free market

Rich Manhattan moms hire handicapped tour guides to cut lines at Disney World

"Some wealthy Manhattan moms have figured out a way to cut the long lines at Disney World — by hiring disabled people to pose as family members so they and their kids can jump to the front, The Post has learned. The 'black-market Disney guides' run $130 an hour, or $1,040 for an eight-hour day. 'My daughter waited one minute to get on ‘It’s a Small World’ — the other kids had to wait 2 1/2 hours,' crowed one mom, who hired a disabled guide through Dream Tours Florida. Disney allows each guest who needs a wheelchair or motorized scooter to bring up to six guests to a 'more convenient entrance.'" Continue reading →

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Roadside manicure services boom in Nigeria

"A comfortable salon may be the ideal place to have a manicure-pedicure, but in Nigeria’s sprawling economic capital, the curb above a open sewer works just fine. Privately tailored suits delivered to your home or office are a luxury reserved for the wealthy in some cultures, but in Lagos, many in the middle class are also in regular contact with their personal clothier. And, while paying for your toe and fingernails to be soaked, scrubbed, trimmed and moisturised is considered a luxury in some parts of the world, in Lagos, 'it’s for everybody,' said Bashir Haruna, 32, a groom at a polo club who also hauls boxes at an appliance store for extra cash." Continue reading →

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Palestinians can now order Kentucky Fried Chicken via tunnel to Egypt

"Junk-food starved Gazans can now order KFC to go thanks to a new smuggling service which brings takeout from Egypt via a network of underground tunnels. It’s not exactly 'fast' — taking several hours to arrive, with the Palestinian delivery company behind it charging hefty prices to cover the cost of fuel and transport. 'Last chance to order for the Thursday 6:00 pm delivery is Wednesday night,' says the Yamama delivery firm on its Facebook page. Yamama then orders the meals, about 30 on a typical run, from the KFC outlet in the Egyptian city of El-Arish, some 40 kilometres (25 miles) away. There are no international fast food chains in Gaza." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingPalestinians can now order Kentucky Fried Chicken via tunnel to Egypt

Fast-food worker wage protests spread to Detroit and St. Louis

"On Friday in Detroit organisers were expecting at least 400 workers from at least 60 stores to come out and protest. The action comes a day after two days of similar protest in St Louis, Missouri, which saw 100 workers walk off their jobs at chains like Wendy’s, Domino’s and Jimmy John’s. It also follows similar actions in Chicago and New York earlier this year in what labour experts call the largest such disputes to ever hit the industry. The demonstrations are aimed at highlighting a demand for a $15-an-hour wage and the right to form a union without fear of employer intimidation." Continue reading →

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Open a Business in Chile in One Day, Over the Internet, for Free

"Can you really form a business in Chile in just one day, over the internet, and for free? About three months ago, Chile’s pro-business government decided that they just weren’t doing enough for local and foreign entrepreneurs (the Chilean government already has several grants and programs available for new businesses) so they got together and voted to change the way the incorporation process works in the country, making it much, much easier to start a business in Chile than in just about any other country in the world. See more details here. Remember what happened to Hong Kong and Singapore when they made similar changes to their governments?" Continue reading →

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Mars One has 78,000 applicants so far—sort of

"Mars One, the private venture with the audacious goal of sending humans to Mars—permanently—as early as 2023 made a splash earlier this week when it announced that more than 78,000 people had applied for its 'astronaut selection program' just two weeks after starting to accept applications. Lansdorp is very pleased with the public response to the campagn, the first step in a long process to select the first four-person crew that Mars One plans to launch in 2022." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingMars One has 78,000 applicants so far—sort of

Making Sense of Bitcoin

"Despite the various opinions on Bitcoin, there is no question as to its ultimate value: the ability to bypass government restrictions, including economic embargoes and capital controls, to transmit money quasi-anonymously to anyone anywhere virtually instantaneously irrespective of geopolitical restrictions. While virtually all digital currencies can more or less do the same, no other currency offers an equal combination of peer-to-peer transactions, strong encryption, anonymity, and liquidity that Bitcoin has possessed up to this point." Continue reading →

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3D printing: the new, bottom-up industrial revolution

"The new technology will be the first real challenge to the traditional top-down economics of mass production for manufactured goods. This has already happened in the services sector and the digital world, with the rise of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, and the ability for self-publishing authors and music artists to sell directly to the public; now this decentralisation of power will also happen in manufacturing. Big will no longer necessarily be beautiful when it comes to making things, undoing centuries of lessons learnt from the Industrial Revolution and the rise of Taylorist production processes." Continue reading →

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Next to Use 3-D Printing: Your Surgeon

"Surgeons are finding industrial 3-D printers to be a lifesaver on the operating table. This technology, also known as additive manufacturing, has long produced prototypes of jewelry, electronics and car parts. But now these industrial printers are able to construct personalized copies of livers and kidneys, one ultrathin layer at a time. The medical field in particular is expected to benefit greatly from 3-D printing. Scientists are working on ways to print embryonic stem cells and living human tissue with the aim to produce body parts that can be directly attached to or implanted in the body." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingNext to Use 3-D Printing: Your Surgeon