<aside> đź’ˇ Starting with this month, I am trying a new form of blog post that lists interesting things I learned over the course of the month: both factoids and charts. This is in addition to, not instead of, my regular long-form blog posts which will return soon (and simultaneously).

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Things I learned

  1. Annual spend on Delta cobranded cards is approximately 1% of US GDP ($200B) (cite)
  2. As of the beginning of 2023 Wimbledon, Djokovic had won more lifetime Wimbledon matches than the top 20 players in the world combined, and the last time someone outside the big 4 won Wimbledon, the world number 2 (Alcaraz) and 6 (Rune) were not yet alive. (cite and cite)
  3. if you invested $1,000 in the Japanese stock market in 1950, by 1989 it would have been worth $389,000. If you invested $1,000 in the Japanese stock market in 1989, today it would be worth $840 (cite).
  4. The last time a US troop was killed from an enemy aircraft attack was 1953. (cite)
  5. By 1897 there were roughly a quarter of a million saloons, or 23 for every Starbucks franchise today (cite)
  6. Diamonds account for 90% of Botswana’s exports (cite)
  7. The Federales (Mexico’s federal police force) had an annual budget nearly four times as large as the FBI ($35B vs. $9.5B), despite having approximately the same number of employees (cite and cite).
  8. At the 80th percentile of the wealth distribution — where a typical household has about $200,000 in financial assets — a full 20% of these households own no public equity (directly or indirectly). (cite)
  9. The mean height of an 18 Year old in the English Army between 1763 and 1767 was 5’ 3”. (cite)
  10. The only three years that cash yielded a positive return while both stocks and bonds were negative was in 1931, 1969 and 2022 (cite)
  11. 17% of ESG ETFs have held Exxon Mobil as part of their portfolio at some point. 25% of ESG ETFs have held Tesla at some point. (cite: my own calculations).
  12. 18% of turtle owners have left money for their turtle in their will (cite)
  13. A knot can only exist in three dimensions. There is no such thing as a four dimensional (or two dimensional) knot. (cite)
  14. There are now more NBA players with $30 million annual salaries than CEOs of fortune 500 companies (cite)
  15. About 20% of US small businesses fail by just their second year of operation. About half of small businesses have failed by their fifth year. (cite)
  16. 60% of The Gambia’s electricity is provided from a single offshore ship (cite)
  17. The rate of twin birth is more than twice as high in the US (33 per 1000) as in Europe (16 per 1000). (cite)