Young Boozer is the 39th State Treasurer of Alabama.
A Republican fiscal conservative, Mr Boozer, 68, has served in his role since 2011.
Source: Wikipedia
blueprint brief – 19th May 2017
Most financial products are traded electronically.
Yet over 80 per cent of corporate bond trades still happen the old fashioned way: by phone.
Source: The Economist, 1 May 2017
Blueprint brief – 8th May 2017
“In private and exasperated moments Germans have a name for us (the British): the inselaffen, or ‘island monkeys’ – unpredictable, backward, quarrelsome and isolated. “It’s not common, especially in polite company.
“A senior British diplomat assured me that it has not been used for decades.
“He should try looking at social media, where the term has mushroomed since Brexit………..”
Source: Edward Lucas, The Times, 4th April 2017.
blueprint brief – 12th April 2017
Three new coffee shops opened in Britain every day in 2016.
A study commissioned by UK Coffee Week found that the 1,222 coffee shops opened last year brought the UK total to 23,000.
Some suggest that the number of coffee shops – both chains and independents – could overtake the number of pubs by 2030.
The study found that people in the UK drink 2.3 billion cups of coffee and that the sector contributes £8.9 billion to the economy.
Source: Daily Mail, 23 March 2017
blueprint brief – 6th April 2017
In Germany only 12 per cent of people are organ donors, while in Austria 99 per cent are – because Germans have to opt in to organ donation, while Austrians opt out.
Source: Matt Ridley, The Times, 6 March 2017
blueprint brief – 27th March 2017
The combined fortune of the wealthiest members of China’s Parliament, or the National People’s Congress, and it’s advisory body amounts to $500 billion.
Source: The New York Times, 3 March 2017
Blueprint brief – 8th March 2017
The Pareto Principle asserts that, in the majority of systems, around 80% of effects arise from around 20% of causes.
The principle has been found to apply in computer science, biology, physics, economics and many other fields.
A King’s College London study of 1000 children carried out over 35 years has concluded that the 80-20 rule applies also to human development and its costs to society.
A 45 minute test at the age of three sought to gauge intelligence, language and motor skills, as well as to assess the children’s levels of tolerance, restlessness, impulsiveness and social disadvantage.
It found that by age 38 around 20% of the 1000 children were responsible for 81% of the group’s overall criminal convictions, three quarters of its drug prescriptions, two thirds of welfare benefits payments and more than half of nights in hospital.
Source: Sarah Knapton, Science Editor, Daily Telegraph, Tuesday 13th December 2016..
blueprint brief – 20th December 2016
Holding any referendum is never straightforward.
One of the many difficulties lies in clarifying the precise wording of the question asked of the people.
It must, most would agree, be straightforward, understandable and clear.
Above all, it should be succinct.
Italians go to the polls on Sunday 4th December to answer a referendum question which is none of the above.
It is, translated into English:
“Do you approve the text of the Constitutional Law concerning ‘dispositions for the overcoming of equal bicameralism, the reduction of the number of parliamentarians, the containment of the running costs of the institutions, the suppression of the National Economic and Labour Council and the review of title V of Part II of the Constitution’ approved by Parliament and publicised in Gazzetta ufficiale n.88 on 15 April 2016?”
So, what’s your answer?
Source: Nicholas Farrell, Italy’s Brexit Moment, The Spectator, 19 November 2016.
blueprint brief – 2nd December 2016.
The German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to stand for a fourth term has been covered in media round the world.
And much of this coverage has been in countries which have quite different names for Germany as we call it or Deutschland, the name Germans favour.
In Scandinavian languages Germany is Tyskland; in France, Allemagne; in Italy Germania, although Italians call Germans Tedesci; in Polish, Niemcy; in Finnish, Saksa, in the Czech Republic, Nemecko and in Latvia, Vacija. There are many more other names.
Source: label of origin on a bottle of Paulaner lager and Wikipedia.
blueprint brief – 25th November 2016.
Hilary Clinton’s health may have an impact on the forthcoming US Presidential election result.
Health is certainly an issue in politics.
In 1924, following the death of Lenin, his potential successor Leon Trotsky was being treated over the course of two weeks for dysentery in Crimea permitting his rival, Josef Stalin, to take control of the Soviet Communist Party’s machinery in Moscow.
In the UK, without Clement Atlee’s peptic ulcer, the Labour Party might have won the 1951 election, and the Suez Crisis of 1955, which reduced significantly Britain’s global standing, most likely would have been avoided.
Endless examples illustrate the point.
Source: Dr James Le Fanu, Daily Telegraph, 19 September 2016.
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