Best global brands 2011

On annual basis Interbrand publishes a list of the most valuable brands of the world. There are three key aspects that contribute to the list ranking: the financial performance, the role of the brand in the purchase decision process and the global strength of the brand. As a further inclusion criteria the brand must be truly global and has successfully transcended geographic and cultural differences.

2011 Rankings (brand value in million US$):

1 Coca-Cola (70.8 $m)
2 IBM (69.9 $m)
3 Microsoft (59.0 $m)
4 Google (55.3 $m)
5 GE (42.8 $m)
6 McDonald's (35.5 $m)
7 Intel (35.2 $m)
8 Apple (33.4 $m)
9 Disney (29.0 $m)
10 Hewlett-Packard (28.4 $m)

View all top 100 brands.

Suggested read: The World Factbook

The World Factbook provides information on the people, government, economy, geography, and many more for 266 world entities. It's published by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the United States and updated on average every two weeks. Countries can be compared with a wide variety of fields like population, birth rate, live expectancy, GDP, unemployment rate, and so on. The facts are an interesting read for globally oriented people, e.g. did you know that Zimbabwe has an unemployment rate of 95% or the country with the highest life expectancy is Monaco with 89 years?

Link: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook

Which is the world's most expensive city?

Another cost of living report for 2010 has been released by Mercer. Based on over 200 goods and services, the report brings you factual price information from more than 290 cities around the world. The top of the list covers the well known players, Tokyo, Moscow, Geneva, and so forth. However, the - quite unexpected - number one is Luanda in Angola. More than the half of Luanda's population lives in poverty. Even standard services as safe drinking water are in short supply, this makes Luanda the most expensive city for expatriates.

Further reads:
http://finfacts.ie/costofliving.htm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/jun/30/city-costs-living
http://www.mercer.com/costoflivingservices

What would happen if all countries dismiss their immigration restrictions?

Gallup released its Potential Net Migration Index (PNMI) for 2010. The index considers the estimated number of adults who would like to move permanently out of a country subtracted from the estimated number who would like to move into it, as a proportion of the total population. The index is a result out of 350,000 surveys conducted between 2007 and 2010 and reflects how much the population would increase if countries dismiss their immigration restrictions. The index finds Singapore, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia at the top, and Sierra Leone, Haiti, Zimbabwe at the bottom.

Read the whole story at: http://www.gallup.com/poll/142364/Migration-Triple-Populations-Wealthy-Nations.aspx