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Thursday, June 21, 2012

News Factoids for April to June 2012

"High oil prices now pose a greater risk to the world economy than even Europe's sovereign debt crisis."
— per Fatih Birol, chief economist at Intl. Energy Agency - in late March 2012

The Economic Policy Institute gathered data from a range of market researchers and found that the profit on Apple's iPhone was $319 per unit, against the sale price of $630 and labor costs in China of $15 per unit. (That cost in China includes payroll, overhead, and profit for Foxconn.)

British Petroleum announced in April that 2011 corporate profits were $25.7 billion – while payments and cleanup in the devastated Gulf have not proceeded according to B.P.'s promises.

In the first year since the B.P. Megaspill Disaster, the crab crop dropped 42% in Louisiana, 37% in Alabama, and 33% in Mississippi; the oyster harvest fell 55% in Louisiana, 34% in Mississippi, and 3% in Alabama; and the shrimp catch declined 52% in Mississippi, 48% in Alabama, and 14% in Louisiana.

The Google Chrome browser reached a market share of 32.8 percent in May, while the Microsoft Internet Explorer browser's share dropped to 31.9 percent; Mozilla's Firefox browser is third with just more than 25% of the market. — per StatCounter

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Co., the publisher of authors from Mark Twain to J.R.R. Tolkien, sought bankruptcy protection in May to eliminate more than $3 billion in debt.

Investors withdrew $85 billion from U.S. stock mutual funds last year and have pulled more money out than they put in for five years in a row – significant given how many Americans automatically put money in through 401(k) accounts.
— A.P. Business

INVENTIONS OF THE MONTH
artificial soybeans
Tofu Helper™
powdered water (for emergencies)

documentary videos countering Mitt Romney's repeated lies
G.S.T. Steel of Kansas City, Missouri [6:07]
Broken Promises: Romney's Massachusetts Record [4:18]

"A Massachusetts solar company to which Mitt Romney personally delivered a $1.5 million loan when he was governor has gone belly up, leaving him vulnerable to the same 'picking winners and losers' charges that he’s been lobbing at President Obama over Solyndra ... In January 2003, just less than three weeks into his term as governor, Romney handed a check to Konarka executives during a news conference ... One of the other winners announced that day – Evergreen Solar – has already undercut Romney’s Solyndra attacks by filing last year for bankruptcy protection."

A new Gallup poll finds that 46 percent of Americans believe in creationism: that Jehovah created humans in their present form less than 10,000 years ago. [Thus, 46 percent of Americans are irrational idiots – Ed.]

Copyright 2012 by G.E. Nordell, all rights reserved

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