It seems fitting that the NHS, which celebrates its 70th anniversary in July, should be the subject of one of the first TFiFs of the New Year. It is, after all, a time when many of us commit to year-long goals, the vast majority of which, it seems, relate to health and wellbeing. The bacon is banished, and quinoa and pulses fill the trolley in a bid to finally undo years of overindulgence and gluttony. Just over half of us
With the Christmas and New Year break now but a dim and distant memory, our thoughts turn naturally to the subject of annual leave. Are we getting enough? Or are we getting too much? These questions aren’t as daft as they might seem. Statutory leave — the minimum amount of paid holiday to which a full-time employee is legally entitled — varies enormously from country to country. With 28 days of statutory leave, including any public holidays observed by the
A friend used to coach table tennis to a very high level. He told me about a girl he was coaching, who had a shot at representing Great Britain at the Olympics in due course (she was aged 14 at the time). He said the most difficult part of coaching her was to shift her energy and attention from the negative to the positive: "She would spend hours, and wake up at night, fretting about the one tiny mistake she
People say that there's a grain of truth in every joke. If you watch enough stand-up comedy, you can find interesting economic observations too. In a performance from the 2000s, Chris Rock distinguishes between the rich and the wealthy. He says that Shaquille O'Neal, the NBA superstar, is rich; the team owner, who pays his multi-million-dollar salary, is wealthy. He goes on to list reasons why that distinction matters. Wealth, he points out, creates more wealth. It's passed from one
Productivity growth has been dire in many advanced economies over the last decade. And there's plenty of disagreement among economists about why this has happened. To us, ultra-loose monetary policy is the problem. To others, measurement issues brought about by technological change, are to blame. In this Thank Fathom it's Friday we look at some of these measurement issues and discuss how Taylor Swift is doing her best to solve them. Proponents of the 'it's a measurement issue' theory point out how
A chart has been doing the rounds among Fathom staff. It shows a strikingly close relationship between the average hours worked per worker across the major economies, and the output per hour of those workers. The longer people work, it seems, the less productive they are. A number of our employees have even argued that this should cause Fathom management to reduce the length of the working week. Admittedly, the correlation is remarkably high. Have we stumbled across a solution
The saying "one man's trash is another man's treasure" may carry more weight than usual this Christmas. For the first time in several years, the prices of goods and services have risen by more than wages, meaning that the average UK worker is worse-off in inflation-adjusted terms this year, than last. While some households will dip into their savings as a means of preserving real consumption and saving Christmas, others will opt to borrow more. But those constrained by a
Brexit: 7/1 for the UK to leave the EU. Trump: 5/1 to win the next presidential election. Do bookmakers know anything about politics? Today we aim to answer that question. First impressions are important, or so they say. In my first week at Fathom, a colleague was looking slightly bemused when assessing the odds on the timing of the next UK general election. I quickly volunteered my services, confessing to a certain level of expertise regarding betting markets. Maybe not
“I work all night, I work all day, to pay the bills I have to pay Ain't it sad And still there never seems to be a single penny left for me That's too bad” ‘Money, Money, Money’ — arguably one of Swedish pop group ABBA’s most popular hits — celebrated its forty-first birthday last week. The song tells a familiar tale of a young woman struggling for money. It’s a story we can all relate to. Cash — we
Ever get tired of waiting for Donald Trump to cut taxes, Emmanuel Macron to reform the entire euro area, or to see David Davis take some notes to a Brexit meeting? With volatility in financial markets at record lows and asset prices at, or close to, record highs, traders seem to be twiddling their thumbs and waiting for the good news to finally arrive. The Bank of England raised rates for the first time in ten years this week, but