tagged w/ Billion
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Millions of Americans have spent a total of $1.4 billion dollars chasing a dream of financial stability...only for 1 to cash in. Think about it. Nearly 150 million Americans live in poverty and see the only way to achieve the American dream is to gamble their money away on the lottery. There's not a single job offering a decent wage for them to raise their children properly, their schools, roads, and neighborhoods are falling apart. Big banks, businesses, and billionaires would rather invest millions in slave labor overseas than give their fellow Americans the chance at the American Dream.
No, the American Dream is now a fantasy. No matter how hard someone works, everything keeps going up (food, transportation, medical, education, and utilities). There's no room to save or invest in anything. Getting tired of being left behind, they throw their hard earned money away and still see no teachers in the classroom, black mold in the bathrooms, tattered textbooks, and another empty desk. Poverty and desperation still continues for those unlucky gamblers. Their money will disappear into the state red tape, they'll complain about the lack of service and opportunity, but will never perceive their first mistake of getting in that long depressing line.
It's so sad to see $1.4 billion dollars represent the new American Dream. It's a depressing and horrible dream.
http://www.sacbee.com/2012/03/30/4379498/what-146b-spent-on-mega-millions.html
http://www.science20.com/news_releases/psychology_of_poverty_why_poor_people_buy_lottery_tickets
http://stoppredatorygambling.org/category/research-center/debt-culture-and-poverty/Millions of Americans have spent a total of $1.4 billion dollars chasing a dream of... more
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The fascist cabal known as the Bilderbergers, CFR, committee of 300 etc., is desperately and without hope trying to start WW3 and install a fascist world government in an attempt to pre-empt criminal investigations closing in on them from all sides. Their efforts will fail because the Pentagon and the agencies in the US (with the exception of homeland Gestapo) are preparing to remove them from power, according to CIA and other sources. For example, multiple investigations are closing in on alleged President Obama, including one for illegally declaring war on Libya. A count among US representatives show the votes necessary to impeach him are there, US law enforcement officials say. In addition, evidence of bribery and other forms of illegally tampering with government is being compiled against George Soros, among others. There is also a lot going on under and on the surface in Europe, Japan and the Middle East. I highly recommend you watch this first, as it will draw you directly into the mystery -- which flickered for the briefest moment in mainstream media, only to disappear into shuddering silence: http://www.makeahistory.com/index.php/bizzareweird/43041-the-trillion-dollar-lawsuit-that-could-end-financial-tyrannyThe fascist cabal known as the Bilderbergers, CFR, committee of 300 etc., is... more
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worrg
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added this
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6 months ago
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When we hit the magic figure of One Billion Visits last April 1st we were relatively pleased and I do say that in retrospect, as compared to the same time this year, we out did ourselves by ten fold.When we hit the magic figure of One Billion Visits last April 1st we were relatively... more
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Consider: We all dream about winning the lottery, but an excess of dough doesn't drive an excess of happiness.Consider: We all dream about winning the lottery, but an excess of dough doesn't... more
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The Government Accountability Office (GAO), issued it first annual report on reducing or eliminating duplication, overlap, or fragmentation in government spending (embedded below). This particular report identifies areas where adjustments would generate tens of billions of savings, and the GAO did not even examine the entire federal government.
http://politisite.com/2011/03/01/congress-want-to-cut-the-budget-by-100-billion-start-here/The Government Accountability Office (GAO), issued it first annual report on reducing... more
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Yesterday, Twitter CEO Dick Costolo dismissed the company’s $10 billion acquisition rumors during a speech at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Now, Twitter co-founder and inventive director Biz Stone told NPR that “We’re not valued at $10 billion dollars.”Yesterday, Twitter CEO Dick Costolo dismissed the company’s $10 billion... more
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The US is building an £8 billion super military base on the Pacific island of Guam in an attempt to contain China's military build-up.
The expansion will include a dock for a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, a missile defence system, live-fire training sites and the expansion of the island's airbase. It will be the largest investment in a military base in the western Pacific since the Second World War, and the biggest spend on naval infrastructure in decades.
However, Guam residents fear the build-up could hurt their ecosystem and tourism-dependent economy.
Estimates suggest that the island's population will rise by almost 50 per cent from its current 173,000 at the peak of construction. It will eventually house 19,000 Marines who will be relocated from the Japanese island of Okinawa, where the US force has become unpopular.
The US's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has said that this could trigger serious water shortages. The EPA said that dredging the harbour to allow an aircraft carrier to berth would damage 71 acres of pristine coral reefs.
The EPA's report said the build-up would "exacerbate existing substandard environmental conditions on Guam".
Local residents' concerns, however, have been sidelined by the US-China strategic competition. China has significantly expanded its fleet during the past decade, seeking to deter the US from intervening militarily in any future conflict over Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its own, and to project power across disputed territories in the gas and oil-rich South China Sea.
more at link...
It's all part of a plan...a really, really big plan. World War 3 is on the horizon.
Notice there was no mention of our "hopey-changey", Nobel Peace Prize winning president, Barry Soetoro, I mean, Barack Obama. You'd almost think that Bin Laden worked for the military-industrial complex the way 9/11 scored huge for them.The US is building an £8 billion super military base on the Pacific island of... more
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Fraud has become so endemic in this country that it's woven its way into America’s DNA.
April 29, 2010 |
Here are 10 ways the American economy is built on fraud:
1). Accounting Fraud: Last year, America’s leading banks were insolvent. They had tens or hundreds of billions in losses on their books, and the only way to wipe those losses out would be to either a) own up to the mess, raise enormous amounts of money on top of all the bailout money; or b) get out a big fat eraser, and wipe those losses off the books as if they never existed. The first option was nice and all, but a real hassle. So Geithner and Larry Summers chose Door Number Two: Accounting Fraud. They forced the FASB to accept a rule-change in the accounting methodology called “mark-to-model” which let banks decide how much their assets were worth, rather than letting the markets decide. So if for example a BofA owned a complex security called “Orion Butt Fungus” that was worth 5 pesos on the open market, but BofA was too broke to go out and raise 5 pesos to cover that loss, under the new accounting rules, the government told BofA that rather than pricing “Orion Butt Fungus” at what the market will actually pay for it, why not first ask, “How much would BofA like ‘Orion Butt Fungus’ to be worth, in a perfect world?’” If BofA answers, “Doyee, gee I dunno, how about $500 million?” then under the “mark-to-model” accounting rules, BofA could now value “Orion Butt Fungus” at $500 million, and voila! Their problems are over. That wasn’t so hard, was it? Suddenly, BofA looks like it knows how to pick winners! And no one’s going to second-guess them, because everyone else is mark-to-modeling their “Orion Butt Fungi” too! The end result: under the old rules, BofA would have had to raise money just to cover its debts, sort of like you and me have to do, and that’s just a lot of money going to waste. But now that its portfolio is so profitable, BofA has a much easier time raising money, which it uses to pay ginormous bonuses to its executives.
2). Big Pharma Fraud. Remember that scene early in Fight Club, when Edward Norton explained his job, when it was more profitable to let a car defect go and pay whatever lawsuit settlements come from the deaths, and when it’s better to recall the cars because the number of deaths will result in too many lawsuits? This is humanitarian do-gooder stuff compared to the savage real-world fraud-for-profit model that drives America’s drug companies. It’s really simple and it goes like this: the more fraud a drug company commits, so long as it’s off-the-scale fraud with the most horrible consequences for the victims, the drug company’s profits always outdo the criminal fines and lawsuits by factors of 20, 30, 100… It’s as simple as that. Because the billion in penalties here or the two billion in class action lawsuit settlements there are always far less than the tens of billions you earn from pushing harmful drugs on unsuspecting idiots. To wit: Between May 2004 and March 2010, a handful of top drug companies like Pfizer, Eli Lilly and Bristol-Myers paid over $7 billion in criminal penalties for bribing doctors to prescribe drugs for unapproved uses, with sometimes deadly consequences. However, as a Bloomberg report noted, the fines are always a fraction of the profits—Pfizer alone paid almost $3 billion in criminal fines since 2004, yet that was just one percent of their total revenues; Eli Lilly got busted bribing doctors to prescribe a schizophrenia drug, Zyprexa, to elderly patients suffering from dementia, even though company-run clinical trials showed an alarming death rate of 31 people out of 1,184 participants (double the placebo rate). Whatever—the market for elderly dementia patients meant billions in extra revenues. So Eli Lilly continued pushing Zyprexa on the elderly for another four years until it the Feds busted them. Eli Lilly got hit with $1.42 billion fine, but that was peanuts compared to the $36 billion it earned on Zyprexa sales from 2000-2008. To make it happen, the drug companies buy off all the checks and balances: lawsuits revealed the enormous bribes they pay to doctors, and even America’s medical journals are so corrupted by drug company influence that they’re no longer reliable as much more than hidden advertisements, according to a recent UCSF study. Medical journals are 5 times more likely to publish “positive” drug reviews than negative reviews, and one-quarter of all clinical trials are never published at all, leading doctors to prescribe drugs assuming they have all the information. The result: prescription drugs kill one American every five minutes …while Americans pay more for drugs than anyone in the world, spending a total of $12 billion on drugs in 1980 to spending $291 billion in 2008—a 1,700% increase. America is ranked only 17th in the world in life expectancy.Fraud has become so endemic in this country that it's woven its way into... more
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There are not too many motion pictures that were as much successful to leave a mark on memory. If I remember there are a few one like Kung-fu-Panda, Iceage, and Transformers etc, but did anyone think of a historic motion picture?There are not too many motion pictures that were as much successful to leave a mark on... more
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zionoe
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added this
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2 years ago
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This is Mr. Gore's newest theory. It's hard to tell who is telling the truth these days with Climategate and other issues popping up. Interesting read to add to the arguments flying around out there.This is Mr. Gore's newest theory. It's hard to tell who is telling the truth... more
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They found an area in the Gulf of Mexico that contains over 1 billion barrels of oil. An amazing find.They found an area in the Gulf of Mexico that contains over 1 billion barrels of oil.... more
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While most of us have heard Mozilla’s claim that Firefox has had 1 billion downloads, some at Microsoft aren’t so sure. According to Amy Barzdukas, a general manager at Microsoft in charge of Internet Explorer, the milestone made for some “interesting math.”While most of us have heard Mozilla’s claim that Firefox has had 1 billion... more
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Yesterday the President announced his plan for developing a national high-speed rail line as a transportation alternative for many Americans. High-speed railways have proven extremely beneficial and popular in other countries such as Asia and Europe and these railways are “long overdue” on US soil. Let’s face it, we all know fuel prices are bound to skyrocket again in the future and put a damper on our vacation plans, be they road trips or flights. Having a high-speed railway to help individuals get from Point A to B would be incredibly convenient, affordable and may even take some gas guzzlers off the road.Yesterday the President announced his plan for developing a national high-speed rail... more
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The Evening Standard has revealed that Tesco's turnover has hit £1 billion per week.The Evening Standard has revealed that Tesco's turnover has hit £1 billion... more
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ClareW
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added this
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3 years ago
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Logitech recently made its one billionth mouse. The Swiss company says this is a major landmark in production, as general manager Rory Dooley says "It's rare in human history that a billionth of anything has been shipped by one company".
But his remark comes at a time when analysts are claiming the days of the mouse are numbered.Logitech recently made its one billionth mouse. The Swiss company says this is a major... more
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ClareW
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added this
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3 years ago
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Move over Col. Steve Austin, your record just got beat...
Nearly two years ago, Barack Obama muscled his way into the top tier of presidential contenders by breaking fundraising records.
When the 2008 campaign books are closed, the Democratic president-elect will shatter another record by coming close to, or capturing, the title of the first billion-dollar candidate.
That’s roughly how much the Obama finance team will have raised for his campaign, convention, transition and Jan. 20 Inauguration events.
The vast majority of the donations were generated during the unusually long primary and general election campaigns. A financial disclosure report scheduled to be released Thursday is expected to show that Obama raised more than $100 million in the final month of the campaign, campaign aides said.
That will bring the grand total for his campaign to more than $750 million — more than the combined sum raised by President George W. Bush and his Democratic rival, John F. Kerry, in the record-setting 2004 campaign and nearly as much as the total raised by all the presidential contenders then.Move over Col. Steve Austin, your record just got beat...
Nearly two years ago,... more
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Wells Fargo said it expects to take a $10-billion U.S. charge on the transaction, but said in a release it believed the deal would raise earnings "in the first year of operations."
Wells Fargo said it expects to take a $10-billion U.S. charge on the transaction, but... more
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Microsoft has unveiled plans to spend $40bn (£22bn) buying back its shares from investors, the biggest single buy-back plan in history.
Analysts say the move is an attempt by the software giant to use its spare cash to prop up its share price which has fallen by almost 30% this year.
Hewlett-Packard and Nike have also announced major buy-back programmes.
The personal computer-maker will buy back $8bn of shares, while Nike's plan is worth $5bn.
'Attractive prices'
Microsoft said the buy-back plan showed its "confidence in the long-term growth of the company and our commitment to returning capital to our shareholders."
Industry watchers have said Microsoft will be hoping the plan will revive its share price which has declined this year, partly due to its failed $47.5bn (£26.3bn) bid to buy the internet portal Yahoo.
"I'm impressed," said Michael Holland of the deals. He oversees $4bn (£2.2bn) as chairman and founder of Holland & Co in New York.
"When companies have come in to buy their own stock subsequent to a financial crisis, they've bought at attractive prices and it's been a good use of liquidity," Mr Holland told Bloomberg News.
At the end of June this year, the company was sitting on a cash mountain of $23.7bn and has never been in debt in its 33-year history.
The BBC's technology reporter Maggie Shiels said there was little doubt Microsoft had to do something because it simply had too much cash lying on its books following the company's failed attempt to buy either all or part of Yahoo.
Dealogic said the new buy-back, which will run until 2013, was the largest single announced share-buyback in history.
It follows a previous 2004 plan which started as a $30bn project and was later boosted by another $10bn.
'Volatile market'
HP said its board approved an $8bn repurchase following a previous programme which started in November. About $3bn (£1.6bn) remains from that authorisation.
The firm said it gave the go-ahead to the share buy-back to counteract the effect employee stock plans have on ownership percentages.
Just last week the PC-maker announced it was cutting 24,600 jobs in the wake of its acquisition of Electronic Data Systems Corp.
Meanwhile Nike's plan to buy back $5bn of shares over the next four years has been welcomed by Standard & Poor's Equity Research as providing "support to the shares in a volatile market."
Share buy-backs peaked in the third quarter of 2007 at $172bn according to Standard & Poor's senior index analyst Howard Silverblatt. The figure for the first quarter of this year is $113.9bn.
Microsoft has unveiled plans to spend $40bn (£22bn) buying back its shares from... more
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