FIPID: December 2012

Fun Interesting Pertinent Information Dissemination

Top Picks
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HSBC to Pay $1.92 Billion to Settle Charges of Money Laundering (And no one is going to jail?! Too big to fail. Too big to go to jail.)

Instead, HSBC announced on Tuesday that it had agreed to a record $1.92 billion settlement with authorities. The bank, which is based in Britain, faces accusations that it transferred billions of dollars for nations like Iran and enabled Mexican drug cartels to move money illegally through its American subsidiaries.

The Huge (And Rarely Discussed) Health Insurance Tax Break (Great story. Please take the time to read or listen.)
Believe it or not, dollar for dollar, the most tax revenue the federal government forgoes every year is from not taxing the value of health insurance that employers provide their workers.

Corporate profits hit record as wages get squeezed
In the third quarter, corporate earnings were $1.75 trillion, up 18.6% from a year ago, according to last week's gross domestic product report. That took after-tax profits to their greatest percentage of GDP in history.
But the record profits come at the same time that workers' wages have fallen to their lowest-ever share of GDP.

How to get targeted ads on your TV? Try a camera in your set-top box.
Verizon has filed a patent for a DVR that can watch and listen to the goings-on in your living room. In the application, the company proposes to use the technology to serve targeted ads appropriate to whatever you’re doing in the, uh, privacy of your own home—fighting, cuddling, or hanging out with your cats.

High-Speed Traders Profit at Expense of Ordinary Investors, a Study Says

Wal-Mart Nixed Paying Bangladesh Suppliers to Fight Fire

A lake with hundreds of ancient skeletons surrounding it. The surprise is what killed them…

Politics and Business
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Raph Nader on a simple way to avoid the fiscal cliff: tax stock trades
A financial transaction tax would apply to purchases and sales of derivatives, options and stocks. The tax would be small, half a penny or less on each dollar of the transaction value, depending on the product. This idea is often called a "speculation tax," because it would hit hardest at frothy high-volume trading as opposed to sober long-term investment.

Should the US Reform the Student Loan System
Here’s how it works. Once you graduate from college in Australia and get a job, you begin repaying your student loan via paycheck withholding, exactly the same way you pay your income taxes.
The repayment scheme is highly progressive: if you make less than about $45,000, you owe nothing on your student loans. Make between $45,000 and $50,000 and you’ll pay 4% of your income. Make over $91,000 and you’ll pay 8%.
The repayment amount is tied to your income, not the amount of your loans. You can pay extra on your loans at any time, and you receive a bonus for doing so.

Noam Chomsky: What the American Media Won't Tell You About Israel

2011 International Aid Donated (USA ranked 19th)
Almost all of the deaths from hunger and disease that you see on this site can be stopped. The cost to do this is about $195 billion a year, according to the United Nations. Twenty-two developed countries below have pledged to work towards each giving 0.7% (a little less than 1%) of their national income in international aid, which would raise the $195 billion. Some countries are slow to meet their pledge.

Crime On The Farm: Hay Thefts Soar As Drought Deepens

FedEx Overcharged Customers for Years, Sealed E-Mail Says

How raising low wages ripples through the economy

Bob Schieffer: If Sandy Hook Shooter Had Arab Name, ‘People Would Be Going Nuts’

Australia’s 1996 gun law reforms
Faster falls in firearmdeaths, firearm suicides, and a decade without massshootings

Science and Technology
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Scientists claim that homosexuality is not genetic — but it arises in the womb

Honey Chrome Add-In
Honey automatically finds the best coupon codes and gives you the best savings.

Professor Walter Tschinkel makes a Molten cast of an Ant Colony.

Fun, Interesting, Disturbing and Offbeat
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British Boy Scouts consider atheist oath

VIDEO: Ohio sinkhole, size of 4 football fields, swallows highway

How Jets' Cromartie fathered nine kids with eight women over six states

Scientists warn of sperm count crisis

'Men don't have to worry about being caught': Sex mobs target Egypt's women

What is a merkin?
In the 1610s, 'counterfeit hair for a woman's privy parts'.

Videos
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The Disappearing Pig - Tah dah! Bacon!

Piggy gets a warm bath

Cotton candy flowers

His chest rises up with the beat of his heart because he is missing part of his ribcage. (Profanity)

Taking video games to the next level.

Breaking the Taboo

Narrated by Oscar winning actor Morgan Freeman.
Featuring interviews with several current or former presidents from around the world, such as Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, the film follows The Global Commission on Drug Policy on a mission to break the political taboo over the United States led War on Drugs and expose what it calls the biggest failure of global policy in the last 40 years.

What's a Food Industry to Do?

"I'd been asked by the food industry to give this talk at an industry breakfast, but 3 days prior to the event they got cold feet and dis-invited me. The good news is, the internet's a much larger audience than a room full of food industry folks who likely wouldn't have cared much about what I had to say in the first place. So here's my take on what the food industry can do, why they're not going to do it, and what we can do about it."