Please forward to as many people as you can.
Spoiler Alert: The government does not care about you.
This isn’t a Democrat or Republican problem. This is good old fashion thievery.
Category: News and Views
Report: U.S. Green Building Market Will Balloon to $173.5 Billion by 2015 | Fast Company
Think the trend of businesses making green office renovations is just a passing fad? Not according to the latest issue of EL Insights, which reports that the U.S. green building market value will balloon from $71.1 billion now to $173 billion by 2015. Commercial green building is expected to grow by 18.1% annually during the same time period from $35.6 billion to $81.8 billion. In this case, green building is defined as building with resource use and employee productivity in mind.
Thiel’s Deals: The Best of What’s Around*…and Other Stuff | Paul Thiel
A newsletter of deal flow and human capital opportunities in the California counties of Orange, San Diego, Riverside and San Bernardino.
How Goldman gambled on starvation | Johann Hari – The Independent
Goldman Sachs must die:
At the end of 2006, food prices across the world started to rise, suddenly and stratospherically. Within a year, the price of wheat had shot up by 80 per cent, maize by 90 per cent, rice by 320 per cent. In a global jolt of hunger, 200 million people – mostly children – couldn’t afford to get food any more, and sank into malnutrition or starvation. There were riots in more than 30 countries, and at least one government was violently overthrown. Then, in spring 2008, prices just as mysteriously fell back to their previous level. Jean Ziegler, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, calls it “a silent mass murder”, entirely due to “man-made actions.”
Hackers siphon $644,000 from EoD | usfst.com
…hackers managed to embezzle well over half a million dollars from the New York Department of Education bank account…
Entrepreneurs Make Use of Odd Spaces | WSJ.com
Business owners often find unique ways to repurpose buildings: They’ve transformed jails into hotels, roller rinks into retail shops and churches into restaurants. Many credit their establishments’ incongruent past in part for their success.
Bright idea cuts ATM fraud | NZ Herald News
Banks Financing Mexico Gangs Admitted in Wells Fargo Deal | Bloomberg
Twenty million people in the U.S. regularly use illegal drugs, spurring street crime and wrecking families. Narcotics cost the U.S. economy $215 billion a year — enough to cover health care for 30.9 million Americans — in overburdened courts, prisons and hospitals and lost productivity, the department says.
“It’s the banks laundering money for the cartels that finances the tragedy,” says Martin Woods, director of Wachovia’s anti-money-laundering unit in London from 2006 to 2009. Woods says he quit the bank in disgust after executives ignored his documentation that drug dealers were funneling money through Wachovia’s branch network.
Congress fails to pass SBA Recovery Act – Old Rules Apply
On a vote of 57-41, the U.S. Senate defeated legislation that would have keep the increased guarantees and fee waivers in place for another year. While lending to small business has been difficult at best, the return to the old rules will mean even fewer deals get done, since the banks will have more risk.
For working capital (7a) loans less than $150,000, banks will receive an 85% guarantee and will charge a 2% fee on the guaranteed portion. From $150,001 to $700,000 the guarantee is 75% and the fee is 3%. Loans above that amount will be 75% guaranteed with a 3.5% fee.
For SBA Express loans, the cap is$350,000 with a 50% guarantee and a 2% fee.
Most banks will allow rolling these additional fees into the loan.
Linked In’s Reid Hoffman to Millennials – Welcome to the New Feudalism | Peter Mehit
On a recent Tuesday, it was not a good day to be a millennial. They learned that, unlike any previous generation, they are entering their work life with an average of $22,000 of student loan debt. They were told by the HR chief of Intel that their liberal arts degrees (far and away the majority for them) are not valuable enough to stop the outsourcing of jobs offshore. One of their own, a 23 year old running a South Bay non-profit, described her struggles with debt and the bewildering number of jobs she’s held in the brief interval since graduation. All of this coming before Reid Hoffman, one of the founders of Linked In, declared that ‘…careers are dead’ and that they should expect to be employed as freelancers their entire working lives.
At a conference hosted by the Atlantic monthly, the National Journal and Allstate Insurance entitled “Millennials in the Next Economy” at UCLA, we learned some interesting facts about this generation who are 92 million strong. They are the most diverse generation ever: 40% are minorities. 28% are college graduates, making them the best educated (in terms of degrees, at least) of any previous generation, with 42% currently in school. 26% are seeking employment. Politicians should note that 72% are registered to vote and 39% believe the country is headed in the wrong direction.
But the one statistic that I found most interesting is, despite the economic collapse and the situation they find themselves in, 60% believe that they are in control of their own destinies, that their decisions will primarily decide the outcome of their lives.
Continue reading “Linked In’s Reid Hoffman to Millennials – Welcome to the New Feudalism | Peter Mehit”
Dispatches From The Front 