You are hereeconomy
economy
Taxes' many faces: hard times mean a hard look at taxes - how much we pay, who skates through loopholes and more
(quote)
Where the Money Comes From
How the cash flows into Uncle Sam's coffers.
For 2007
Individual income taxes: 50.4%
Payroll taxes (FICA): 31.4%
Business income taxes: 14.6%
Excise and other taxes (tobacco, gas, etc.): 3.6%
Total tax revenue for 2007 = $2,709,798,000,000
One Family's Burden
How much a typical family in Philadelphia earning $50,000 paid the tax man in 2007.
Federal taxes: $6,007 (41%)
Sales tax: $803 (5%)
Property tax: $4,235 (29%)
State/local income tax: $3,361 (23%)
Auto tax: $231 (2%)
Total = $14,637 or 29.3% of income
(unquote)
Illustrations courtesy of Carlos Aponte / Reader’s Digest
Original Source: Reader’s Digest
Protesters in Berlin rage at economic plight by torching expensive cars - symbols of German wealth and power
(quote)
While youths in Athens protest by throwing Molotov cocktails, in Paris by toppling barricades, and in Budapest by hurling eggs at politicians, protesters in Berlin rage at their economic plight by targeting the most expensive cars -- symbols of German wealth and power. At least 29 vehicles were destroyed in arson attacks this year, most of them luxury cars, according to police. The number is already about 30 percent of the total for 2008. The latest to go up in flames was a Porsche, on Feb. 14, two days after a Mercedes was set alight in a public car park.
A group calling itself BMW -- the initials stand for Movement for Militant Resistance in German -- has claimed responsibility for several attacks in left-wing magazines and Web sites, police spokesman Bernhard Schodrowski said. One-third of the incidents are classed as “political,” prompting officers to assign a special unit to investigate, Schodrowski said. No arrests have been made. Schodrowski attributed the arson to “a protest against the world economy and rising rents.”
German unemployment began to rise last November after almost three years of declines. Deutsche Bank AG Chief Economist Norbert Walter predicts the German economy, Europe’s biggest, may shrink by more than 5 percent this year. The worst recession since World War II is fueling anger among youths across Europe who “perceive their future as rather precarious,” said Margit Mayer, a politics professor at Berlin’s Free University.
On Mar 2, 1969 world's first supersonic jetliner Concorde took flight, feat of collaboration eng. & work of beauty
(quote)
It was a feat of engineering and a work of exceptional beauty and grace. It won the hearts and minds of millions of people.
Forty years ago today the supersonic Concorde took its first test flight, and a design paragon flashed across the skies over Toulouse. With its droop nose and delta wing, the Concorde was a high point of 20th century engineering (its maiden flight came three months before the first moon landing) and the kind of cooperative effort that now seems beyond us. As we enter a period of infrastructure spending, it’s worth noting what kept the Concorde aloft for 27 years.
Wildlife Conservation Society and Goldman Sachs safeguard Chile's Karukinka Nature Reserve, home to 700 plant species and more
(quote)
It is not every day that a Wall Street bank finds itself in possession of a chunk of land 50 times the size of Manhattan, covered in pristine forest, windswept grassland and snow-capped mountains. But that's the position Goldman Sachs found itself in, in 2002 when it bought a package of distressed debt and assets from a US company called Trillium.
The resulting conservation project in the very south of Chile has been hailed by the bank and its partners, a US-based NGO, as an example of how the public and private sectors can work together to safeguard the world's last remaining wildernesses. Chilean environmentalists are more skeptical but, even so, have largely applauded the project.
The story of what is now known as the Karukinka nature reserve dates back to the 1990s when Trillium bought land on Tierra del Fuego - a cluster of inhospitable islands between Chile and Argentina - clinging to the southernmost tip of South America. The company planned to use the land for logging and wanted to cut down the lenga - a type of beech tree found only in this part of the world.
Bolivia's first indigenous President enacts new constitution, empowers indigenous majority, allows for land reform
(quote)
Bolivia's President Evo Morales has enacted a new constitution that aims to empower the country's indigenous majority and allows for land reform. Mr. Morales is Bolivia's first indigenous president.
On January 25th, Bolivia held a referendum to adopt a new national constitution, one that dramatically shifts the country, reversing discriminatory practices and granting many rights and self-determination to the 36 indigenous nations within Bolivia. After a lengthy count, officials announced that the referendum passed with over 60% of the vote.
Much political and legal work remains to implement the changes, but soon most of the country's natural resources will be state-owned, land ownership will be capped at 12,000 acres, and Morales will be able to run for a second term. President Evo Morales welcomed the constitutional win by saying "Here begins the new Bolivia", claiming the changes would work to "decolonize" Bolivia. read more »
1st Emperor of United China, QinShiHuang(18Feb259–10Sep210 BC) standardized measurement,currency,Chinese script,built Great Wall
(quote)
The First Emperor of United China, Qin Shi Huang (18 February 259 BC – 10 September 210 BC) became the King Zheng of Qin when he was 13, then China's first emperor when he was 38 after the Qin had conquered all of the other Warring States and unified seven warring states of China in 221 BC. His public works projects included the unification of diverse state walls into a single Great Wall of China and a massive new national road system.
Qin Shi Huang and Li Si unified China economically by standardizing the Chinese units of measurements such as weights and measures, currency, and the length of the axles of carts to facilitate transport on the road system.
The emperor also developed an extensive network of roads and canals connecting the provinces to improve trade between them. The currency of the different states were also standardized to the Ban liang coin. Perhaps most importantly, the Chinese script was unified. Under Li Si, the seal script of the state of Qin was standardized through removal of variant forms within the Qin script itself. This newly standardized script was then made official throughout all the conquered regions, thus doing away with all the regional scripts to form one language, one communication system for all of China.
(unquote)
Image courtesy Wikipedia and psu.edu
Turkey's Prime Minister returned home to a hero's welcome for his "courageous stance" against Israel's war in Gaza
(quote)
Gaza War has strained the relationship between Israel and Turkey, Israel’s closest Muslim ally. Turkey was the first Muslim country to recognize Israel as a state, and it has built up more than $3 billion in annual trade with Israel, far more than for any other Middle Eastern country. “It’s not a business-as-usual relationship anymore,” said Cengiz Candar, a columnist for Radikal, a Turkish daily. “It’s a very uneasy sort of cohabitation in this region now.”
Israel’s Arab allies stood behind it in the war, but Turkey, a NATO member whose mediating efforts last year brought Israel into indirect talks with Syria, protested every step of the way in a month of angry remarks capped when Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan stalked off the stage during a debate in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 29.
Contact Us
RSS feed
