Roads and bridges

Roads and bridges should never be built unless their financing, construction and operation is all purely private.

Why only 10 percent of the workforce is self-employed in the U.S.

Big government likes big providers.

That's why U.S. government is gradually making the small business a relic.

In the not too distant future, most small business owners will be hourly wage earners, likely employed by a chain stores.

Why? Because when small business owners work online or  in small offices, it is hard for  Washington to regulate what they do.

There are 15.4 million of them, and the government is too remote.

 It is far easier for federal agencies to regulate  an entrepreneur if he works for big company.

So U.S. government shifts money to favor the delivery  of products and services through big company-owned networks, preferably with public companies  lobbying  Washington

The irony is that in the name of growth and development, U.S. government will  almost certainly make the small business  more expensive. It turns out that when an entrepreneur  become salaried as abig company employee, his overall productivity falls.


The U.S. government imposes  costs on entrepreneurs  who remain independent—for example, mandating that all  business no matter what size to file enormous tax paperwork, federal and state.

The Federal Reserve “printing machine” creates the following situation:

Today, qualifying for a loan for small business is almost impossible.

The self-employment tax rate for self-employment income earned in calendar year  2012 is 13.3% (10.4% for Social Security and 2.9% for Medicare) It should be noted that anytime self-employment tax  is mentioned, it only refers to Social Security  and Medicare taxes and does not include any other taxes that self-employed individuals may be required to file.

Rubio Introduces Legislation To Expose Costs Of Federal Regulations For Small Businesses

Rubio: “Currently there is no up-to-date assessment by the government showing what its federal regulations are costing small businesses and the American taxpayer. By requiring annual reports, we will have a sense of the cost of all the hurdles small businesses have to jump over and can determine just how excessive current regulations are on business owners.”

Only 10 percent of the workforce, according to the  Bureau of Labor Statistics is  self-employment in the U.S.

The average two-income couple in America pays roughly $110,000 into Medicare over the course of their working lives.

According to studies of official government by both the Urban Institute and budget whiz, Senator Tom Coburn, the average two-income couple in America pays roughly $110,000 into Medicare over the course of their working lives.

 The total cost of care for that couple, however is over $350,000.  So in other words, for each and every retiree in this country, we’ve got a hardworking taxpayer paying in roughly one-third the cost of the care they will ultimately receive. 

And that 65 or 70% per person funding deficit is tough to overcome.

The easiest way to make money

Bank of America profited from a big options bet it made on an alcohol-company stock days before the beverage maker announced an acquisition in which the bank was the lead lender

Why derivatives are not traded publicly?

Why derivatives are not traded publicly?

Because Berkshire Hathaway , a key player on Capitol Hill, has a derivatives portfolio of $63 billion that produces a yield  of $1.28 billion in derivative gains. 

What newspapers are liberal and what newspapers are conservative

What newspapers are liberal and what newspapers are conservative

Conservative:

http://www.wsj.com
http://www.washingtontimes.com
http://www.nypost.com/
http://www.dailykos.com

Liberal: 

http://www.nytimes.com/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
http://www.boston.com/


Other

http://www.rttnews.com
http://techcrunch.com/
http://pandodaily.com/

How many people work part time in the U.S.?

The latest Department of Labor employment survey counts roughly eight million Americans who want a full-time job but are stuck in a part-time holding pattern.

How much does the U.S. government spend each year?

The government spent $3.538 trillion in the fiscal year that ended in September 2012.

How smart do they think we are?

How smart do they think we are?

China subsidizes companies to produce and sell cheap manufacture.

U.S. subsidizes people (welfare and entitlements ) to buy that manufacture.
  

What county in the USA has the lowest crime rate?

What county in the USA has the lowest crime rate?

Collin County in Texas has the lowest crime rate in the USA and Wayne County in Michigan the highest.

How much money makes you poor in the U.S.?

 How much money makes you poor in the U.S.?

 The poverty line is $23,550 for a family of four.

It is difficult not to use the technology if the technology is there.

It is difficult not to use the technology if the technology is there.

Amy Miller, the legal director for ACLU Nebraska, said the Environmental Protection Agency has flown at
least seven unmanned drones over rural Nebraska to  monitor water-quality.

They start with water-quality and end up with  home improvements

How many households pay for broadband access in the U.S.?

How many households pay for broadband access in the U.S.?

125,972,103 Americans do not have broadband access.

How much money does the federal reserve print?

How much money does the federal reserve print?

“Is the United States Bankrupt?”

No it isn't.

The U.S. Treasury is printing $40 billion per month.

Number of banks in the United States

Number of banks in the United States


Cayman Islands population is 56,729 (2011)
There are 602 banks in the Cayman Islands.
One bank for 94 citizens

In the U.S. one back for 311 residents.In the U.S. as of November 18, 2010, the FDIC  insures deposits at 7,723 institutions.

At the end of 2009, some 700 credit  institutions had issued and/or acquired  payment cards in the Russian Federation.
One bank for 243,000  citizens

In 2005 there were 112 city commercial banks in all of China.
One bank for 12,000.000  citizens

A curious way to bring down unemployment

A curious way to bring down unemployment

According to a report  in the local Augsburger Allgemeine, a German job center has tried to line up a position for a young woman in a brothel.

The prostitutes' organization HYDRA puts the number German sex workers  at 400,000

The number of registered unemployed  in Germany is 3,460,000.

U.S. residents for each IRS employee

U.S. residents for each IRS employee.

According to the IRS 2009 Data Book, IRS workforce
counts up 93,337 employees.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the resident
population of the United States,
projected to 02/09/13 at 16:01 UTC (EST+5) is
315,299,871.

3.378 residents for each IRS employee,
compared with 860 in France and 729 in Germany.

U.S. GDP composition and who rules the world

U.S. GDP composition and who rules the world

According to the CIA

United States GDP composition:   
agriculture: 1.2%
industry: 19.1%
services: 79.7% (2012 est.)

China GDP composition:   
agriculture: 9.7%
industry: 46.6%
43.7% (2012 est.)


In 2007 finance and insurance accounted for 8% of GDP.

In 2010 the GDP report shows finance profits jumped to $426.5 billion.

According to the World Bank

United States GDP was:

$15.09 Trillion US dollars at 2011 prices.

Part-time jobs in U.S.

Part-time jobs in U.S.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics:

The number of workers in part-time jobs in U.S.is  8.5 million.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor:

The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) does  not define full-time employment or  part-time employment. This is a matter generally  to be determined by the employer.

Number of people with bachelor's degrees in U.S.

Number of people with bachelor's degrees in US


According to the U.S. Census Bureau the number of people with bachelor's degrees in U.S. is  : ~  56,478,079

 According to the U.S. Census Bureau:

2010

Population Under 18 years 30,672,088
Population 18 to 24 years 74,181,467

Total population 308,745,538

Total population 25 YEARS OLD AND OVER: 203,891,983

 According to the U.S. Census Bureau:

27.7 % of   PERSONS 25 YEARS OLD AND OVER WITH  A BACHELOR'S DEGREE OR MORE in 2008.

How Many Grocery Stores are Closing Across U.S.?

How Many Grocery Stores are Closing Across U.S.?

More than 5,000  grocery stores are shutting down in the U.S.

It is the 2% of the total Grocery Stores  in United States.
 
Urban areas called  "food desert" by by the  U.S. Department of Agriculture are growing by 10%.

The rich doesn't make money today

The rich doesn't make money today:

The 5 richest women in the U.S. inherited the money from Sam Walton, Frank Mars, James Cox  and Edward Crosby "Ned" Johnson.

Prosperity , inequality, crisis and suicide rate

Prosperity , inequality, crisis and suicide rate:

The suicide rate in  the four main Nordic countries Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland is 13.8 suicides per 100,000 people per year.

The suicide rate in the U.S. is 12.0 suicides per 100,000 people per year.   

The suicide rate in Greece is 3.5 suicides per 100,000 people per year.   

Andy Grove: Only the Paranoid Survive‏

Andy Grove:

Success breeds complacency. Complacency breeds failure. Only the paranoid survive.

The Internet doesn't change everything. It doesn't change supply and demand.

Most Americans probably aren't aware that there was a time in this country when tanks and cavalry were massed on Pennsylvania Avenue to chase away the unemployed.

In May of 1932, some 15,000 veterans, many unemployed and destitute, descended on Washington, D.C. to demand immediate payment of their bonus.

A month later, on July 28, Attorney General Mitchell ordered the evacuation of the veterans from all government property, Entrusted with the job, the Washington police met with resistance, shots were fired and two marchers killed.

Learning of the shooting at lunch, President Hoover ordered the army to clear out the veterans.

Infantry  and cavalry supported by six tanks were dispatched with Chief of Staff General Douglas MacArthur in command. Major Dwight D. Eisenhower served as his liaison with Washington police and Major George Patton led the cavalry.

The new America

America is about the federal government.

America is about who can  manage the federal government.

Citizens do not make relevant and different decisions in their communities

The centralized federal government dis-empowers the states and the private sector.

Real people is outside of Washington but power is inside of Washington and a lot of real people dependent on social programs because the federal government has created an  entitlement state.

Why the Fed's electronic printing press is not causing inflation?

Why the Fed's electronic printing press is not causing inflation?

Fed's electronic printing press is called sophisticated monetary policy.

Fed's assets were $2.31 trillion on December 2008.

Fed’s balance sheet today is $3 trillion.

 Fed is purchasing $85 billion of securities every month.

U.S. Gross Domestic Product GDP is $15.9 trillion.

As of the first quarter of 2010, U.S. domestic financial assets  totaled $131 trillion

Financial Businesses had $66 trillion.

How many welfare programs are there in the U.S.?

How many welfare programs are there in the U.S.?

 Exact number of social-welfare programs in the U.S.:

There are today 185 federal  welfare programs in the U.S. (a country of takers)

The genetic factor: equal opportunity will result in unequal outcomes

 The genetic factor: equal opportunity will result in unequal outcomes.

Despite repeated claims to the contrary, there has been no narrowing of the 15- to 18-point average IQ difference between Blacks and Whites (1.1 standard deviations); the differences are as large today as they were when first measured nearly 100 years ago.

They, and the concomitant difference in standard of living, level of education, and related phenomena, lie in factors that are largely heritable, not cultural. The IQ differences are attributable to differences in brain size more than to racism, stereotype threat, item selection on tests, and all the other suggestions given by the commentators.

J. Philippe Rushton
The University of Western Ontario
Arthur R. Jensen
University of California, Berkeley

How Much Money Does The U.S. Government Give to the rich?

How Much Money Does The U.S. Government Give to the rich?


In the United States, credible estimates of annual fossil fuel subsidies range  from $10 billion to $52 billion annually.

Almost two-thirds of the $27 billion in federal farm subsidies doled out last year went to just 10 percent of America's farm owners, including multimillion-dollar corporations and government agencies, a review of Agriculture Department records by The Associated Press shows.

 $2.3 billion tax breaks to companies that manufacture solar energies.

 175.2 billion Total corporate tax welfare in 2003.

According to the analysis by de Blasio's office, ExxonMobil, Bank of America, General Electric (GE), Chevron and Boeing had combined profits of $77.16 billion in 2010 but paid $0 in current federal income taxes in 2009.

A bevy of tax breaks and credits that had been scheduled to expire at the end of 2012 will be extended for another year, costing taxpayers $46.1 billion over the next decade,

Nearly $250 million for Hollywood. Over $330 million for the railroad industry. More than $220 million for rum producers. And $62 million for doing business in American Samoa.

How many people vote in congressional elections in U.S.?

How many people vote in congressional elections in U.S.?

Turnout rates off-year elections (those for which the presidency was not on the ballot) is  40%.

Registered voters are 169 million (31% Republicans 43% Democrats)

201.5 million are eligible to vote.

169 x 40% = 67.6 million people vote in congressional elections.

Current population in U.S.: 315 million.

21% of the population vote in congressional elections.

How Much Money Does The U.S. Government Give to the poor?

How Much Money Does The  U.S. Government Give to the poor?

IRS estimated that in 2009 the Earned Income Tax Credit lifted nearly $7 million people out of poverty.

Nationwide in 2012, close to 26.5 million received nearly $60.7 billion in EITC for the 2011 tax year.

$2,290.00 per person.

Total annual cost of food stamp program in 2012: $71,800,000,000.

Number of Americans using the food stamp program in 2012: 46,670,373

$1.725.00 per person

Relation between interest on the public debt and money lost by companies

Relation between interest on  the public debt and money lost by companies

Ten percent of FORTUNE 500 companies  lost money last year.

The total amount of money these companies lost was 5.6 billions.

Budgeted net interest on the public debt was approximately $251 billion.

Fortune 500 generated nearly $10.8 trillion in total revenues last year and $824.5 billion in earnings (7.6%).

U.S. nominal GDP was estimated to be $15.8 trillion in 2012.

Gun control and subway train control.

Gun control and subway train control.

A woman accused of pushing a man to his death in front of a speeding subway train in Queens  has been charged with murder as a hate crime on  December 22nd.

It was the second such attack in New York City in less than a month.

“It’s unbelievable, and it only happens in America, and it happens again and again,”
 "We are killing each other, and we are the only industrialized nation doing it."
Mayor Bloomberg said on December 17th , describing a mass shooting
at a Connecticut elementary school.

Why To Pay Social Security Is Not The Investment You Think It Is

Why To Pay Social Security Is Not The Investment You Think It Is

If your social security benefits are the only income you receive, then they will not be taxed.

If you are a single filers and your  income is more than $34,000  a taxable rate of 85% will be applied to benefits received.

Number of atheists or agnostics in U.S.

Acording a Pew poll only a 20% of Americans  identify themselves as  having no religious affiliation.

53% of Canadians believe in God.

35% of people in France are atheist or agnostic,  45% in South Korea and 84% in Estonia.

Total retirement assets of US government versus total U.S. retirement assets

Total retirement assets of US government versus total U.S. retirement assets

Total U.S. retirement assets were $17.5 trillion in Fourth Quarter 2010.

The Investment Fund (G Fund) of the Federal Employees’ Retirement System Thrift Savings Plan
has balance approximately of $156 billion.

Home robbery per capita

Home robbery per capita

Home Robbery Per Capita Statistics (most recent)

California 70,968

=0.0018 home robberies per capita

Spain 425,000

=0.0090  home robberies per capita

Belgium 211,000

=0.0200  home robberies per capita

U.S. 447,403

=0.0013   home robberies per capita

Baja California  15,035

=0.0050 home robberies per capita

 Arizona 9,226

=0.0014 home robberies per capita

 Wyoming 72

=0.0001  home robberies per capita

Why Inequality Will Save Us | Why Innovation Will Save Us.

From 1993 to 2008, income growth among the bottom 99% of earners was 0.5 points slower than the economy's overall growth rate.

Incomes of Top 1% Increased 275% Between 1979-2007

Three-fifths of all income growth from 1979-2007 went to the top 1%.

According the CBO most of the gains in income of the 1% have come from employment and business income, not dividends, interest, and capital gains.

Technology has made highly educated and talented people more valuable, by creating jobs that demand their talents and allow them to manage larger, more-complex activities, while
it has made less-skilled people less valuable.

What happen if you place one TSA employees in each public school?

There are 58,401 employees of the TSA.

There are 23,200  public schools in the nation.

 The estimated total number of guns held by  civilians in the United States is 270,000,000

In the first seven months of the year, TSA agents seized 821 guns, rifles and pistols, which were discovered
in carry-on luggage.

What happen if you place one TSA employee in each public school?

The disappearance of the middle class in the developed countries

According to the intelligence assessmen of the National Intelligence Council, one  of the most important trends over the coming  two decades will be the growth of the middle class, which “will become the most important social and economic sector in the vast majority of countries  around the world”.

According to my intelligence assessment one of the most important trends over the coming two decades will be the disappearance of the middle class in the developed countries which shall be substituted by an unknown new "sophisticated" welfare-society class under the umbrella  of a big bureaucratic government
in which success, creation and  talent will be punished.

What is success?

Success is keeping your independence forever.

Per capita money income in cities with shootings

Per capita money income in the past 12 months  (2011 dollars) , 2007-2011 :

U.S.: $27,915

Newtown, Connecticut:    $48,922     
Portland, Oregon :  $30,631
Oak Creek, Wisconsin:  $30,235
Aurora, Colorado :   $24,257
Oakland, California : $31,675
Binghamton, New York: $20,951
Fort Hood , Texas : $15,203       
Blacksburg, Virginia : $17,899   
Brookfield, Wisconsin: $45,317   
Atlanta,Georgia : $35,884
Columbine,Colorado :  $38,203
   


Source: United States Census Bureau

The killer who killed 20 children

The suspected gunman’s parents divorced in 2009 when he was 17 years old.

His former grandmother said she remembered Adam  as a young child but didn’t know him as a teenager.

His parents had separated “years” before they divorced, she said.

The suspected gunman was a “socially awkward” teenager, a neighbor said.

The suspected gunman was kind of a loner and shy, a neighbor said.

His former grandmother ex-husband, who died in 2010, was a widower when she met him, with children and grandchildren of his own.

They married  in the 1990s and divorced in 2001, she said.

Our politicians have a hard time to figure out how it's working.

Start ups have a loss making initial development without any access to bank loans, they have many founders vs one owner, have many shareholders (founders, friends & family, angels, VCs…) vs a few. Our politicians, who are mainly civil servants or doctors and lawyers, are far away from the startup scene and have a hard time to figure out how it's working.

How Much Money Has the Fed Printed?

 At $85 billion a month, the Fed's balance sheet will  keep growing from its current $2.9 trillion, heading toward $4 trillion by the end of the year 2013. Four years ago it was less than $1 trillion.

Who works in U.S.A.?

 Who works in U.S.A.?       
       
Today total population in    U.S. 314,930,258   
       
Persons under 18 years in U.S.    72,433,959   
Public sector employees in U.S.    20,540,000   
Private sector employees in U.S.    104,347,000   
Number of retired people in U.S.    62,067,000   
Involuntary part-time workers in U.S.    8,200,000   
Unemployed in U.S.    11,970,000   
 Illegal immigrants in U.S.    11,125,000   
Armed Forces in U.S.    2,914,000   
Self employed in U.S.    14,460,000   
 Total:   308,056,959   

Why living standards will go down and inequality will go up in America in the next 30 years?

Why living standards will go down and inequality will go up in America in the next 30 years?

Because the difference between the the pensions and retirement  savings that American households ages 32-64 have today and what they should have today to maintain their living standards in retirement is $6.6 trillion based on the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College