The Sunday Brew #8
In this week's brew, on the spotlight: business behind #FIFA, the return of #Covid and a thread on identifying impending times
Your weekly brew made up of top stories, key events and some great insights; slow roated & served hot!
In this week’s brew:
FIFAnomics - the business behind the world cup
FIFA world cup 2022 is coming to a close this week and while most of us enjoy it as another major sporting event, the business behind the sport is mind boggling. Apparently, the country that wins the football world cup sees an additional growth of .25% in their GDP following the win. Argentina is said to be better placed to maximize the benefit coming from the win, as compared to France. The host country also sees a direct impact and Qatar is expecting a GDP growth of 4.12% as compared to an average growth of 3.6% for the decade. The 2022 world cup is also said to be the most expensive one - some claims of cost of $220 Billion - with tens of billions going in preparation stretched over a decade. It generated over 1.5 million jobs but also courted controversies over ill treatment of workers and human rights violations.
With so much money corruption doesn’t stay far behind. FIFA has been accused of deep corruptions for decades now. FIFA has also been accused of letting authoritarian leaders use this sporting event as a tool to whitewash and popularize their regime. Netflix has a documentary, FIFA Uncovered going over the story of these allegations.
Nine lives of Covid
There is pretty much everything that could have happened around covid has happened and what could have been said around covid has been said. Yet, there is something more which keeps coming - the Covid just keep resurrecting.
After waves of nation wide protest and much criticism, China finally opened up departing from their Zero Covid policy and immediately faced massive surge of confirmed cases surpassing the high of April with almsot 250k tested positive in a day. Now, once again lockdown is being imposed and schools are turning online to curb the rise.
In United States of America as well, with the winter coming and threat of covid being a constant issue on the minds of administrators, the home test kit has been made available and guidance on mask has come back.
Early signs of impending times
Predicting doom is a dodgy business. The ones which could be very clearly seen and if in control, will be avoided and hence prediction will turn false. And, if there is little that can be done prevent it, then what is the point of being aware of the coming doom?
World markets are on a downward path and the long recession is being called, for quite sometime now. But, how do you see specifics of what is coming and extenf of its impact on individual consumers? Here is an interesting thread by Car Dealership Guy on twitter describing the ealry signs to identify an impending wave of car repossessions coming in 2023. Although, it is a specific use case in a single geography, the method cuts through industry.
Watch out what insurance and lenders are doing in different sectors, and that will paint you a picture of whats coming.
RECOMMENDATIONS
1440 Media - Fastest way to an impartial point of view
The Average Joe - Stock market insights for you
Chartr - Free newsletter with visual insights