News Factoids for Third Quarter 2019

U.S. importers paid $6 billion in tariffs in June, a 74% jump compared to a year ago, despite a slight decline in the value of imports. And $3.4 billion of that total came from tariffs imposed by President Trump.

U.S. annually uses 388 million pounds of potentially fatal pesticides that are banned in the EU, China, and Brazil.

293.6 billion: Number of emails that are sent per day worldwide.
80%: share of global spam emails sent by 'a hard-core group of around 100 known persistent spam gangs'.

$84: approximate annual revenue Google makes on advertising per Gmail user.

2017 marked the first year that firearms killed more people than car accidents.
~~ per The Hill political newsblog, 9/2019

The bottom 90 percent of working-age households are poorer than they were in 2007.

Wealth of the top 10% bracket is UP 11 percent; wealth of the 61-90% bracket is down 17 percent; wealth of the middle class 31-60% bracket is down 35 percent; and the wealth of the bottom 30% is down 31 percent.
~~ per the U.S. Federal Reserve, September 2018

"The oceans and the icy parts of the world are in big trouble and that means we're all in big trouble, too. The changes are accelerating." ~~~ Michael Oppenheimer, professor of geosciences & international affairs at Princeton University

“I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again, we can’t eat money, or drink oil.”
~~ Indigenous teen water protector Autumn Peltier addressing the United Nations General Assembly, 9/2019

Arnold Schwarzenegger offered to lend Greta Thunberg an electric car if she wanted; she accepted the offer and she and her father drove it to the Fridays For Future rally in Montreal, Canada where she spoke.

"We are the change and change is coming."
~~ Greta Thunberg, at the end of her speech in Montreal, Canada on Friday 9/27/2019

Copyright 2019 by G.E. Nordell, all rights reserved