This month's edition of British Airway's Business Life magazine ("Total reading time 57 minutes", it says on the cover) includes five main articles (one page or longer) all of which are about rents and rent-seeking:
1. Interview with the CEO of Canada Goose, the premium cold weather clothes manufacturer:
When [my grandfather] first arrived, he worked in a clothing factory as a cutter and then decided at some point that he wanted to open up his own place, which he did.
It was very small and in downtown Toronto, which was the home of the garment industry back then. Now it's the night-club district."
2. Article about football players' salaries:
Manchester City, the 2011-12 Premier League champions, spend more than £200 m each year on player wages along, a figure that equates to 87 per cent of the club's total turnover… it's not as if it's the players or even their agents who are ultimately deriving up wages, it's the broadcasters - and one in particular.
In the summer of 2012, BSkyB signed a new three-year deal to cover 166 games a season, worth a record £2.3 bn to the Premier League… It's interesting to contrast that with Sky's first deal to cover Premier League in 1991. Back then it paid just £340 m.
3. Article about a private business which wants to build reusable rockets for space travel:
"I think there's nothing positive or constructive I could say about Kenneth Clark" [Managing Director Alan Bon] told an interviewer earlier this year.
It was Clark, in his role as Minister for Trade and Industry during Margaret Thatcher's final term, who 25 years ago pulled the plug on government funding of HOTOL - Horizontal Take-Off and Landing - the admittedly flawed spaceplane being developed by Bond and his colleagues…
Earlier this year, however, the government did a volte-face and over next two years it is to plow £60 m into the development of Sabre, a revolutionary engine tipped to transform the economics of putting satellites - and indeed people - into space…
… The technology behind Reaction's pre-cooler is so commercially valuable that rather than take out a patent - which would perforce lead to publication of its workings - the company is avoiding the risk of feeding copycat competitors by treeing it as a trade secret, like the recipe for Coca Cola.
… a new backer emerged in the shape of Nigel McNair Scott, a Conservatie Party donor and chairman of property investment company Helical Bar.
4. Article about local loyalty card schemes:
My Sant'Ambrogio card, issued by the eponymous market of central Florence, is about two tubs of fresh pest away from marking me as a most loyal customer indeed.
Supported by the local council, this card is designed to encourage me to shop not in the international chain supermarkets and stores on the edge of town, but instead with the market stall holders and local businesses who risk being left behind if everyone moves to the suburbs.
5. Article about hotel renovation:
You could argue that a quality new build might be cheaper but that misses the point. The Prince de Galles has an established location on Venue George V and a proven trading history, and offers considerably less market risk.
Finding suitable land in an established European city is all but impossible, and what's more, a speedy renovation can improve a hotel's fortunes in months, while building from scratch takes years.
Debate Magazine
