Interesting Links for 16-06-2014

[andrewducker]

• Fish - Now By Prescription
  (tags: fish healthcare )
• Have You Hugged a Concrete Pillar Today?
  (tags: concrete materials billgates )
• Mother of ecstasy-death teen calls for legalisation and education
  (tags: legalisation drugs UK )
• If you share conspiracy theories on Facebook/Twitter then you are _part of the problem_
  (tags: Facebook socialnetworking

Comments

Airline Funding

[danieldwilliam]

I recall seeing a one line comment from someone who might know that the net profit made by commercial airlines since the Wright Brothers was zero.

I have no idea if this is true but it certainly prompts some questions about how a Hungarian start up is going to make money competing with the likes of EasyJet, British Airways, Lufthansa, KLM and the like.

Re: Airline Funding

[andrewducker]

I wonder how that varies over time between industries.

And how meaningful it is - does that count reinvestment? Dividends?

Re: Airline Funding

[philmophlegm]

'Net profit' would be before dividends and after depreciation / amortisation of tangible / intangible assets invested in.

Re: Airline Funding

[andrewducker]

Gotcha.

I wonder if there's a sliding scale of industries, where some return massive gains, airlines are neutral, and football clubs cost you a fortune.

[philmophlegm]

Some thoughts on that 35% / 43% tax story

[andrewducker]

Thank you - the IFS link was particularly good there.

[philmophlegm]

Reading that back, there's something I'd like to qualify. We don't quite know _all_ about the Laffer Curve, since at any one time for any one tax jurisdiction we can only guess where we are on the curve.

It didn't take a genius to realise that France was on the wrong part to start raising taxes, but that doesn't tell us about where the UK is (or even if our curve is in the same place relative to the axes - our curve might be more favourably sloped because of our generally more liberal economy).

[del_c]

If they're paying it all out in rent and retire with nothing, I'll concede they were poor, but I'll wonder what they were doing wrong that most £50k earners aren't, and wonder what they thought they were doing moving to London. If the £50k professionals are incomers (statistically an overwhelming likelihood) then that's what we call a "revealed preference", and I don't take their complaints of poverty seriously.

More likely they're saving for the house they "can't" afford, will buy it, will continue paying in mortgage and say that's just like rent, then sell up and retire. This, by a neat coincidence, is a lot like the airline case above, where I buy an airline, grow it, and sell it on. *It* didn't make a profit because it was always buying assets, but I sure did.

[octopoid_horror]

Regarding the fish oil - I know plenty of people at work who firmly believe that buying branded medicines (for example, nurofen or beechams) which have the same ingredients as supermarket/pharmacy own brand ones that cost sometimes a tenth of the price is a better idea because the first item is a ~brand~ so is better. Even though it contains exactly the same active ingredients.

[andrewducker]

The sad thing is, that they're right - but only because they believe they are!

[octopoid_horror]

But I'm -also- right, and have spent less money :-D

Fish oil would also be something that you can spend an awful lot of money on if you buy ridiculous premium brands or care about what kind of fish it comes from.

[andrewducker]

I hear that oil from a fish from the wrong side of the tracks makes you worse.

And yes - cheap knockoff painkillers are hte best.