Greener Pastures: Personal Finance

Personal Finance. Politics. Environment. Life.

Today is Thursday, July 03rd, 2008

Ten Little Known Money Facts For Around the Water Cooler

May 3rd, 2008 • Related • Filed Under

Here’s a few shockers on money. At first they surprised me, and then, after I thought about it, they didn’t surprise me at all!

“I know nut-ting! NUT-TING”

Alex Rodriguez of the New York Yankees makes more money than the entire Florida Marlins team. - San Diego Union, 4/2/08

Trash into Cash(ABC News, May, 2004)-

“Pornography has grown into a $10 billion business — bigger than the NFL, the NBA and Major League Baseball combined — and some of the nation’s best-known corporations are quietly sharing the profits.

Companies like Time Warner and Marriott earn revenue by piping adult movies into Americans’ homes and hotel rooms, but you won’t see anything about it in their company reports.”

USA Today, July, 2007 reported that former presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, was on the Marriott Advisory Board from 1993 to 2002, and that they contributed generously to his campaign.

CNN Money, April, 2008 -

USA Today reported this week that the median compensation for chief executives at the 50 largest companies in the United States was $15.7 million last year, even though some of the companies were not performing well.

Want to know what the CEO of your company makes? Check out the Executive PayWatch Database.

Want to know what the top 200 CEOs made versus how their company performed? Check out this recently published article at the New York Times: Executive Pay: The Bottom Line for Those at the Top.

Want to know Seven Stunning Facts About Microsoft’s Profits? The Var Guy tells all.

A few shorties:

5% of lottery ticket buyers buy 51% of all tickets sold.
A third of the world’s people live on less than $2 a day, with 1,2 billion people living on less than $1 a day.
During Fiscal Year 2007, it cost approximately 6.2 cents per note to produce 9.1 billion U.S. paper currency notes - The Bureau of Engraving and Printing.
According to Employee Benefits Research Institute, 96% of all people who have jobs right now won’t be eligible for their full Social Security benefits when they reach age 65.

Finally,

Want to send someone a million dollars? Go to The Ultimate Gift. Looks like the real thing. I’m going to get one and go buy a coffee at with it, so I can get the change.