What Americans, USAans, yanks, beleive.

[DougF]

The very rich (people) don't need to pay tax any more.

There is six trillion in offshore accounts 2 in Switzerland, 2 in UK (Channel islands Caribbean) and 2 "others" Lichtenstein?

 

If the US$ goes belly up, buy gold . (I can remember when it was $35 an ounce.)

 

Corporations wield enormous power over governments with regard to development of natural resources, employment, political and other corrupt donations.

As they are multi-multi-multi-national they can buy from themselves at inflated prices, thus making a Tax Loss in one country. Perhaps they might even be given a government handout. We gave Chevron Mobile 60 million last year -(for them tea money- but why?).

 

We are continually bailing out the car industry and even Kodak a few years ago. (It then went belly -up).

Corporations can afford the best lawyers and accountants. It has taken years and years for Oz to get James Hardy to compensate the many people it gave long lingering deaths to with asbestos. In the meantime JH moved off-shore.

 

Dow still has not compensated the Indian people whose lives they destroyed in India (Barcopal? then Union Carbide?). Despite a revolt from shareholders about their stingy attitude.

No one is even bothering to sue them here for poisoning Sydney Harbour and Sydney fishermen and fish eaters.

 

I am amazed at the huge corporate salaries being paid now even if you stuff things up badly. they seem to get bigger and biger and more obscene every year. I wish I had the same 'old school tie'.

(The CitiBank CEO/guy who lost 10 Billion got how many millions in a 'golden parachute")

 

Yep its all not nice. I have no answers.

 

this is not just a OZ or US problem it's global problem and we all need to unite to combat this or it will not stop

[Michaelangelica]

But we have some big challenges, and in the United States right now it turns out that

• half of our citizens don't read a single book in a year, and I'm not just talking about science books but any book. Of course, Mark Twain - his statement, 'a man who doesn't read great books has no advantage over the man who can't read them'.
  
• 400 years after Galileo 20% of the citizens of the United States still believe that the Sun rotates around the Earth. Half of our citizens believe that dinosaurs and cavemen co-existed, apparently because they saw it on The Flintstones. The cost of not educating people is enormous; clearly the lack of education is a major component to criminality and
  
• in the United States now we have 2.2 million people in prison, men in prison, at an average cost of almost $50,000 - this is 100 billion dollars spent keeping men in cages. This has nothing to do with the cost of the crimes or the police departments.
  
• Yet, when we ask for referenda for the schools there's always the same reply from a segment of the population, no, no, we can't raise taxes, this is impossible, you'll have to do without. Yet it's not a matter that we don't have enough wealth, it's clearly a matter of our values. I hope this is not the situation in Australia but I think worldwide a lot of countries are facing this
  

.

 

We have a football game in the United States every year called the Super Bowl, it's very popular, it gets a lot of advertising and I recently learned that the cost of a 60 second advertisement on the Super Bowl is in the range of $5 million: that is 200 times the annual salary for a new science teacher. It's clearly not a matter of lack of wealth; it's a lack of value.

 

Other countries, some are following this and others are not. I serve as a chairman of an advisory board for a new medical school in Singapore, interesting - Singapore to the north, a small island with no natural resources other than their location in the Straits of Malacca.

And Singapore has decided they would make science education a priority. 3% of the gross domestic product in Singapore is going to be spent on research and development; that's three times what we are spending in the United States.

And this is obviously part of the explanation when the world wide testing of science and mathematic aptitudes are performed every year No.1 Singapore: the top five Japan, Hong Kong, Korea, Taiwan.

The United States usually ties with Belarus or the Czech Republic for about No. 25 - I don't know where Australia is. We obviously could do better, and I don't want to make this too gloomy for the young people who are here because you're our future.

Science Show - 19January2008 - Peter Agre - my life in science

[Michaelangelica]

Nobel Laureate Peter Agre

Science Show - 19January2008 - Peter Agre - my life in science

I think we need world wide to get back to where we were in the 1950s, when science was not a mysterious and unappealing subject.

 

But we have some big challenges, and in the United States right now it turns out that

• half of our citizens don't read a single book in a year, and I'm not just talking about science books but any book. Of course, Mark Twain - his statement, 'a man who doesn't read great books has no advantage over the man who can't read them'.
  
• 400 years after Galileo 20% of the citizens of the United States still believe that the Sun rotates around the Earth.
  
• Half of our citizens believe that dinosaurs and cavemen co-existed, apparently because they saw it on The Flintstones.
  
• The cost of not educating people is enormous; clearly the lack of education is a major component to criminality and in the United States now we have 2.2 million people in prison, men in prison, at an average cost of almost $50,000 - this is 100 billion dollars spent keeping men in cages.
  

This has nothing to do with the cost of the crimes or the police departments. Yet, when we ask for referenda for the schools there's always the same reply from a segment of the population, no, no, we can't raise taxes, this is impossible, you'll have to do without. Yet it's not a matter that we don't have enough wealth, it's clearly a matter of our values.

[freeztar]

Ignorant people can be found in any country M.

 

I just asked 5 American citizens if the sun revolved around the earth or vice versa and every single one answered correctly giving me a statistic of 100% of Americans know the sun revolves around the Earth. :shrug:

[DFINITLYDISTRUBD]

Ignorant people can be found in any country M.

 

I just asked 5 American citizens if the sun revolved around the earth or vice versa and every single one answered correctly giving me a statistic of 100% of Americans know the sun revolves around the Earth. :shrug:

 

Wow! I've known people....ADULTS EVEN!!!!! that "weren't sure" or worse chose the former!!!!!!!!!! I am married to one of those that chose the former!!

[freeztar]

Wow!

 

You did catch the joke, right? :shrug:

[DFINITLYDISTRUBD]

:):doh:;):doh:;):doh:

 

The hazards of reading too quickly without ones glasses:doh:

 

Had to re-reread....got it:doh:

 

 

Sneaky turd sniffer!:shrug:

 

 

Got my hopes up fer nuthin'....I do hope that eventually intelligence will return to the masses along with common sence.

[ErlyRisa]

It's easy to teach one how the sun revolves around the sun...

 

by try to forward one a point that is knee deep in granola, in a world of granola munchers -> now their is no cure for that.

 

upteenth percent of all cats know that.

Let the jazz play.

 

2,2,2 (3)

[Michaelangelica]

It's easy to teach one how the sun revolves around the sun...

 

by try to forward one a point that is knee deep in granola, in a world of granola munchers -> now their is no cure for that.

 

upteenth percent of all cats know that.

Let the jazz play.

 

2,2,2 (3)

Is that supposed to make sense?

 

If so, "Please explain?"

[DougF]

As recession worries continue,

is our economy broken?

Hang on I beleive the ride is not over yet.

 

 

 

UN Says U.S. Economy's Housing Slowdown Risks Global Recession

 

By Bill Varner

 

Jan. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Erosion of the U.S. housing market and a weaker dollar might drive the American economy into recession this year and stall world economic growth in 2009' date=' United Nations economists said.

 

``There is a clear and present danger of the world economy coming to a near standstill,'' the UN's Department of Economic and Social Affairs said in an analysis released today in New York. ``The domino effect of a U.S. recession would be to knock down export growth from China, Europe and Japan, in turn reducing their demand for exports from developing countries.''

 

Global economic growth this year will be 3.4 percent, the UN said, down from 3.7 percent in 2007. Under a ``pessimistic scenario,'' a 15 percent drop in U.S. house prices and a ``hard landing' for the dollar might lead to 0.1 percent contraction in the U.S. economy and 1.6 percent global growth, the report said.

 

Chief UN economist Rob Vos said in an interview there was a ``50-50'' chance the U.S. economy will have back-to-back quarters of negative growth in 2008, which is one definition of a recession.

 

The world economy might not expand at all in 2009 in those circumstances, Vos said. [/quote']

 

Bloomberg.com: Japan

[Michaelangelica]

Belief in a recession can be self fulfilling

See Tax cut thread

http://hypography.com/forums/social-sciences/14000-usa-tax-rebate-5.html#post206471

and sub prime thread

http://hypography.com/forums/social-sciences/13245-economics-business-sub-prime-crisis-how-5.html#post205804

 

A Yank on USA health care costs.

The extreme failure of the United States to contain medical costs results primarily from our unique, pervasive commercialization. The dominance of for-profit insurance and pharmaceutical companies, a new wave of investor-owned specialty hospitals, and profit-maximizing behavior even by nonprofit players raise costs and distort resource allocation. Profits, billing, marketing, and the gratuitous costs of private bureaucracies siphon off $400 billion to $500 billion of the $2.1 trillion spent, but the more serious and less appreciated syndrome is the set of perverse incentives produced by commercial dominance of the system.

. . .

The private insurance system's main techniques for holding down costs are practicing risk selection, limiting the services covered, constraining payments to providers, and shifting costs to patients. But given the system's fragmentation and perverse incentives, much cost-effective care is squeezed out, resources are increasingly allocated in response to profit opportunities rather than medical need, many attainable efficiencies are not achieved, unnecessary medical care is provided for profit, administrative expenses are high, and enormous sums are squandered in efforts to game the system. The result is a blend of overtreatment and undertreatment — and escalating costs. Researchers calculate that between one fifth and one third of medical outlays do nothing to improve health.

 

Health Care Expenditures in Selected Countries.

 

The growth rate of medical expenditures has been slowest in nations with universal health insurance systems. Data are from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. GDP denotes gross domestic product.

 

. . .Large hospitals, which still have substantial bargaining power with insurers, necessarily cross-subsidize services. The emergency department may lose money, but cardiology makes a bundle. So hospitals fiercely defend their profit centers, investing heavily in facilities for lucrative procedures that will attract physicians and patients

. . .Defenders of commercialized health care contend that economic incentives work. And indeed they do — but often in perverse ways. The privately regulated medical market is signaling pressured physicians to behave more like entrepreneurs, inspiring some to defect to "boutique medicine," in which well-to-do patients pay a premium, physicians maintain good incomes, and both get leisurely consultation time. It's a convenient solution, but only for the very affluent and their doctors, and it increases overall medical outlays.

A lot more here

NEJM -- Market-Based Failure -- A Second Opinion on U.S. Health Care Costs

 

In Oz I sometimes think we have the worst of both systems.

[Michaelangelica]

Another Yank on the failings of capitalism

"We have to find a way to make the aspects of capitalism that serve wealthier people serve poorer people as well," Mr. Gates will tell world leaders at the forum, according to a copy of the speech seen by The Wall Street Journal.

Bill Gates Issues Call For Kinder Capitalism - WSJ.com

[DFINITLYDISTRUBD]

The irony of it all...capitalism works....as long as you keep the govt.'s greedy lil fingers out of it...and big busines's dirty evil hands out of Govt. Polititions aren't supposed to be bought they are supposed to be elected!

[Michaelangelica]

current work

[Michaelangelica]

Do USA companies still take out "Dead Peasant's Insurance"?

[modest]

Do USA companies still take out "Dead Peasant's Insurance"?

 

I'd never heard of that - that's CRAZY! :phones:

 

I guess Wal-Mart was doing it at least up 'till 2005:

Wal-Mart: Is This the Worst Company in the World?

 

I can't find anything current, but I'm still looking.

 

-modest

[Michaelangelica]

I'd never heard of that - that's CRAZY! :phones:

 

I guess Wal-Mart was doing it at least up 'till 2005:

Wal-Mart: Is This the Worst Company in the World?

 

I can't find anything current, but I'm still looking.

 

-modest

I've google it and got this:-.

It seems to have been banned in Washington State.

Thursday, May 12, 2005

Firms can no longer take out 'dead peasant' insurance on workers

Employees' families often never knew of policies, benefits

Firms can no longer take out 'dead peasant' insurance on workers

EG

• Companies pay a whopping $8 billion in premiums each year for such coverage, according to the American Council of Life Insurers, a trade group.
  
• The policies make up more than 20% of the all the life insurance sold each year.
  
• Companies expect to reap more than $9 billion in tax breaks from these policies over the next five years. The policies are treated as whole life policies. So, companies can borrow against the policies (though the IRS won't let them write off the interest). And the death benefits are tax-free.
  

Hundreds of companies -- including Dow Chemical, Procter & Gamble, Wal-Mart, Walt Disney and Winn-Dixie -- have purchased this insurance on more than 6 million rank-and-file workers.

Does your boss want you dead? - MSN Money

 

 

• An insurance product that allows corporations to earn tax-free investment income on money put aside for retiree health and pension benefits

• According to articles in the Houston Chronicle and Wall Street Journal last week, a questionable gambit used by at least 100 large corporations to boost profits by taking advantage of the tax-shelter features of life insurance.

• The source of an estimated $6 billion in lost tax revenue to the Treasury each year and the subject of several pending tax court cases.

• A product actively marketed by the insurance industry as an "attractive, off-balance-sheet asset."

Dead Peasant Insurance - You're worth more to your company dead than alive

 

see also:-

Dead Peasant Insurance on Texas State Retirees? Good God! What's Next?

The Truth Is Out There - So They Say: Dead Peasants Insurance

 

Could someone ring a US insurance company and find out if it is still done?