My first foray into blogging was with a site named The WSJ Blogger, which I started in August, 2012. The purpose of the site, as evidenced by its tagline, was to provide daily highlights from The Wall Street Journal along with other great articles and videos, all designed to inform, educate, and entertain. I kept that blog going for a year, and then I decided to switch to Twitter to share my favorite articles from the WSJ.
Anyway, after reading today’s paper, I was reminded once again of what a great paper it is, with a wide variety of stories, not all of them business focused. I’m thinking of making the weekend edition of the paper the basis for my Saturday blog post – sharing interesting, thought-provoking, and fun facts and figures from my favorite stories.
So without further ado, from today’s Wall Street Journal:
from an article about blue-collar workers and their attitudes:
- three of four blue-collar workers call their jobs “a good career path.”
- Four of five agree that “my job provides a good living to financially support my family.”
- Eighty-six percent say they are “satisfied” with their jobs
- 90% are “proud” of the work they do
- Seventy percent agree “the American Dream is alive for people like me,”
- among those who are parents 88% agree with the statement that “my children will have a better future than I will.”
- half say it can be tough to make ends meet
- 73% worry that they won’t have enough for retirement.
- A slight majority agree it’s “more likely that Martians will land on earth than I’ll collect Social Security.”
- More than two-thirds report receiving a pay raise in the past year.
from an article about tattoos and millennials:
- 47% of millennials (ages from 18 to 35), have at least one tattoo; 37% have at least two; and 15% have five or more
- 36% of Generation X and 13% of baby boomers are inked
- The price per square inch per laser treatment to remove a tattoo ranges from $49 to $300; removing a 3-by-5-inch tattoo that requires eight laser treatments would cost $5,880. At $300 per square inch, it would cost $36,000.
from an article about Boston “welcoming’ back the annual influx of college students:
- nearly 150,000 college students move into Boston this week, equal to about a fifth of the permanent population
- here’s what one resident thinks:
In a story about Elon Musk:
- During the 1990s dot-com boom, the Elon and his brother started an internet business called Zip2, which helped newspapers go online. Four years later, in 1999, they sold it to Compaq Computer. At age 27, Mr. Musk walked away with $22 million. He spent $1 million on a McLaren F1 supercar and bet the rest on his next startup, X.com, which became PayPal .
- EBay bought PayPal for $1.4 billion in 2002. As the largest shareholder, Mr. Musk collected more than $100 million.
- More than 50 vice presidents or higher have left Tesla in the past two years.
from an article about children and perfectionism:
- A 2015 analysis of more than three dozen studies of students, athletes and employees found that those who had high levels of perfectionism were significantly more likely to burn out from stress.
- A 2016 study found that perceived parental pressure to be perfect can make teenage male athletes more likely to cheat by using banned substances to enhance performance.
Is it any wonder I’m such a fan of the Wall Street Journal?
And all this with no mention of Dan Ariely’s column – I’ll save that for another day.
Borden's Blather 