Bring on the feminists!

Bring on the feminists!
Originally uploaded by mild_swearwords

Like the way the Londonpaper describes these women as: 'some of the most influential women in the world'.

Mrs. Brown - influential because she is married to Mr. Brown
Mrs. Palin - influential because she got picked by John McCain
Wendy Deng - influentil because she married Rupert Murdoch

Where's Merkel? Pelosi?

Corporations Avoiding Tax

Was going through some old banking stuff today and found this old story:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/369b723e-6a52-11dd-83e8-0000779fd18c.html

Basically it's a story from an old FT article describing how Merrill managed to cook its books in such a way as to avoid paying tax for a couple of years.

Wonder what will happen now that Merill has been bought. Does this transfer so that Bank of America doesn't have to pay tax too?

Boring question I know, but I think we should find ways to stop letting the multinationals get away with this sort of cheating...

Am loving Gapminder at the moment

I love making these charts and playing with them. Check this one out:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pV6F9EDiLs6CD8ofaUKM7Fg

You can really see the deaths of HBOS and B&B come to life!

Don't know

The Canaries

For a long time I've accepted that the industry I work in carries a price for the interest and excitement we get from working in it. The ultimate issue is that we are the canaries of the economy. The first and easiest thing for any company to cut is their marketing budget.
While I am insulated to a significant degree by working on the internet which should remain relatively safe from the accountants, I do see a large amount of pain in the marketplace at the moment. This is particularly true for sites dedicated to brand advertising.
I was feeling guilty about the way we have been able to negotiate deals with them, driving huge discounts from the prices they usually quote. Having seen some of their ploys to get out of it (example: Telegraph), I'm not feeling so sorry.

We spend lots of time telling people not to compromise their brand for short term gain in these sorts of climate. The Telegraph sales team also tells people. They're not the only ones. We'll see more editorial integrity go down the toilet in the short term.

Looking forward to seeing the Economist's celebrity column...

Obama vs McCain

Have been playing with Google Spreadsheets. This is a look at the marketplace between McCain and Obama within the Iowa Electronic Markets. I was playing with the GapMinder button to see what we can make the data look like.

I think it looks good, I think I could make some good charts for my presentations with it, but I suspect it would have to be within the Google set of stuff rather than in a 'proper presentation'.