
• England has also become a popular filming location – in part due to the financial incentives it offers to those who shoot there.
• Austria, a Swiss neighbour, is also reaching out with financial incentives – and points out that it has “the same mountains and lakes”.

Read more about the films that made Switzerland such an important filming destination for a couple decades, the changing taste of Indian moviegoers and more over here.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Via: Marginal Revolution

Corby Kummer wrote about a big innovation driven by a company that makes small chocolates:

• Chocolate is made of cacao beans and the taste of the chocolate is most affected by when it is harvested and processed.
• Tcho provides cacao farmers with the technology to make small amounts of chocolate for themselves and taste it. That way they can see whether or not a particular time is the best time to harvest the bean.
• Making chocolate is hard. Many farmers will never have tasted chocolate from their own beans (or indeed chocolate at all) and so by giving farmers this technology Tcho empowers them to produce quality beans.
• This is important to Tcho because it is focused on making pure, quality chocolate. Its product is made of nothing but chocolate, eschewing ingredients that distract such as nuts.

Read more about Tcho’s PureNotes, what the different varieties taste like, and how chocolate is made over here.

Source: MIT Technology Review

Damon Lavrinc wrote about a luxury we’ll soon likely be criticizing the rich for: portable hotel rooms.

• Designer and architect Margot Krasojevic was asked to design a hotel that could be wheeled onto a runway and connect with an individual’s private jet.
• For short stops this saves the owner the effort of disembarking and checking into a hotel. Instead they can exit their plane and enter a luxurious hotel room.
• The design is, of course, for a client based in Qatar.
• The room also filters rainwater for consumption and has photovoltaic cells for visual effects.

Read more about the design and see more photos over here.

Source: Wired

The Duchess of Cambridge has given birth to a royal baby boy…and $400 million in economic stimulus writes Matt Berman:

• About £87 million will be spent on booze and food by the English celebrating the birth of their own future ruler.
• Tourism will also increase as the United Kingdom gets an incredible amount of media coverage.
• Other parents might see how the royal baby is treated…and might want to pamper their off-spring to the same degree, thus driving spending.
• £156 million will be spent on baby souvenirs.
• It might also have long-term effects on England’s economy. The coverage of the event could lead to an increase in Britain’s birth rate.

Read more about the effect that the birth will have on England’s economy and more over here. For a rebuttal read Matthew Yglesias here.

Source: Quartz

Via: Slate

You might want to consider getting in on the Mumbai shanty real-estate market while you can writes Divya Sathyanarayanan:

• A house in a shanty-town of Mumbai costs about ₹31,000 (US$ 520) per square feet.
• In contrast a house in a posh central area of Mumbai can be had for as little as ₹23,000 ($390) per square feet.
• In fact even as Mumbai’s wider property market slows down, sales of slum-houses have increased with prices almost doubling.

Read more about the quirks of the Mumbai housing market over here.

Source: The Economic Times

Via: Marginal Revolution

John Aziz took a look at the once famed market for Beanie Babies:

• Ty Toys produced a series of stuffed toys called Beanie Babies. The company shunned large mainstream retailers and instead sold the toys through gift shops and collectible outlets.
• This made the plush toys seem valuable and soon there were reports of them being sold for thousands of dollars.
• Such news stories led to a wider awareness of Beanie Babies and soon people were buying them just because they felt that soon the price would rise even further.
• There were even magazines such as Mary Beth’s Bean Bag World – with over 650,000 copies a month – that tracked prices and provided a reference point for negotiations.
• Yet this was a classic asset bubble – since people weren’t purchasing the toys because they attached some value to it, rather they were doing it because they expected prices to rise.
• Soon the market crashed. Beanies that were expected to sell for more than $1,000 today sell for less than 1% of that.
• The company behind the toys shut down production in an effort to create scarcity and raise prices. Yet scarcity and fixed supply does not, in itself, guarantee high prices.

Read more about the history of Beanie Babies and how this was one of just a series of bubble deflations at the time and more over here.

Source: The Week

In Dubai you’re literally worth your weight in gold writes Ariel Schwartz:

• Due to its oil wealth, Dubai’s citizens have become rich and fat. Half of all residents are now overweight.
• To combat obesity Dubai is offering citizens one gram of gold (worth ~$45) for every kilogram they lose in the month starting July 19^th.
• However residents of Dubai are now so rich that a mere gram of gold is unlikely to change their behaviour much.
• Moreover the UAE spends very little on public health, and so without a sustainable healthcare structure in place, such one-off policies might be ineffectual.

Read more about why weight is a fairly bad health metric, the random lottery that has also been set up, and more over here.

Source: Fast Company