Events

This time, though, Bloomberg picked up the story in the context of Chicago's 2016 Olympic bid: Chicagoans are angry about Mayor Richard M. Daley’s deal to lease the city’s parking meters to Morgan Stanley investment funds. So angry that Daley’s popularity is at a record low, according to a Chicago Tribune/WGN poll. So angry that the 20- year mayor may not have taxpayer support to lease or sell more assets and bolster the city’s budget. That means Daley is under even more pressure to abide by his pledge...

Via the Economist's Gulliver blog, British Airways has resurrected flight BA001 as an all-business-class flight from London City to New York's Kennedy. They're using tiny Airbus 318 aircraft that have to stop in Shannon, Ireland on the westbound leg to pick up fuel. Still, for less than £4,000 round-trip, it's a lot more convenient and just a bit cheaper than flying in the same class to Heathrow: Flying from London City means the planes need to land at a much steeper angle than normal - the Airbus A318...

I can't wait to see what they'll have us do after this: On the evening of Aug. 28, Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, the Saudi Deputy Interior Minister — and the man in charge of the kingdom’s counterterrorism efforts — was receiving members of the public in connection with the celebration of Ramadan.... One of the highlights of the Friday gathering was supposed to be the prince’s meeting with Abdullah Hassan Taleh al-Asiri, a Saudi man who was a wanted militant from al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP)....

I finally got around to looking in my cell phone's photos folder and discovered St. Paul's Cathedral: There were also a couple shots of me that a friend took. We'll skip those for now.

Duke will release our financial accounting exam on the 8th, and we'll have 24 hours from the time we download it to finish and hand it in. Our professor, when asked this morning for general guidance about the exam, seemed confident that someone who didn't need to look anything up (e.g., an accounting professor) could finish it in "four to five hours." In other words, until October 8th, I will likely post link lists, like this one. Sorry. The Economist's Gulliver blog highlighted the differences between...

People who live outside Chicago might find it shocking and dismaying to read a newspaper report that their city's Olympics bid will, if successful, make the mayor's friends rich. For us, it's actually comforting. I mean, we all knew someone would get rich; now we have a better idea who: Chicago 2016 committee member Michael Scott also served as a consultant to the developer on a condominium project near the proposed athletes village, a development that would increase in value if the city wins the...

With 10 games left in the season, the Cubs' elimination number is still a number: 1. (The rest of the NL Central has already been eliminated.) They're also within spitting distance of the Rockies for the wild card. Hey, it could happen.

Between my clients and school, I have run out of free time. I hope to have some in 2011; I hope to. But I have seen a bunch of interesting things in the past few days: Tim Harford, the Undercover Economist, visited Freakonomics, and opined on marriage and sex. A different Economist, this one in print, made a good case for Toronto as a place to live. Via Andrew Sullivan, an interactive foliage map. I hope to resume my normal posting frequency soon.

Perhaps we should look at Atlanta's example: Thirteen years later, the financial legacy of the Olympics in Atlanta is harder to detect. Like many major cities, Atlanta has fallen victim to the recession, forced to lay off teachers and city workers while slashing services. The City Council recently voted to raise property taxes to cover a $56 million budget deficit. Winning the Olympic bid catapulted Atlanta into the big leagues, giving it name recognition around the globe. Atlanta's $1.7 billion...

Continuing from Saturday, here are the actual values of the items in the post. How did you do? Did you get 9 of 10, indicating you have a good handle on your ability to estimate? Fact Units Actual GE total revenues (2003) $ bn $134 bn Michael Eisner's salary (2003) $ $1m Microsoft employees worldwide (2004) thousands 57k Starbuck's stores worldwide (2004) stores 6228 McKinsey Group annual revenue per consultant (2001) $ $500k United Auto Workers total membership, non retired (2004) thousands 710k...