70 Words
Give Me Your Tired…
Christians, 33% of the world’s population, comprise half the world’s 214 Million Immigrants (MI). Muslims, 25% of the population, comprise 28% or 60 MI, Hindus, 15% of the population, comprise 5% or 11 MI, and Jews, 0.25% of the population, comprise 2%, or 4 MI. This means 25% of Jews have migrated to a foreign…
Read MorePC Porn
The Friday File: Of the million most popular websites, 4% are sex-related. If you count by search, about 10% to 15% of all searches are porn related. On a monthly basis, the most popular porn website regularly attracts 2.5% of all people on the Internet! As for the now available .XXX domain name, I bet…
Read MoreDeath by Economy
It’s known that mortality rates rise in economic expansions. Why? In better economic times, nursing care quality falls and since women use nursing homes at the end of their life way more than men, the bad care kills older women. As a result, the mortality rate for women over 65 is very cyclically sensitive and…
Read MoreUnderwater Houses
Banks currently own 450,000 houses, 2 million are in foreclosure, and 1.7 million more have not had a mortgage payment made on them in 90 days. This adds up to 4.15 million houses. The problem is that the economy has lost 5.2 million jobs since the start of the recession in January ’08. Absent those…
Read MoreYo Vote!
While Hispanics make up a large percentage of the population, their electoral power is limited. In the ’10 mid-term elections Hispanics were just 6.9% of the electorate as just 42.7% of the Hispanic population is eligible to vote (78% for whites, 67% for blacks). Moreover, Hispanics are a significant percentage of the population in just…
Read MoreWeak GDP
Q1 ‘12 GDP came in at a dismal 2.2%, not nearly fast enough to dent unemployment. The biggest problem, after adjusting for inflation, wages fell last year. The only reason consumer spending is up is because savings rates keep declining; to 3.9% in February. Worse, excluding inventory growth, GDP was just 1.6%. Add continuing declines…
Read MoreGender Gap
During the first year of the Great Recession (1/08 – 1/09), men lost almost 3.3 million jobs while women lost nearly 1.2 million. Since then, women have lost another 680K jobs and men just 60K. This is because many men work in manufacturing and construction, industries that were hit hard and early, while women tend…
Read MoreProm Bomb
The Friday File: Families with teens are expected to spend about $1,078 on prom festivities based on several surveys. In the Northeast, the average will be $2,000, in the South, $1,047 and in the West and Midwest, $744 and $696 respectively. Interestingly, expected spending is higher the poorer you are. Families earning between $20,000 and…
Read MoreBuying Votes
So far, front runner Mitt Romney has spent $124 million in the primaries and has received 4.1 million votes, for a cost of $30/vote. Gingrich spent $39 million or almost $18/vote. Santorum was the most efficient spending just $27 million, or a bit less than $10/vote. Next up is the general election. Assuming the winner…
Read MoreCell Saturation
The previously fast-growing US cell phone market is now fully saturated. Wireless carriers collectively lost 20,000 customers with long-term contracts (the most profitable segment) in Q1 ’12; the first decline ever. While this is partly due to holdouts that bought the latest iphone in Q4 ‘11, markets just don’t grow forever. This should lead to…
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