Category Archives: Economy
Win Olympic Gold, Pay the IRS.
U.S. Olympic medal winners will owe up to $9,000 to the IRS.
We crunched the numbers and have gone through the fine print to find out what the US Olympians will have to cough up to the IRS should they be lucky enough to win any medals in London.
Even by the standards of the US government, the numbers are insane.
For instance: Americans who win bronze will pay a $2 tax on the medal itself. But the bronze comes with a modest prize—$10,000 as an honorarium for devoting your entire life to being the third best athlete on the planet in your chosen discipline. And the IRS will take $3,500 of that, thank you very much.
| Medal tax | Prie tax | Total tax Burden | |
| Gold |
$236 |
$8,750 |
$8,986 |
| Silver |
$135 |
$5,250 |
$5,385 |
| Bronze |
$2 |
$3,500 |
$3.50 |
There are also prizes that accompany each medal: $25,000 for gold, $15,000 for silver, and $10,000 for bronze.
Silver medalists will owe $5,385. You win a gold? Timothy Geithner will be standing there with his hand out for $8,986.
Controversy around Mexico’s presidential elections
Three days after Mexico’s citizens calmly voted for the future of their country, an air of controversy is still being felt, mainly initiated by leftist losing party’s candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. Most of the allegations are very similar of the ones he made in 2006 when he lost by the minimum margin to current president Felipe Calderon. Mexican citizens have grown tired of this kind of behavior and just want to move on. The country has bigger problems to attend than dealing with a man that will never be satisfied with the decision until he wins. Mexico is a country that’s been heavily crippled by a war against the cartels that has produced around 60,000 deaths in the current administration alone. This toll weighted big in the voters mind and it was reflected in the results. Read the rest of this entry
Eurozone Seals 2nd Greek Bailout Worth €130 Billion
Source: Reuters
Euro zone finance ministers approved on Tuesday a second bailout for debt-laden Greece that will resolve Athens’ immediate repayment needs but seems unlikely to revive the nation’s shattered economy.
After a marathon 12 hours of talks through the night, euro zone officials said ministers had agreed measures to cut Greece’s debt to around 121 percent of gross domestic product by 2020, close to their original target of 120, after negotiators for private bondholders offered to accept a bigger loss to help plug the funding gap.
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Google to adquire Motorola
Reuters is reporting that Google has practically been given the green light by the the Department of Justice for their $12.5 billion dollar adquisition of mobile behemoth Motorola. At least we now know that their August proposal is now a done deal and we can start speculating at the possibilites for the internet/mobile giant. One of the benefits of this buy is that Google is now owner of more than 17k patents. It is said that for the protection of their powerful Android OS it only needs 18 of them. Nice move!
The 10 most valuable brands in the world
The 10 most valuable brands in the world were released today by the Bloomberg. No 1 comes as no surprise as Coca Cola is easily the best known brand in the world. We can see more computer related brands poping here and there with the rise of Apple and Google as major accomplishments. Here is the list Read the rest of this entry
Podcast: Keynes Vs. Hayek
Listen to Podcast: http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=141802704&m=141813252
Today’s show discusses the story of a steel-cage match between two economists. The fight has been going on for most of a century now, and it’s never been more relevant: Keynes versus Hayek.
It’s a Deep Read interview with Nicholas Wapshott, the author of the new book Keynes Hayek: The Clash That Defined Modern Economics.
Podcast: Kill The Euro, Win $400,000
Listen Here: http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=142147427&m=142148170
Planet Money talk sto a guy named Lord Wolfson of Aspley Guise. He’s a British CEO, and he’s offering a $400,000 prize to the person who comes up with the best plan for countries to leave the euro.
Also: The story of another European currency union that fell apart a century ago, and the lessons it holds for the euro.
Let me know what you, post your comments.
China’s slowdown is the world’s next nightmare
China, like Britain, is looking more hangdog than bulldog. The manufacturing monster of the east is expected to suffer a rapid slowdown following the collapse in demand across the eurozone, according to several analysts. Without a strong and growing European market, they say, China’s export driven industrial and commercial sector must see its current 9% growth rate lose momentum.
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Too big to Fail?
In his latest New York Times Magazine column, Adam Davidson writes, “Failure is as important to healthy capitalism as success. The nation’s handful of huge banks, however, are spared the indignity of failure.”
To continue the discussion, we asked two economists on different sides of the debate — Phillip Swagel of University of Maryland and the American Enterprise Institute and Simon Johnson of MIT — to answer the following question:
Do the “big four” U.S. banks stifle competition and innovation?
Can Eurozone Countries Actually Follow Their Own Rules This Time?
Listen to Podcast: Eurozone Podcast
Planet Money: When the euro was set up in the late 1990s, the Stability and Growth Pact clearly spelled out the criteria for membership: Countries could not have huge debts, and they needed to keep deficits small. And there was no question — the rules explicitly excluded a little country named Greece.
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