An Amazing Story From a Graph

Sometimes one graph can tell a whole story:   A 4-minute animation can also convey a much bigger story. Looking at the same time period as our graph, Hans Rosling connects national income and health. National income closely relates to GDP since people receive…

What You Might Not Know About Alibaba's Jack Ma

Seeing the Alibaba IPO in the headlines, I wanted to share these excerpts from a 2006 CNN interview of Jack Ma: About his firm’s name: “One day I was in San Francisco in a coffee shop, and I was thinking…

The Scrap Business is Underrated

Our Wednesday Environment Focus By Madeleine Vance, guest blogger and student at Kent Place School The “scrap” business is a lot more than just scrap. Once you drop your empty soda can into the recycling bin, it could even be…

A Reason for Less “Endless Shrimp”

Our Wednesday Environmental Issue I just read but cannot confirm that in 2011, a Red Lobster employee observed 2 gentleman consuming 782 shrimp during 5.5 hours when Red Lobster had its “Endless Shrimp” promotion. According to a Red Lobster store manager, the…

China’s Demographic Flipflop

The wait list for the most popular retirement home in China has topped 10,000. With 1100 available beds and just 11 beds emptying annually, it could take 100 years for someone to get a spot. Part of the problem is…

2 Reasons We Don’t Go to the Movies

While movie ticket sales are down, box office revenue is up. NATO, the National Organization of Theater Owners (not the North Atlantic Treaty Organization), says that between 2004 and 2013, movie ticket sales declined by 11% but box office revenue went…

More Expensive Ice Cream?

Milk prices are going up. And yet, in the US, we are drinking less milk. According to Corey Geiger, managing editor of Hoard’s Dairyman magazine, one reason is oil. Countries in the Middle East with massive oil reserves have to import 90%…

Is the Price of Protecting Pandas Too High?

By Madeleine Vance, guest blogger and student at Kent Place School This summer, I had an incredible opportunity to travel through China including a stop to see the giant pandas in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province. Although the pandas didn’t…

B(T)FF… Best Trading Friends Forever

We can say that Mexico believes her top trading partner is the United States because the value of her exports to the US (2013: $370,826,831) added to the value of her imports from the US (2013: $370,746,056) is exceeded by none of her other…

The Green Blog: Why Japan Might Face a Demographic Crisis

By Madeleine Vance, guest blogger and student at Kent Place School. As of late, younger Japanese citizens are choosing to live the single life rather than get married. But why? Seven years ago, Japan’s population climaxed at 128 million, but…