Four businesses making money off the apocalypse

Here are a few of the slightly unusual ways in which the business people of America have been profiting from the prophecy.

http://money.ca.msn.com/savings-debt/gallery/investopedia/gallery.aspx?cp-documentid=28930812

1. Pet heaven

Bart Centre, a New Hampshire atheist, author and entrepreneur, saw an opportunity for pet insurance. His business, Eternal Earthbound Pets, has been selling insurance to Fundamentalist Christian pet owners who believe they'll be raptured into heaven ahead of the apocalypse. For those who were worried about what might happen to their dogs and cats when they're gone, Mr. Centre proposed a solution. His team of committed atheists would collect and look after the pets of those who believed they would no longer be around to take care of them. To quote the company's strap-line, it was offering believers, "The next best thing to pet salvation in a post-rapture world."

Centre had more than 250 clients who have paid up to $135 to have their pets cared for post rapture. But his clients would be disappointed twice, he told the Wall Street Journal. "Once because they weren't raptured, and again because I don't do refunds."

2. Apocalypse fashion

A California company called Rapture Wear has been selling jewelry inscribed with biblical verses ahead of Judgment Day. Asking believers, "What will you leave behind?" the jewelry is designed to be left on earth with messages for those who have not been saved, and has proved particularly popular for this latest prediction. Gary Rovarino, the company's general manager, said "As we enter a period of [cultural] decline, it drives people our way."

3. Final message

Unsure as to whether or not email will feature in the after-life, believers have been signing up for earthly services offering to send their final correspondence on their behalf. For a fee, their last thoughts will be sent out to a pre-selected group. Mark Heard, a 52-year-old evangelical Christian from Harwich, says of the final remarks, "Hopefully the messages won't be, 'Ha-ha, I told you so; you're going to hell'. Ideally it will be, 'I hope this is enough evidence that what I told you was correct and you still have time to be accept Jesus Christ and be saved.'"

4. There's an app for that

One smartphone app has been designed which promises to give users a 30 minute notice in advance of the rapture, or Judgment Day. The "Rapture Detector" application offers a somewhat unconventional religious strategy, telling users that, "Sin, lust and fornication can be yours again!" because the Detector's half-hour heads-up provides just enough time to repent and join those who've been pure all along.

A question of morals?

Whilst many of these ideas are relatively comical, the question may be raised as to whether these companies are really just exploiting vulnerable people. Is there a moral issue with offering services that you firmly believe you will never have to provide? Whatever the answer, many businesses will continue turning this prophesied disaster into legitimate profit.

* Fat cat CEOs
* Six entrepreneurs who built their fortunes from nothing
* Six millionaire traits that you can adopt

Big government wants your ice-cream cones

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/cityinsider/detail?entry_id=89840

Don't Sweat the Debt Ceiling

The U.S. Treasury Secretary warns of dire consequences if the debt ceiling is not raised. And yet investors are buying bonds, not selling them. Why?

Here is a blast from the past for you:

http://www.24hgold.com/english/news-gold-silver-don-t-sweat-the-debt-ceiling.aspx?contributor=Justice+Litle&article=3498333974G10020&redirect=False

Debt Ceiling

Ron Paul’s Straight Talk on the National Debt Ceiling

http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/constitution/7591-ron-pauls-straight-talk-on-the-national-debt-ceiling

Stop Raising the Debt Ceiling

http://paul.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1868:stop-raising-the-debt-ceiling&catid=62:texas-straight-talk&Itemid=69

Warren asks why bank bailout was structured differently than auto bailout.

Investing in Precious Metals: What Do Utah and Geithner Think About Gold?

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Investing-Precious-Metals-wscheats-3922764328.html?x=0&.v=1

SOMETHING MISSING FROM HBO'S TOO BIG TO FAIL

There was something missing from last night’s premiere of Too Big To Fail, a made for HBO movie which portrayed the inner workings of the U.S. Treasury during the financial crisis on Wall Street back in 2008. By the time the movie was over, I was still having trouble putting my finger on it. It occurred to me while the credits rolled that I had written quite a bit about the crisis while it was going on, so I headed back to the archives of Brown Man Thinking Hard to see what I’d said.

It didn’t take long for me to figure out what felt wrong about the HBO dramatization after I typed the words “Wall Street” into the box marked “search” on my original blog. The buzzwords were all there – “CDO’s”, “toxic assets”, “sliced up mortgage securities” – and the cast of heroes and villains was complete, with everybody from Richard Fuld to Warren Buffet getting mentioned, but the writers didn’t go for the jugular because they didn’t bring up the Gaussian copula formula David X. Li came up with, the formula that allowed everybody on the Street to justify putting so much of their client’s money into mortgage backed securities.

http://bigthink.com/ideas/38560

On Default Correlation: A Copula Function Approach

http://cyrusfarivar.com/docs/li.defaultcorrelation.pdf

Bitcoin

The same people who brought you Wikileaks are back, and this time, they've created a virtual currency called Bitcoin that could destabilize the entire global financial system. Bitcoin is an open-source virtual currency generated by a computer algorithm that is completely beyond the reach of financial intermediaries, central banks and national tax collectors. Bitcoins could be used to purchase anything, at any time, from anyone in the world, in a transaction process that it is almost completely frictionless. Yes, that's right, the hacktivists now have a virtual currency that's untraceable, unhackable, and completely Anonymous.

http://bigthink.com/ideas/38488

Make.Money.Slow : The Bitcoin Experiment

http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/21/the-bitcoin-experiment/

BitCoin: Can this work?

http://thelongrunblog.wordpress.com/2010/11/16/bitcoin-can-this-work/

Prices at gas pump painful for 4 in 10 Americans

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/05/20/national/main20064844.shtml?tag=cbsnewsSectionContent.2

Actually, "The Rich" Don't "Create Jobs," We Do

You hear it again and again, variation after variation on a core message: if you tax rich people it kills jobs. You hear about "job-killing tax hikes," or that "taxing the rich hurts jobs," "taxes kill jobs," "taxes take money out of the economy, "if you tax the rich they won't be able to provide jobs." ... on and on it goes. So do we really depend on "the rich" to "create" jobs? Or do jobs get created when they fill a need?

Here is a recent typical example, Obama Touts Job-Killing Tax Plan, written by a "senior fellow at the Cato Institute and chairman of the Institute for Global Economic Growth,"

http://ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2011051913/do-we-depend-rich-create-jobs

Nine Pictures Of The Extreme Income/Wealth Gap

Many people don’t understand our country’s problem of concentration of income and wealth because they don’t see it. People just don't understand how muchwealth there is at the top now. The wealth at the top is so extreme that it is beyond most people’s ability to comprehend.

If people understood just how concentrated wealth has become in our country and the effect is has on our politics, our democracy and our people, they would demand our politicians do something about it.

How Much Is A Billion?

http://ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2011020612/understanding-extreme-incomewealth-gap

Chucking it All for A Career Change? Here’s Your To-Do List.

It’s never too early to start thinking about your next act. The longer time frame you have to plan, the better. Start working at age fifty on a career you might not get around to until age sixty.

If you have lots of time, you can try out some ideas and possibilities, role-play, and do a little bit of those things to see if that is the direction you want to go. Moonlight, apprentice or volunteer to see if you even like that kind of work once you see the underbelly, and every job has one.

http://blogs.forbes.com/kerryhannon/2011/05/13/chucking-it-all-for-a-career-change-heres-your-to-do-list/?utm_source=topic-leadership&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=20110514

The Great Stagnation: Why Hasn't Recent Technology Created More Jobs?

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/business/jan-june11/makingsense_05-18.html

As part of his continuing coverage of Making Sen$e of financial news, Paul Solman reports on why more good jobs haven't been created in recent years. Can new technological innovations create widespread job growth as past generations have seen?

Watch the full episode. See more PBS NewsHour.

Our Debt Binge Is Ending — And The Middle Class Will Get Clobbered

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/debt-binge-ending-middle-class-clobbered-20110405-094510-405.html

The world is coming to the end of a 50-year debt supercycle, John Mauldin says, and the austerity required to put us back on solid financial footing will hammer ordinary Americans.

Mauldin, a financial analyst and the author of ENDGAME: The End Of The Debt Supercycle And How It Changes Everything, thinks that the the US will soon be forced to confront the fact that it has borrowed way too much in the past few decades and must severely cut back.

U.S. Hits the Debt Ceiling: What Does It All Mean?

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/u-hits-debt-ceiling-does-mean-201846202.html

Nobel Laureate Spence: U.S. May Have to Live with Slow Employment Growth

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/nobeal-laureate-spence-u-may-live-slow-employment-144754933.html

"Major employment problems in the near future are a near certainty." That's one of the conclusions of a March report co-authored by Nobel-Prize winning economist Michael Spence. Spence, the author of a new book, The New Convergence: The Future of Economic Growth in a Multispeed World, says the U.S. is grappling with a multispeed domestic labor market.

A study he conducted for the Council on Foreign Relations with co-author Sandile Hlatshwayo, entitled "The Evolving Structure of the American Economy and the Employment Challenge", paints a pretty bleak picture. It broke down jobs in the U.S. into two very large sectors: tradable and non-tradable. Tradable jobs are ones that can be done by anyone around the world: manufacturing, back-office operations, pharmaceuticals, engineering, finance, consulting. Non-tradable jobs are those that really can only be done by people in the U.S., such as retail, health care, food service, government, and construction.

Why Globalization Is Good for America

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/why-globalization-good-america-161356726.html

MATT TAIBBI: Goldman Sachs Executives Lied To Their Customers And Congress

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/matt-taibbi-goldman-sachs-executives-lied-customers-congress-175044553.html?sec=topStories&pos=9&asset=&ccode=

Matt Taibbi, the Rolling Stone writer who labeled Goldman Sachs a "vampire squid" in one of the defining stories of the financial collapse, has written another article on the Wall Street firm.

This one is potentially more devastating.

Taibbi argues that Goldman Sachs executives lied when they testified in front of Congress in the aftermath of the crisis. Unlike other commentators who grouse about how Wall Street execs should be tossed in jail, Taibbi actually provides specifics. He takes quotes from some of the Goldman execs who testified, including CEO Lloyd Blankfein and CFO David Viniar, and then juxtaposes them with what he believes to be the truth at the time.

And at least as Taibbi tells it, the statements do appear to be misleading, if not outright false.

One of the biggest frustrations most people have about the financial crisis is that no one has yet been held accountable for it. In prior crashes--the S&L collapse, the 1987 crash, the dotcom bubble--prosecutors had a field day parading villains in front of TV cameras. And yet, this time, despite the financial crisis ushering in the worst recession since the Great Depression, no big shots have gone to jail.

Taibbi vents about this. He also observes that prosecutors have just brought massive, high-profile perjury cases against athletes like Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds, but apparently can't or won't do the same with Wall Street executives.

One explanation for this, of course, is that prosecutors don't think the Wall Street execs are guilty of anything. But Taibbi thinks the explanation is more insidious: An institutionalized double-standard, stemming from the fact that many prosecutors and regulators someday hope to work at Wall Street firms like Goldman Sachs.

NIA Inflation News

http://inflation.us/

College Conspiracy: The College Debt Scam

A video produced by the National Inflation Association (NIA), we discover the real purpose behind the push to enroll students in college – lifelong debt. So-called higher education is about government loans at high interest rates, not an educated public working in high wage jobs and enjoying a middle class good life

NIA .......... http://www.inflation.us/

College Education is a Scam Says New Documentary

http://www.inflation.us/collegeconspiracyreleased.html

Colleges Deceiving Public with Myths and Hoaxes

http://inflation.us/collegesdeceivingmythshoaxes.html

U.S. Healthcare Costs Per Family More Than Doubled In Nine Years, Report Finds

U.S. healthcare is so expensive that records are broken even when cost increases slow.

According to a new report by Milliman, a global consulting and actuarial firm, the total cost of healthcare for the average family of four, if covered by a preferred provider organization, is now a record $19,393.

That might be only 7.3 percent higher than last year's average cost of $18.074, which is the smallest year-over-year increase in almost a decade. But it's also the highest year-over-year increase in total dollars spent per family at $1,319.

Trends over the last decade more completely illustrate the toll taken on the average American by rising healthcare costs.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/16/us-healthcare-costs-double-report_n_862677.html

How Does the U.S. Debt Ceiling Work and Why Does it Matter?

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/jan-june11/debtceiling_05-16.html

Watch the full episode. See more PBS NewsHour.

SUMMARY
The United States government hit the legal limit for the amount of money it can borrow Monday, but Treasury officials say they can take other measures to pay the bills. Ray Suarez discusses questions about how the debt ceiling works and the ongoing political debate with The New York Times' Binyamin Applebaum.

Trickle Down Economics - It's kinda like getting pissed on

Even if "trickle down economics" worked (which it doesn't), it would be cruel and unjust. How did we become so inured to that phrase? Archbishop Hélder Câmara said

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%A9lder_C%C3%A2mara

When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.

But "they" are unfair in making that accusation. Communism is not the only alternative to our present inhumane system. Certainly a market economy is more efficient than a centrally dictated economy, but many kinds of markets are possible.

Thom Hartmann’s book:

Screwed: The Undeclared War Against the Middle Class — And What We Can Do About It

Hartmann’s central argument is that a strong democracy promotes economic equality and the creation of a healthy middle class; and that maintenance of a vibrant middle class is crucial to maintaining a functioning and effective democracy.

This is true in principle, he argues; more importantly, he asserts, it is the central trope of U.S. history. The United States has witnessed two great periods of middle-class expansion, he writes. First, from the 1700s until the middle of the 1800s, fueled by the transfer of land from Native Americans to settlers — “a great deal for the settlers, who got the land virtually for free, and a raw deal for the Native Americans.” The resulting land-based middle class remained strong until the post-Civil War era, when agribusiness giants gained control over the farm economy, and industrial corporations rose up in urban areas. The Robber Baron era that followed saw the creation of great wealth, but its concentration in a few hands — and the concomitant degradation of U.S. democracy.

http://www.multinationalmonitor.org/mm2006/072006/booknotes.html

10 mistakes to avoid when selling your car

Advice that could mean the difference between a good and lousy payday

Ten common mistakes to avoid when selling your car

http://autos.ca.msn.com/showroom/used-cars/gallery.aspx?cp-documentid=28450552

Ten tips to sell your own car

http://autos.ca.msn.com/showroom/gallery.aspx?cp-documentid=23817327

The 10 Highest Paid CEOs Of 2010: Equilar

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/06/10-highest-paid-ceos-2010_n_858500.html#s274876&title=10_Jeff_Bewkes

10. Jeff Bewkes, Time Warner, $26.1 million

Compensation raise: 35 percent

5 Ways Federal Government Can Boost Entrepreneurship

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brad-feld/5-ways-federal-government_b_860514.html#s277298&title=Make_Taxes_Simple

Make Taxes Simple

Incent people to invest in startups. While there are several well understood tax policies that could be implemented, the simplest is to provide long term tax breaks for individuals to invest in new startup companies. As with anything tax related, there are endless politics involved and many of the things that actual get rolled out are so obscure that they either never get implemented or are to difficult for investors to understand. Make it simple - eliminate capital gains if an individual (who is an accredited investor) invests equity (i.e. risk of 100% loss of investment) in a private company with less than 100 employees.

11 Companies With The Worst Reputations In America: Harris Interactive

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/03/the-11-most-hated-american-companies_n_856471.html#s272707&title=11_Comcast

11. Comcast

RQ Score: 62.05

10 Companies That Will Save The American Economy: 24/7 Wall Street

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/04/10-companies-save-america_n_843785.html#s260517&title=10_Monsanto

10. Monsanto

2008 Revenue: $11.365 Billion
Number of Employees: 21,700
Market Cap: $37.85 Billion

Most of the agricultural technology industry is based on the production of pesticides and herbicides. Monsanto,however, is at the cutting edge of dozens of crucial agriculture sectors, including genetically modified seeds and animal growth hormones. Despite a large amount of negative press and objections from environmental groups, the fact remains that as the global population continues to grow exponentially, food scarcity will increasingly become an issue. Monsanto's technology, which seeks to maximize crop yields, is a crucial commodity, and that will only increase over time.

9. Cisco

2010 Revenue: $40.04 Billion
Number of Employees: 70,714
Market Cap: $95.97 Billion

Cisco is the worlds leading company in terms of market share for routers, the devices that makeup the backbone of the Internet. Cisco's hardware, which include these routers, switches, and wireless and security systems,are used by Internet services providers around the world. This includes a large potion of the international telephone, cable, voice, and data infrastructure. Cisco is also one of the primary investors and providers of virtualization software to make large data centers and server farms more productive. All of the core virtualization software originates from a few technology operations in the US. Cisco is also the leader in video communications with products which run from high-end teleconferencing to home video solutions.

10 Countries With The Most Billionaires

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/12/10-countries-with-the-billionaires_n_847693.html#s262644&title=10_Canada

10. Canada

Number of billionaires: 22
Total Population: 33,739,900
Notable Billionaires Include: David Thompson (Chairman of Thompson Reuters), Jeffrey Skoll (ex-eBay President) and Guy Laliberté (CEO of Cirque du Soleil)

9. Japan

Number of billionaires: 23
Total Population: 127,560,000
Notable Billionaires Include: Masayoshi Son (CEO of venture capital Softbank Capital), Hiroshi Yamauchi (President and Chairman of Nintendo) and Tadashi Yanai (Founder and President of retail holding company Fast Retailing).

8. Switzerland

Number of billionaires: 27
Total Population: 7,731,167
Notable Billionaires Include: Ernesto Bertarelli (biotech entrepreneur known for Merck-Serono) and Esther Grether (art collector and Swatch shareholder).

7. Hong Kong

Number of billionaires: 29
Total Population: 7,003,700
Notable Billionaires Include: Li Ka-shing (businessman and Chairman of Hutchison Whampoa Limited) and Thomas and Raymond Kwok (inherited Real Estate developer Sun Hung Kai Properties.)

6. UK

Number of billionaires: 42
Total Population: 61,838,154
Notable Billionaires Include: Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor (owner of Real Estate property company Grosvenor Group), Bernard Ecclestone (sports entrpreneur, CEO of Formula 1 racing Management) and Richard Branson (Chairman of Virgin Group)

5. Germany

Number of billionaires: 43
Total Population: 81,879,976
Notable Billionaires Include: Karl Albrecht (Founder of discount supermarket chain Aldi) and Susanne Klatten (shareholder in BMW and pharmaceutical manufacturer Altana)

4. India

Number of billionaires: 47
Total Population: 1,155,347,678
Notable Billionaires Include: Lakshmi Mittal (chairman and CEO of steelmaker ArcelorMittal) and Mukesh Ambani (Chairman and managing director of conglomerate Reliance Industries).

3. Russia

Number of billionaires: 58
Total Population: 141,850,000
Notable Billionaires Include: Vladimir Lisin (Chairman of Novolipetsk Steel), Vagit Alekperov (president of oil company Lukoil) and Roman Abramovich (Oil businessman and owner of England's Chelsea Football Club)

2. China

Number of billionaires: 72
Total Population: 1,331,460,000
Notable Billionaires Include: Robin Li (CEO and Founder of search engine Baidu), Liang Wengen (Chairman and main shareholder of manufacturer Sany Group) and Zong Qinghou (founder of beverage producer Wahaha).

1. United States of America

Number of billionaires: 396
Total Population: 307,006,550
Notable Billionaires Include: Bill Gates (Chairman of Microsoft), Warren Buffett (Chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway) and Larry Ellison (Co-founder and CEO of enterprise software company Oracle Corporation).

http://blogs.forbes.com/luisakroll/2011/03/09/the-worlds-billionaires-2011-inside-the-list/

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/10/us-billionaires-idUSTRE7286SF20110310

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/business/2011-04/07/c_13817080.htm

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/03/31/ap/strange/main20049479.shtml