Nuggets by category

A few of the 50 Economic Numbers From 2011 That Are Almost Too Crazy To Believe References available at original article.

1. 48 percent of all Americans are either considered to be "low income" or are living in poverty.

2. Approximately 57 percent of all children in the United States are living in homes that are either considered to be "low income" or impoverished.

7. Since December 2007, median household income in the United States has declined by a total of 6.8% once you account for inflation.

10. According to author Paul Osterman, about 20 percent of all U.S. adults are currently working jobs that pay poverty-level wages.

12. Back in 1969, 95 percent of all men between the ages of 25 and 54 had a job. In July, only 81.2 percent of men in that age group had a job.

13. One recent survey found that one out of every three Americans would not be able to make a mortgage or rent payment next month if they suddenly lost their current job.

21. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 18 percent of all homes in the state of Florida are sitting vacant. That figure is 63 percent larger than it was just ten years ago.

31. Today, one out of every six elderly Americans lives below the federal poverty line.

32. According to a study that was just released, CEO pay at America's biggest companies rose by 36.5% in just one recent 12 month period.

33. Today, the "too big to fail" banks are larger than ever. The total assets of the six largest U.S. banks increased by 39 percent between September 30, 2006 and September 30, 2011.

34. The six heirs of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton have a net worth that is roughly equal to the bottom 30 percent of all Americans combined.

37. A higher percentage of Americans is living in extreme poverty (6.7%) than has ever been measured before.

I had been through the Pentagon right after 9/11. About ten days after 9/11, I went through the Pentagon and I saw Secretary Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz. I went downstairs just to say hello to some of the people on the Joint Staff who used to work for me, and one of the generals called me in. He said, "Sir, you’ve got to come in and talk to me a second." I said, "Well, you’re too busy." He said, "No, no." He says, "We’ve made the decision we’re going to war with Iraq." This was on or about the 20th of September. I said, "We’re going to war with Iraq? Why?" He said, "I don’t know." He said, "I guess they don’t know what else to do." So I said, "Well, did they find some information connecting Saddam to al-Qaeda?" He said, "No, no." He says, "There’s nothing new that way. They just made the decision to go to war with Iraq." He said, "I guess it’s like we don’t know what to do about terrorists, but we’ve got a good military and we can take down governments." And he said, "I guess if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem has to look like a nail."

So I came back to see him a few weeks later, and by that time we were bombing in Afghanistan. I said, "Are we still going to war with Iraq?" And he said, "Oh, it’s worse than that." He reached over on his desk. He picked up a piece of paper. And he said, "I just got this down from upstairs" — meaning the Secretary of Defense’s office — "today." And he said, "This is a memo that describes how we’re going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran." I said, "Is it classified?" He said, "Yes, sir."

1. Bank profits are highest since before the recession…: According to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., bank profits in the first quarter of this year were “the best for the industry since the $36.8 billion earned in the second quarter of 2007.” JP Morgan Chase is currently pulling in record profits.

2. …even as the banks plan thousands of layoffs: Banks, including Bank of America, Barclays, Goldman Sachs, and Credit Suisse, are planning to lay off tens of thousands of workers.

3. Banks make nearly one-third of total corporate profits: The financial sector accounts for about 30 percent of total corporate profits, which is actually downfrom before the financial crisis, when they made closer to 40 percent.

4. Since 2008, the biggest banks have gotten bigger: ... the nation’s biggest banks — including Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, and Wells Fargo — are now bigger than they were pre-recession. Pre-crisis, the four biggest banks held 32 percent of total deposits; now they hold nearly 40 percent.

5. The four biggest banks issue 50 percent of mortgages and 66 percent of credit cards: Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Citigroup issue one out of every two mortgages and nearly two out of every three credit cards in America.

American militants like Anwar al-Awlaki are placed on a kill or capture list by a secretive panel of senior government officials, which then informs the president of its decisions, according to officials. There is no public record of the operations or decisions of the panel, which is a subset of the White House's National Security Council... Neither is there any law establishing its existence or setting out the rules by which it is supposed to operate.

The role of the president in ordering or ratifying a decision to target a citizen is fuzzy. White House spokesman Tommy Vietor declined to discuss anything about the process. [Officials] said targeting recommendations are drawn up by a committee of mid-level National Security Council and agency officials. Their recommendations are then sent to the panel of NSC "principals," meaning Cabinet secretaries and intelligence unit chiefs, for approval. The panel of principals could have different memberships when considering different operational issues, they said. One official said Obama would be notified of the principals’ decision. If he objected, the decision would be nullified.

According to the figures compiled by Defense Analysis editor Francis Tusa, the war has cost around £1.75 billion so far...

Based on publicly-released figures from the Royal Air Force (RAF) and numbers quoted during parliamentary questions, Tusa used two different methods to estimate the total costs of the war. His first calculation gave a total between £1.38 billion and £1.58 billion, and his second between £850 million and £1.75 billion.

The figures give the costs incurred due to military operations in Libya alone, ignoring routine training and maintenance costs. They do not include the cost of recent RAF sorties, involving flights from mainland Britain to the North African coast for bombing and reconnaissance missions. Some preparatory logistic operations, such as the transport of tonnes of military hardware to bases in Italy by a fleet of Eddie Stobart trucks, were also left out.

it costs £2.5 million per day to run a single Eurofighter Typhoon fighter-bomber. The UK is operating ten Typhoons from a base in southern Italy. Paveway IV bombs cost £50,000 per mission. These form part of the average £65 million weekly cost of British air operations in Libya.

A Libyan rebel leader who was rendered to Tripoli with the assistance of MI6 said on Monday that he had told British intelligence officers he was being tortured but they did nothing to help him.

In a claim that will increase the pressure for further disclosure about the UK's role in torture and rendition since 9/11, Abdul Hakim Belhaj said a team of British interrogators used hand signals to indicate they understood what he was telling them.

"I couldn't believe they could let this go on," he said. "What has happened deserves a full inquiry."

Belhaj was detained by the CIA in Thailand in 2004 following an MI6 tipoff, allegedly tortured, then flown to Tripoli, where he says he suffered years of abuse in one of Muammar Gaddafi's prisons.

It emerged on Monday that MI6 had been able to tell the CIA of his whereabouts after his associates informed British diplomats in Malaysia that he wished to claim asylum in the UK. Belhaj was then allowed to board a flight for London and abducted when the plane called at Bangkok.