At $1.1 trillion, student debt eclipses all other forms of household debt, except for home mortgages.
The U.S. government is forecast to turn a record $51 billion profit this year from student loan borrowers, a sum greater than the earnings of the nation’s most profitable companies and roughly equal to the combined net income of the four largest U.S. banks by assets.
Comments Off
Every business could face 46 separate audits (from the 45 states that collect sales taxes plus the District of Columbia).
Legislation on internet sales tax could subject small online businesses to up to 46 state audits. And since sales taxes vary among thousands of tax jurisdictions across the country, the chances that auditors will find mistakes—and slap the business owners with penalties—are very good. If truth-in-advertising requirements applied to legislation, says Heritage Action’s Dan Holler, the Marketplace Fairness Act would be renamed the Tax Audits from Hell Act of 2013.
Comments Off
In the Transparency Report’s latest edition, Google has revealed that the final six months of 2012 saw an increase in government requests to remove content — often YouTube videos. Google received 2,285 such requests (compared with 1,811 during the first half of 2012) that named a total of 24,179 pieces of content for removal (compared with 18,070 in the preceding period).
Comments Off
How we pay taxes.
Taxes are complicated. There are a lot of numbers involved. But that’s where graphs help answer the biggest questions: Where do our tax dollars come from? Where do they go? Who pays how much? How has it changed over time?
Comments Off
Raymond Alvarez: “We are a nation of laws.”
There was a time when another nation found itself confronted with unwanted visitors who ignored their laws. The people fought these squatters and went on to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Cherokee Nation initially lost its case, but won on subsequent appeal.
Comments Off
Over 16,000 dead pigs have been found in China’s rivers.
The “dead animals in Chinese rivers” toll seems to have stabilized. According to recent reports, over 16,000 dead pigs have been joined by 1,000 dead ducks and, rather ominously, 13 dead black swans in China’s rivers. The discovery of so many carcasses has elicited no small amount of public concern in China, as well as mockery elsewhere — even Jay Leno got into the act.
Comments Off
Every month, 14 million Americans get a disability check.
The number of Americans who are on disability has skyrocketed in the past thirty years. Medical advances have allowed many more people to remain on the job, and new laws have banned workplace discrimination against the disabled, but disability is still on the rise. Fourteen million people now get a disability check from the government every month.
Comments Off
On September 16, 2011, President Obama signed the America Invents Act.
On March 16, 2013, the third and final wave of provisions of the America Invents Act (AIA) became effective. This completes the overhaul of the U.S. patent law that began with the enactment of the AIA on September 16, 2011. The United States will move to a first-to-file system with these provisions. It will greatly expand the definition of prior art and usher in the use of post grant review.
Comments Off
97% of those surveyed “strongly agreed” with the statement, “I personally do not want to be killed by a drone.”
The Administration’s controversial drone policy could be headed for a possible setback. According to a new poll conducted by the University of Minnesota a broad majority of Americans are opposed to being killed by a drone strike on U.S. soil.
Comments Off
For every emergency situation, a city’s first response
will be to “get eyes on” the situation
Futurist Thomas Frey: Yes, drones have been around for a long time and the military has already committed countless billions to drone R&D, but when a U.S. Senator dedicates 13 hours to filibuster the topic of drones, it signals far more than a token political move.
Comments Off
Recent Posts on FuturistSpeaker.com
