Irony of Blue, Dusty Rooms, Divorce Parties 🫐

Move over bachelor parties. Because divorce parties are all the rage right now, per The Wall Street Journal. 

That’s right. Not only are more adults walking away from the idea of marriages and babies, but even those who are hitched are considering divorce to be more acceptable. And they’re ready to pop bottles in support. In fact, Pinterest searches for “divorce-party games” rose 80% in June 2022 and searches for “divorce cakes” jumped 50%. The#divorceparty currently has 93.6m views on TikTok. 

And as more people are taking up the “I don’t” vow, startups are emerging to offer un-hitching party services.

Case in point: The startup Hello Divorce provides a platform aiming to make the splitting-up process more accessible and affordable. Then there’s Stripe Street Studio that specializes in interior design for divorced men, and the Onward app that helps co-parents manage money after divorce.

There are even gift registries, such as Fresh Starts, to help divorcees restock their homes. 

A fresh report from the McKinsey Global Institute is all about remote and hybrid work and how it's shaking up the real estate scene in the world's biggest cities. Their projections: remote work is gonna zap out a whopping $800 billion worth of office value by 2030 in nine major cities.

Now, imagine what that means for the global office use and the local retail and restaurant joints nearby. Cushman & Wakefield, a commercial real estate company in the US, predicts there will be more than 1.1 billion sq ft of empty office space gathering dust by the end of the decade. Yikes!

McKinsey's got some numbers for us too: they're foreseeing a 26% drop in office property values from 2019 to 2030 in those nine cities they studied. And that's not even the worst-case scenario! The plunge could be as wild as 42%.

Moral: This remote work revolution is no joke. It's flipping the real estate game upside down. 

And brands obviously know this. Which is why, blue is the world’s favorite color, with 57% of men and 35% of women ranking it as their top choice. Unsurprisingly, 33% of top brands feature blue in their logos. Blue brings up feelings of security, strength, wisdom, and trust. Social media companies — like Facebook and Twitter — frequently choose blue to make them appear dependable, a sneaky trick by businesses that store a ton of user data.

Some other color associations: 

• Purple symbolizes royalty and superiority. In the Roman Empire, high-ranking officials wore Tyrian purple, which cost more than gold at the time. Queen Elizabeth I even banned anyone outside the royal family from wearing purple. 
• Green represents life, grass, trees, and bushes. 
• Pink is the most popular color to represent femininity, youth, imagination, and quirkiness. 

The Wall Street Journal recently reported that NBA players are now more likely to take home $30 million+ pay packets than CEOs at S&P 500 companies. That’s about the same level as politicians. 

But do they deserve these fancy checks? According to a recent YouGov survey, 78% of respondents think these positions are overpaid. 

On the other hand, the opposite end of the pay scale i.e farming was ranked by 68% of Americans as the most underpaid occupation, considering the positive impact it has on society. 

🏠 Staying Put - Just 1% of US homes have changed hands so far in 2023, the slowest turnover rate in at least 10 years. 

💍 Diamond Building -  India's diamond office - where 90% of the world's diamonds are manufactured - has claimed the title of the 'World's Largest Office' from the Pentagon. It's built over 7.1 million square feet.