Is there any wonder why metal detectors are so popular in the UK? This list of six found treasures are all from the British Isles. Shown here is the treasure called the Hoxne Hoard, uncovered in Suffolk and valued at £1,750,000! Peter Whatling and Eric Lawes found it while searching for a lost tool in 1992. Link -Thanks, Danny!

(Image credit: Mike Peel)

Activists say that unmarried people are systematically discriminated against. They pay more for health and car insurance than married people do. They don’t get the same kind of tax breaks. Co-op boards, mortgage brokers, and landlords often pass them over. So do the employers with the power to promote them. “Single-ism—stereotyping, stigmatizing, and discrimination against people who are single—is largely unrecognized and unchallenged,” says activist Bella DePaulo, the author of Singled Out.

There are justifications for every one of these, but that doesn’t mean much to individuals who don’t like being lumped into a group. But the differences swing both ways, depending on a person’s circumstances. I personally know people who choose to cohabit instead of marrying because of economic reasons. Low income people can lose Medicaid and other benefits if they marry, and elderly widows can lose pensions by remarrying. And we’ve all heard stories of married women being passed over for promotions because they might get pregnant. So is there really any way to achieve equity between those who are married and those who aren’t? Link

(Image credit: Flickr user Alan Cleaver)

(YouTube Link)

You may not know the name News Media Animation, but I’m sure the video they’ve created to discuss Nintendo’s 2011 economic fiasco will look familiar to you, as their wacky animated shorts have been showcased on TV shows and the interwebs many times before, mostly because their videos have some serious WTF factor going on in them.

Product of Taiwanese news animators with less than reliable sources of information, and a surreal sense of humor, the slapstick cartoon strangeness in these “news” vids never fail to crack me up.

–via Kotaku

When Larry Met Sergey is the highly condensed story of Larry Page and Sergey Brin and the company they named Google. Scroll down for each chapter (slowly, because the graphics are in layers) and watch the men’s hairstyles and clothing change over the years. Link -via the Presurfer  

Dan had $125 in small bills. He said little brother Jack could keep whatever he caught when Dan threw it in the air. Jack caught $57! He was so happy, his “victory dance” was also uploaded to YouTube. Dan says he should have thought this through a little more. -via reddit

Bruce Wayne is incredibly focused on wearing the perfect suit for the occasion (he’s ordered more than 20,000 hats according to the movies), and while your work-wear won’t be stab-proof or taser-resistant, it also has the advantage of not needing to be stab-proof or taser-resistant. One of many advantages of a business degree is the idea of getting a job where you don’t need to offer fries with that, help people carry things, or outwit a demented madman determined to poison the city’s water supply.

Read the rest and put it to good use. Link

He had all but forgotten about the account until he received a letter from TCF on Oct. 12 saying six days earlier, it had charged him a $9.95 “monthly maintenance fee” because his account had too little money in it.

The $9.95 charge made his account overdrawn by $5.10, which triggered another fee. At TCF, any account overdrawn by more than $5 is charged a $28-a-day overdraft fee. The net result: Ganziano was $33.10 in the hole.

By then, his nascent savings account was in a downward spiral. At $28 a day, the charges were adding up quickly.

When he and his mother went to the nearest branch that weekend to close the account, they were told they would first have to pay the accumulated fees, which totaled $229.10.

Ganziano’s mother tried to get the fees waived, with no luck. So she paid it and asked for a bank supervisor to contact her. A few weeks later, with no call from a supervisor, she told the story to a consumer columnist at the Chicago Tribune. That same day, the bank agreed to refund all the fees. Daniel Ganziano said he learned something from the experience: don’t trust banks. Link -via Boing Boing

(Image credit: Flickr user Alan Cleaver)

Randall Munroe at xkcd put together a chart about money, so massive that you’ll have to enlarge a few times just to read it. The statistics cover what things cost, what people earn, business profits, taxes, government spending, utilities, war, and more. The amounts of money for each are laid out in blocks for comparison. That’s a lot of blocks. What is shown here, as compressed as it is, is just a portion. Link -via Boing Boing

The Bank of Canada will begin issuing new, plastic, $100 bills.

In a statement, the Bank of Canada said that the new notes will last twice as long as paper money and will also be recycled, which makes them generally greener… There are also two transparent windows on the note — one small one depicts a frosted maple leaf, the other extends the height of the bill, and has a copy of the portrait toward the top of the window, and an image of a building at the bottom. If you move the bill the colors of the building will change a lot, while the color changes on the portrait are more subtle.

The video highlights the relevant features , which were all created in an attempt to make the bills impossible to counterfeit.  The degree to which they will be foldable, stackable, washable etc. remains to be determined.

Link.

Paying with plastic? That doesn't mean putting the bill on a credit card anymore. You see, with the new Canadian polymer bills, paying with cash IS paying with plastic.

The Globe and Mail reports what a focus group said about Canada's new $100 bill. I'm tickled with the bit about Prime Minister Sir Robert Borden's mustache:

7. Some respondents felt that Mr. Borden's moustache was poorly groomed. Some of the former prime minister's whiskers fall well below his upper lip in the Bank of Canada's final version of the $100 polymer bill.

8. One focus group in Vancouver thought the double-helix DNA strand on the new $100 bill looked like sex beads, while others saw the Big Dipper.

9. Some groups compared the bills to "Monopoly money," noting the polymer they're made out of felt less real than paper money.

Canada is not the first, actually - polymer notes have been around since the 1990s (Australia was the first country)

Link

The results have been equally massive: 3.4 million lives saved from hepatitis B, which causes liver cancer, 1.2 million lives from measles, 560,000 from the Hib bacteria, 474,000 from whooping cough, 140,000 from yellow fever and 30,000 from polio. In the past year the new initiatives have prevented another 8,000 deaths from pneumonia and 1,000 from diarrhea.

“I’ve met mothers who walked eight hours to get their child a vaccine and hoped that it’s there on that day,” Melinda says. On a trip in January to a rural clinic in Kenya she saw four children with pneumonia sharing a single oxygen tube. “They were just sucking breath,” she recalls. But across the clinic the Gates Foundation work showcased a different future: Children lined up to get the new vaccine that would dramatically reduce the risk they would ever get pneumonia.

Read about how they did it at Forbes. Link -via Not Exactly Rocket Science

In this little-known but fast-growing corner of the auto market, dealers command premium prices for road-worn vehicles and finance the sales at interest rates that can top 30%.

In a kind of financial alchemy, they have found a way to turn clunkers into cash cows and make money off the least creditworthy customers: the millions of Americans who are stuck in low-paying jobs, saddled with debt and unable to qualify for conventional auto loans.

For most of those people, having a car is the only way to stay employed, and they’ll accept almost any terms to get one.

Buy Here Pay Here lots sold nearly 2.4 million cars nationwide last year, up from 1.3 million a decade ago, according to CNW Marketing Research.

The mechanics of the business are laid out in the first part, and there is a link to today’s followup, with the conclusion to be posted on Thursday. Link -via Metafilter

(Image credit: Lorena Iñiguez Elebee)

Though financial institutions are not yet turning away customers at the door, they are trying to discourage some depositors from parking that cash with them. With fewer attractive lending and investment options for that money, it is harder for the banks to turn it around for a healthy profit.

In August, Bank of New York Mellon warned that it would impose a 0.13 percentage point fee on the deposits of certain clients who were moving huge piles of cash in and out of their accounts.

Others are finding more subtle ways to stem the flow. Besides paying next to nothing on consumer checking accounts and certificates of deposit, some giants — like JPMorgan Chase, U.S. Bancorp and Wells Fargo — are passing along part of the cost of federal deposit insurance to some of their small-business customers.

Even some community banks, vaunted for their little-guy orientation, no longer seem to mind if you take your money somewhere else.

“We just don’t need it anymore,” said Don Sturm, the owner of American National Bank and Premier Bank, community lenders with 43 branches in Colorado and three other states. “If you had more money than you knew what to do with, would you want more?”

Well, Neatoramanauts? What say you? Does charging money to hold your money seem counter-intuitive, or is this a good tactic for discouraging large-sum depositors from parking away their millions in a vault?

Link

Ten years ago, America suffered the worst terrorist attack in the nation’s history. For most people, the memories inspire both pain and patriotism, but for some, they inspire thoughts of cold hard cash. Cracked has a collection of the most shameless attempts to cash in on the day of suffering, from video games to wine to cartoons, the money-making schemes are so tasteless they are simply depressing.

Link

I’ve always wondered though if an insured celebrity gets fat, does that enable them to collect insurance money?

Link

With a gross metropolitan product (GMP) of $737.9 billion, the LA metro’s economy is bigger than Turkey’s ($732.2) and slightly smaller than the Netherlands’ ($782.3) — the equivalent of the 18th largest nation in the world.

If your city isn’t listed, where do you think it might fit in?

Link

Link Via Consumerist Image Via doncav [Flickr]

Don’t think for a second that Google’s business is limited to internet services. Indeed, they have their hands in a variety of industries, most recently, they’ve been testing out the beer-making business. That’s right, Google has paired with Dogfish Head beer to make their own Belgian Dubbel beer called Urkontinent.

The final brew included some impressive ingredients sourced around the world: Wattleseed from Australia, toasted amaranth from South America, green rooibos from Africa, myrica gale from Europe, and Hive Plex Honey from Google’s own California beehives. Taken all together, the beer is described by Dogfish as being hearty, with notes of coffee and chocolate covered cherries. Also, it packs more than double the average alcohol content of average beer.

To be fair, Google’s not making any money from the venture, they just want to see how the process works and to use the beer’s creation as a marketing tool. If you saw some Google beer, would you try it?

Link Via Geekosystem

After all, these items are certainly out there as this great article on Mental Floss points out.

Link

Can you teach a monkey the basics of market economy?

In this article over at our pal mental_floss, Allen St. John wrote about an intriguing research by Laurie Santos and Keith Chen of Yale University to see if they can teach monkeys to spend money:

A video of one of these early experiments shows that when Felix, the group’s alpha male, entered, he received a “wallet” with 12 of those round aluminum tokens. Two student researchers, one wearing a pink T-shirt, the other blue, stood on either side of that 3-foot cubic enclosure, each holding a different tray of food. The premise at this stage was pretty basic: Felix could swap his tokens for food with either of the two researchers. He didn’t seem to care much about the students. But he did care profoundly about what the researchers would sell him in exchange for that little metal token.

Felix and the others were cautious, observant shoppers. As the video shows, Felix would head first to the researcher holding out pieces of orange, examining them carefully; before leaving, he stopped to smell them. He went to the other researcher and did exactly the same thing—looking, sniffing, shopping. He then headed back to the first researcher and handed over a token to complete the transaction. Oranges, please.

“When you watch it, it looks like they’re contemplating, thinking about what they’re going to buy,” says Santos. What separates these capuchins from the scores of animals who have been trained to perform complex behaviors in exchange for food is the option presented by that second researcher.

“The critical aspect of money is that it’s fungible. It represents a choice,” explains Chen. “A coin is fundamentally different than, say, pressing a lever.” Santos and Chen had not only achieved their preliminary goal, they had made history: The monkeys were using cash. The capuchins were now operating in a sphere where humans had been dwelling alone.

Link

We all hope to be rich one day, but Americans - who are very optimistic people - *expect* to be rich. Heck, according to a new poll, 1 out of 5 Americans expect to be millionaires in just a few years:

Even with a turbulent economy, 20% of Americans expect to become millionaires in the next decade.

But the majority –- 62% -- still believe it’s “very unlikely” that they’ll reach the threshold by 2020, according to a new poll from the Associated Press and CNBC. Just 8% of U.K. residents believe they’re on the millionaire track.

And last year, only 5% of Americans reached the million-dollar mark -– which two in ten believe is the minimum amount of money for a comfortable retirement.

Link

Canada’s Royal Mint has introduced a line of quarter dollar coins with native cryptids on them. One one side, you can find Queen Elizabeth II. On the other, you’ll see variously Memphré, which is a reptilian monster that inhabits a lake in Quebec, Mishepishu, which is a water panther of Lake Superior, or the more internationally famous Sasquatch.

Link -via Geekosystem

Kiva, the microfinance organization that lets people loan money through the Internet to small businesses and individuals from around the world, started with 7 loans back in 2005. Since then, they've funded over 309,000 loans totaling over $233 million.

This nifty Vimeo clip visualizes the streams of lending and loan repayment that looks very much like exchanges of intercontinental ballistic missiles. Hit play or go to Link [Vimeo] - via Floating Sheep

And that’s just one of the dirty little movie-making secrets the industry doesn’t want you to know about. Find out more over at Film School Rejects.

Link

Plenty of people are irritated with the banking system right now, but you know people are angry when people are willing to pay $25,000 for a painting of a Chase bank burning up:

Tapping into popular sentiment, Alex Schaefer’s painting of a Chase bank on fire just sold on eBay for $25,200. Part of what drove up the price was online buzz after police questioned him while he was painting it, asking him if he planned to do what the painting depicted.

While I wouldn’t pay that much for one of these paintings, I certainly support the sentiment Mr. Schaefer is expressing.

Link Via Consumerist

Twenty years ago, Brazil found itself in the grips of hyperinflation. Its inflation rate hit 80% a month, and the country was in financial free fall.

Economists at the Catholic University in Rio came up with an unlikely - but ultimately successful - plan to rescue the country. And would you believe it, the plan calls for fake money:

The four friends set about explaining their idea. You have to slow down the creation of money, they explained. But, just as important, you have to stabilize people's faith in money itself. People have to be tricked into thinking money will hold its value.

The four economists wanted to create a new currency that was stable, dependable and trustworthy. The only catch: This currency would not be real. No coins, no bills. It was fake.

"We called it a Unit of Real Value — URV," Bacha says. "It was virtual; it didn't exist in fact."

If you thought that diamonds are rare or that halitosis is a real disease, then congratulations, you’ve bought in to some of the most manipulative business practices of the last hundred years. Cracked has even more on these practices and the companies that instituted them and the article is simply fascinating.

Link

We’ve all seen the occasional origami made from dollar bills, but those have nothing on these 32 amazing artworks made from currencies around the world. Personally, I like the carved sculptures like the one in the top center of the photo montage above.

Link

In the spring of 1979, Congress was in the midst of a similarly heated debate about raising the debt ceiling, Legislators eventually reached a last-minute deal to raise the debt ceiling and (they thought) save the day, but something went wrong. The Treasury didn’t redeem $120 million worth of securities that matured in April and May.

In other words, the U.S. Treasury defaulted on its securities even though Congress settled the debt-ceiling issue. What happened? It’s not totally clear.

Here’s the short answer: When all else fails, blame the computers. Read a more thorough explanation at mental_floss. Link

HARRY TRUMAN -THE BUCK STOPPED THERE

Prior to becoming president, Harry Truman’s ventures in private business earned him more trouble than profit. He lost several thousand dollars investing in a fruitless zinc mine, and even more money funding a short-lived haberdashery in Kansas City. Eventually he began to view politics as a more stable career than business. Even as a senator, Truman was forced to borrow money and live more modestly, as he sent much of his income home to support his farm in Missouri.

Upon leaving the White House in 1953, Truman refused to exploit his former office as a stepping stone into the business world. This left him with just a small plot of land off which to live. He hoped that his memoirs would bring in extra cash, but between paying the ghostwriters and the taxes, Truman netted just $37,000 from the book. His insolvency grew so pathetic that President Eisenhower passed the Former Presidents Act in 1958, which created a pension for Truman. The former president made use of every last bit of it, leading an active life until his death at the age of 88.

THOMAS JEFFERSON -LIFE, LIBERTY, AND THE PURSUIT OF  MONEYLENDERS

During the 1700s, tobacco rarely turned a consistent profit. So Thomas Jefferson, like many plantation owners of his time, lived in perpetual debt. Eager to look the part of a Virginia gentleman, Jefferson borrowed money for expensive clothes, furniture, and wine. He continued to indulge in this lifestyle through his presidency and into retirement. Jefferson’s beloved country estate of Monticello was especially draining on his finances. Its high ceilings and large windows led to excessive heating costs, and its flat roof and cavernous skylights leaked with every rainfall. by the time Jefferson was in his late seventies, the neglected bills had piled up and doubled with interest.

To lessen his financial woes, Jefferson started selling off the things he loved. He sold his entire collection of books to a Congressional library and even hatched a plot to give away a large parcel of land in a statewide lottery. When news of the lottery (and its purpose) reached his former colleagues, generous donations poured in. Despite these efforts, Jefferson died in debt. Two decades later, his grandson finally paid off the founding father’s tab.

ULYSSES S. GRANT -THE BOOK DEAL OF THE CENTURY

In 1881, former president Ulysses S. Grant settled into his retirement with what seemed like a prudent investment in his son’s Wall Street firm, Grant & Ward. But when the younger Grant’s partner, Ferdinand Ward, absconded to Canada with all the money, Grant found himself short $150,000.

Grant considered it a matter of personal honor to pay back the debt in full and rejected any financial assistance. He sold off much of his land, but it wasn’t enough to cover his losses. To generate more income, the former general wrote a series of articles about his Civil War exploits, which the ever-humble Grant doubted anyone would read. Surprisingly, the articles were a huge success, and Grant’s longtime friend Mark Twain convinced him to pen his personal memoirs. Completed just before his death in 1885, Grant’s autobiography became one of the best-selling books of its time -earning more than half a million dollars.

_______________________

The article above, written by Brian McMahon, is reprinted with permission from the Scatterbrained section of the May-June 2011 issue of mental_floss magazine. Get a subscription to mental_floss and never miss an issue!

Be sure to visit mental_floss‘ website and blog for more fun stuff!

“We were not aware of how the lemonade was made, who made the lemonade, of what the lemonade was made with, so we acted accordingly by city ordinance.”

Who knew lemonade could be so dangerous to the public health?

Link Via Consumerist Image Via ChocoladeHam [Flickr]

National Photo Company Collection glass negative

This rudimentary machine, circa 1918, is the grandparent of today’s ATMs. These machines, made by “Bankers Automatic Receiving Teller Co.”, resembled bank buildings and were in use until the 1930s. Some were placed in schools to teach children the value of saving. They accepted both coins and paper money and recorded transactions in the customer’s pass book.

Link

The Onion always has some great satire, but this radio piece on the banks trying to charge $.75 every time a customer says the word “bank.” I’m glad I use a credit union or else this article would cost me.

Link Via Consumerist

Frugality is an important lesson to learn, but there is certainly a point where it becomes ridiculous. Over at Consumerist, there is a great roundup of the 16 most over-the-top tales of frugal fathers. To be fair, some aren’t nearly as bad as others, but when your dad is the type to have “hooked up the tv to an exercise bike so that we kids had to peddle to watch our cartoons. TV lost its charm quickly and we went outside to play,” you know your pop may have crossed the line -of course, that is a great way to get your kids to exercise.

Link Image Via Gliko [Flickr]

In 2005, Congress decided that a new series of dollar coins should be minted to engage the public. These coins would bear the likeness of every former president, starting with George Washington. There would be a new one every quarter. So, far, the Mint has produced coins through the 18th president, Ulysses S. Grant.

Members of Congress reasoned that a coin series that changed frequently and had educational appeal would make dollar coins more popular. The idea came from the successful program that put each of the 50 states on the backs of quarters.

The reserve also has plenty of Susan B Anthony and Sacagawea dollar coins. If the public does not want to use dollar coins, why are they being made? The answer is a bit complicated, and is explained in this article at NPR. Link -via Breakfast Links

The Dutch Royal Mint in Utrecht is celebrating its 100th anniversary by releasing silver 5€ and gold 10€ coins. It has been reported that they include functional QR codes and are legal tender in the Eurozone.

Link -via CrunchGear | Image: The Rich Times

Typically a stolid brick-and-mortar institution, these new architectural designs (some built, some in progress) are taking banking to a new level of cool. From Tokyo to Oslo (my favorite), these banks incorporate open planning, natural light, cool angles and plenty of interest. (See what I did there?) The full gallery of the 13 coolest modern bank designs is on WebUrbanist. Link

Image: dezeen

Sheriff’s deputies, movers, and the Nyergers’ attorney went to the bank and foreclosed on it. The attorney gave instructions to to remove desks, computers, copiers, filing cabinets and any cash in the teller’s drawers.

After about an hour of being locked out of the bank, the bank manager handed the attorney a check for the legal fees.

Link via The Volokh Conspiracy | Photo (unrelated) via Flickr user taberandrew used under Creative Commons license

As clothes have become cheaper, our clothing consumption has gone through the roof. In 1930, the average American woman owned an average of nine outfits. Today, we each buy more than 60 pieces of new clothing on average per year. Our closets are larger and more stuffed than ever, as we’ve traded quality and style for low prices and trend-chasing. In the face of these irresistible deals, our total spending on clothing has actually increased, from $7.82 billion spent on apparel in 1950 to $375 billion today. And the discounters are reaping the rewards.

Sixty pieces of new clothing a year? Really? Even my growing children don’t buy that much! Link -via Boing Boing

Watch on YouTube

This is a neat idea: parking meters repurposed to collect change for the homeless. The program is now running in Orlando, FL, as well.

Donors drop coins into the meters, which are used only to collect contributions, not to regulate parking. City workers collect the change, which is given to the Central Florida Commission for Homelessness, a nonprofit group partly funded by the city.

The money will go to the commission’s Ten2End initiative, which aims to end homelessness in Central Florida within the decade by helping people become self-sufficient.

Link

When German artist Hans-Peter Feldmann won $100,000 from the Biennial Hugo Boss Prize, which awards achievement in contemporary art, he decided to give back in this peculiarly fascinating art:

Feldmann decided to give back to the museum in a unique way. He used the money to create an installation that involved tacking one-hundred thousand dollar bills to the large gallery off the Frank Lloyd Wright ramp!

“I’m 70 years old, and I began making art in the ’50s,” Mr. Feldmann shares. “At that time there was no money in the art world. Money and art didn’t exist. So for me, $100,000 is very special. It’s incredible really. And I would like to show the quantity of it.”

It took about thirteen days to complete the installation with out-of-circulation bills.

More at My Modern Met: Link

A 100-trillion-dollar bill, it turns out, is worth about $5.

That’s the going rate for Zimbabwe’s highest denomination note, the biggest ever produced for legal tender—and a national symbol of monetary policy run amok. At one point in 2009, a hundred-trillion-dollar bill couldn’t buy a bus ticket in the capital of Harare.

But since then the value of the Zimbabwe dollar has soared. Not in Zimbabwe, where the currency has been abandoned, but on eBay.

The notes are a hot commodity among currency collectors and novelty buyers, fetching 15 times what they were officially worth in circulation. [...]

Frank Templeton, a retired Wall Street equities trader, bought "quintillions of Zimbabwe dollars" through a broker from Zimbabwe’s central bank. On eBay, he now does a brisk trade in the bills from his home in the Hamptons, on New York’s Long Island. "I like to say Warren Buffett made a lot of people millionaires, but I’ve made more people trillionaires," Mr. Templeton says. The dealer paid between $1 and $2 for each of the bills in several purchases over about a year, and now sells them for around $5-$6 apiece.

Patrick McGroarty and Farai Mutsaka wrote The Wall Street Journal article: Link

Many describe it as a savvy business decision (even if it ruined their credit), but is it a moral shortcoming?

Despite the fact that he and his wife are employed and have an annual household income near $150,000, he’s comfortable with his decision.

"I did a lot of soul-searching about whether it was morally the right thing to do," he said. "I felt there was no moral obligation to make a payment. The contract says it’s a financial obligation, not a moral obligation.

"I was in a boat with a slow leak. It was manageable, but I know I was slowly sinking."

The decision to walk, tied to a housing crisis that continues to grip the market, is far-reaching, raising serious questions about whether financial commitments can ever be considered optional.

Mary Ellen Podmolik of the Chicago Tribune has the story: Link (Photo: Michael Tercha/Chicago Tribune)

Depending on where you are in the world, negotiation is either a part of everyday life or an uncomfortable practice that’s consciously avoided whenever possible.

But here’s a truth that many of us, especially those of us living in the Western World, don’t always consider: whether or not you realize it, every interaction you have with another person is a negotiation. From picking a romantic date with your wife to finding an agreeable price for some tchotchke gift with the local thingamajig salesman, we’re navigating a world of back and forth deal-making.

If you accept and embrace that, you can become much better at it, getting what you want from your life and feeling more fulfilled. If you reject it, your other choice is to take what’s given you and hope that it matches what you want. I learned from Dad long ago that the first option comes with better odds.

The article contains lots of advice and tips. As long as you are nice about it, you have nothing to lose by asking for a better deal. Link -via Gorilla Mask

Now that it’s 21 years since the death of the last grandchild, the fortune is finally being turned over to Cameron and 11 others, including three great-grandchildren, seven great-great grandchildren and another great-great-great grandchild. The fortune is valued at more than $100 million. (She’ll get a little more than $2.6 million, since those further up the family tree get more under a master agreement).

Link | Photo: Saginaw News/AP

And in an example that no good deed goes unpunished, he now owes money for working for no money:

While working on the memoir earlier this year, he received a letter from the state comptroller. It was not a thank you note for serving, much less without pay. It was a bill.

“The value of your personal use of a state provided vehicle and chauffeur services and taxable meals when traveling are fringe benefits reported as income on your Form W-2,” the letter began.

Those $9,455 in fringes were subject to $723.31 in Social Security and Medicare taxes, which the state paid on his behalf and was now seeking to collect …

What did Ravitch do?

“I paid it,” Mr. Ravitch said Monday, adding philosophically: “There was a certain asymmetrical irony about it, but I hope it helps the budget gap.”

Sam Roberts of The New York Times’ City Room blog explains: Link

Link

As it turns out, quite a lot. A non-scientific study of Commerce Department data suggests that in February, U.S. consumers spent an annualized $1.2 trillion on non-essential stuff including pleasure boats, jewelry, booze, gambling and candy. That’s 11.2% of total consumer spending, up from 9.3% a decade earlier and only 4% in 1959, adjusted for inflation. In February, spending on non-essential stuff was up an inflation-adjusted 3.3% from a year earlier, compared to 2.4% for essential stuff such as food, housing and medicine.

Minnesotastan wonders how we define essentials and non-essentials. There are a lot of items that can be defined either way. Braces for teeth? Books? College tuition? Lawnmowers? Where do you draw the line? Link

The Making of a Fly

The behavior of profnath is easy to deconstruct. They presumably have a new copy of the book, and want to make sure theirs is the lowest priced – but only by a tiny bit ($9.98 compared to $10.00). Why though would bordeebook want to make sure theirs is always more expensive? Since the prices of all the sellers are posted, this would seem to guarantee they would get no sales. But maybe this isn’t right – they have a huge volume of positive feedback – far more than most others. And some buyers might choose to pay a few extra dollars for the level of confidence in the transaction this might impart. Nonetheless this seems like a fairly risky thing to rely on – most people probably don’t behave that way – and meanwhile you’ve got a book sitting on the shelf collecting dust. Unless, of course, you don’t actually have the book….

My preferred explanation for bordeebook’s pricing is that they do not actually possess the book. Rather, they noticed that someone else listed a copy for sale, and so they put it up as well – relying on their better feedback record to attract buyers. But, of course, if someone actually orders the book, they have to get it – so they have to set their price significantly higher – say 1.27059 times higher – than the price they’d have to pay to get the book elsewhere.

The price went as high as $23,698,655.93 (plus $3.99 shipping) on April 18th when someone apparently noticed, and manually adjusted the price. Read the whole story at Eisen’s blog. Link -via reddit

IKEA is the world’s largest furniture store. In fact, the company is so big, it is estimated that around 10% of all Europeans alive today were conceived on an IKEA bed. Despite its success though, the company still has quite a few dark secrets, as well as a number of interesting trivia bits. Whether you love the flat-pack manufacturer or hate it, these 10 facts about the company are certain to spark your interest in the things that happen behind the scenes of IKEA.

Image via Calvin Teo [Wikipedia]

1. The Store Was Created By A Nazi Sympathizer. Founder Ingvar Kamprad founded IKEA in 1943. He was only seventeen at the time. At the same time, he was also directly involved with fund-raising and recruitment for the New Swedish Movement, a pro-fascist, anti-Semitist group that emphasized Swedish Nationalism. When the matter came out in 1994, Kamprad claimed it was the biggest mistake of his life. He apologized for his involvement with the group and wrote a letter to every Jewish employee on his staff to personally apologize for his actions. Even so, the issue caused a minor controversy when IKEA opened its first store in Israel. In the end, the country seemed to forgive him and IKEA is now one of only a handful of companies to have stores in both Israel and other Muslim Middle Eastern countries.



Image via yassan-yukky [Flickr]

2. It Is Technically A Charity. If Nazism wasn’t bad enough, IKEA is also has one of the most elaborate tax evasion schemes of any company that still manages to operate within the law. IKEA is owned by INGKA Holding B.V., a Dutch corporation that is controlled by a non-profit Dutch foundation known as the Stichting Ingka Foundation, which was founded by Kamprad in 1982. This Foundation is headed by a five-person committee that includes Kamprad, his wife, and his attorney. IKEA’s intellectual property is owned by Inter IKEA Systems, which is owned, indirectly, by the Inerogo Foundation, which is also controlled by Kamprad and his family. IKEA has to pay 3% of its profits to the foundation to license its own trademarks. Because IKEA is owned by charities, none of its profits are taxed, making the Ingka Foundation the largest charity in the world, with a net worth of $36 billion. Of course, the charity isn’t nearly as generous as most (being as how it’s mostly just a tax evasion strategy), so it only gave away $65 million in 2010. To put that in perspective, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has a net worth of $33 billion and they give away around $1.5 billion per year. The whole scheme is pretty complex, so if you want to read more about it, I recommend checking out this great Mental Floss article on the issue.
3. The Name Is Actually An Acronym. While most people assume IKEA is just a Swedish word or a nonsense word like Kodak, it is actually an acronym with close ties to Ingvar Kamprad’s heart. The letters stand for his initials, the initial for the farm he grew up in, Elmtaryd, and the town the farm was located in, Agunnaryd.



Image via DrJohnBullas [Flickr]

4. They Have A Very Specific Way Of Naming Products. Because Kamprad is dyslexic, he found it extremely difficult to manage an inventory that was made up of product codes, so he instead decided to name everything with words instead. I always thought that the products names were all Swedish words describing the objects, but as it turns out, that only applies to a handful of kitchen items. For the most part, all items are named according to a system developed by IKEA where each type of item carries a different name origin. For example, dining tables and chairs generally are named after places in Finland. Carpets are named after places in Denmark. For more examples, check out this article in The Guardian.
5. They Also Sell Houses. Ready to buy a new home? If you live in Scandinavia or the UK, don’t head to a real estate agent, head to IKEA and grab a flat-pack house for a fraction of the cost. The BoKlok houses were originally released in Sweden in 1996, and have since expanded to IKEA stores across Northern Europe.
6. Their Catalog Is More Popular Than The Bible. Ok, maybe that’s a little misleading, but every year, there are almost three times more copies of the catalog printed than the bible. They started printing the catalog in 1951 and it has since taken on a life of its own, consuming a full 70% of the companies marketing budget every year and developing a devoted fan base of people who analyze the images looking for obscure books in the bookshelves, Mickey Mouse references and cats hiding in the fake households. There are now 55 editions printed in 27 languages every year.
7. You Can Buy Their Merchandise For Your Virtual Family. If you’re running out of space in your home for all the great IKEA stuff you want, maybe you should consider shopping for your virtual home instead. Since 2008, players of The Sims 2 have had the chance to purchase the IKEA Home Stuff pack and deck out their character’s houses with the décor.



Image via thekellyscope [Flickr]

8. The Store Really Is A Big Deal. Most of you have probably become used to IKEA and no longer consider the store all that special, but for many people, the chance to shop in the Swedish furniture store is an exciting occasion –particularly when they are offering $150 gift certificates to the first people who shop there. This exact promotion actually lead to the trampling deaths of three people when the store opened in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia in 2004.
9. It Can Be A Great Way For Parents To Get A Break. Many stores offer free daycare centers with playgrounds and beepers that can be used to contact the parent if the child needs mommy or daddy before they finish shopping. Stressed out parents can then easily enjoy a nice meal, a nap in one of the bedroom displays or, you know, an actual shopping trip knowing their little ones are safe and secure within the same building.
10. They Were The First Company To Feature A Gay Relationship In a Commercial. While the commercial only ran once in 1994, it was still a big deal for such a major company to release an ad with a homosexual couple. Since then, the company had ran a number of ads targeting the gay community, including one of the first ads to feature a transgender person.

Do you like the company or hate it? More to the point, have you changed your opinion after learning about Kamprad’s dirty secrets or about their progressive ads targeted to homosexuals?

Sources: Wikipedia and Mental Floss