Happy Thanksgiving, 50 things to be thankful for!
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Brian Curry
Nov 26, 2015, 7:54:42 PM11/26/15
to NuSkin Training
To the Nu Skin Family:
(from The Motley Fool)
http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/01/29/50-reasons-were-living-through-the-greatest-period.aspx
Stuff between "===" are my observations.
1. U.S. life expectancy at birth was 39 years in 1800, 49 years in 1900,
68 years in 1950, and 79 years today. The average newborn today can
expect to live an entire generation longer than his great-grandparents
could.
2. A flu pandemic in 1918 infected 500 million people and killed as many
as 100 million. In his book The Great Influenza, John Barry describes
the illness as if "someone were hammering a wedge into your skull just
behind the eyes, and body aches so intense they felt like bones
breaking." Today, you can go to Safeway and get a flu shot. It costs 15
bucks. You might feel a little poke.
===
A vaccination. Some are bashing vaccinations. How fast we forget the
scourges of the past. The stuff that killed many. I remember growing
up and a neighborhood house a "Quarantine" notice on it. I forget
what it was for. However, it was not something like Ebola. That was
for the future. How often do you see a quarantine notice on a house
today? Courtesy of vaccinations and the "herd" effect of them.
===
3. In 1950, 23 people per 100,000 Americans died each year in traffic
accidents, according to the Census Bureau. That fell to 11 per 100,000
by 2009. If the traffic mortality rate had not declined, 37,800 more
Americans would have died last year than actually did. In the time it
will take you to read this article, one American is alive who would have
died in a car accident 60 years ago.
4. In 1949, Popular Mechanics magazine made the bold prediction that
someday a computer could weigh less than 1 ton. I wrote this sentence on
an iPad that weighs 0.73 pounds.
5. The average American now retires at age 62. One hundred years ago,
the average American died at age 51. Enjoy your golden years -- your
ancestors didn't get any of them.
6. In his 1770s book The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith wrote: "It is not
uncommon in the highlands of Scotland for a mother who has borne 20
children not to have 2 alive." Infant mortality in America has dropped
from 58 per 1,000 births in 1933 to less than six per 1,000 births in
2010, according to the World Health Organization. There are about 11,000
births in America each day, so this improvement means more than 200,000
infants now survive each year who wouldn't have 80 years ago. That's
like adding a city the size of Boise, Idaho, every year.
===
And think of what the infant mortality rate still is, in many parts of
the world. Large parts of Africa. Parts of Asia. Those getting this
are blessed to be living, and may be living, because of where they
were born and are living.
===
7. America averaged 20,919 murders per year in the 1990s, and 16,211 per
year in the 2000s, according to the FBI. If the murder rate had not
fallen, 47,000 more Americans would have been killed in the last decade
than actually were. That's more than the population of Biloxi, Miss.
===
Yet how many murder reports do you see in the nightly news media....
If it bleeds it still leads...
===
8. Despite a surge in airline travel, there were half as many fatal
plane accidents in 2012 than there were in 1960, according to the
Aviation Safety Network.
9. No one has died from a new nuclear weapon attack since 1945. If you
went back to 1950 and asked the world's smartest political scientists,
they would have told you the odds of seeing that happen would be close
to 0%. You don't have to be very imaginative to think that the most
important news story of the past 70 years is what didn't happen.
Congratulations, world.
10. People worry that the U.S. economy will end up stagnant like
Japan's. Next time you hear that, remember that unemployment in Japan
hasn't been above 5.6% in the past 25 years, its government corruption
ranking has consistently improved, incomes per capita adjusted for
purchasing power have grown at a decent rate, and life expectancy has
risen by nearly five years. I can think of worse scenarios.
11. Two percent of American homes had electricity in 1900. J.P Morgan
(the man) was one of the first to install electricity in his home, and
it required a private power plant on his property. Even by 1950, close
to 30% of American homes didn't have electricity. It wasn't until the
1970s that virtually all homes were powered. Adjusted for wage growth,
electricity cost more than 10 times as much in 1900 as it does today,
according to professor Julian Simon.
===
Those percentages are boggling. Think of the reactions when electric
power is out for a few hours, or HORRORS a few days...
===
12. According to the Federal Reserve, the number of lifetime years spent
in leisure -- retirement plus time off during your working years -- rose
from 11 years in 1870 to 35 years by 1990. Given the rise in life
expectancy, it's probably close to 40 years today. Which is amazing: The
average American spends nearly half his life in leisure. If you had told
this to the average American 100 years ago, that person would have
considered you wealthy beyond imagination.
13. We are having a national discussion about whether a $7.25-per-hour
minimum wage is too low. But even adjusted for inflation, the minimum
wage was less than $4 per hour as recently as the late 1940s. The top 1%
have captured most of the wage growth over the past three decades, but
nearly everyone has grown richer -- much richer -- during the past seven
decades.
14. In 1952, 38,000 people contracted polio in America alone, according
to the Centers for Disease Control. In 2012, there were fewer than 300
reported cases of polio in the entire world.
===
I remember the polio panics when I was a kid. Another example of the
power of vaccinations. I remember the "iron lung" that was on display
when I got the Sabin oral vaccine. I had already gotten the Salk
injection vaccine.
I know someone personally, that got polio when there was a
"vaccination window" when it was not being done. The guy is TOUGH, he
does not mope. But I bet he have preferred his life to be w/o braces
and crutches.
===
15. From 1920 to 1949, an average of 433,000 people died each year
globally from "extreme weather events." That figure has plunged to
27,500 per year, according to Indur Goklany of the International Policy
Network, largely thanks to "increases in societies' collective adaptive
capacities."
===
Remember this when the next big storm comes and it is due to "Climate
Change" That adaptive capacity came due to the great amount of energy
that is available due to the production of stuff that is stated to be
causing that "climate change."
Do we really want to not have that "adaptive capacity" due to energy production?
===
16. Worldwide deaths from battle have plunged from 300 per 100,000
people during World War II, to the low teens during the 1970s, to less
than 10 in the 1980s, to fewer than one in the 21st century, according
to Harvard professor Steven Pinker. "War really is going out of style,"
he says.
17. Median household income adjusted for inflation was around $25,000
per year during the 1950s. It's nearly double that amount today. We have
false nostalgia about the prosperity of the 1950s because our definition
of what counts as "middle class" has been inflated -- see the 34% rise
in the size of the median American home in just the past 25 years. If
you dig into how the average "prosperous" American family lived in the
1950s, I think you'll find a standard of living we'd call "poverty" today.
18. Reported rape per 100,000 Americans dropped from 42.3 in 1991 to
27.5 in 2010, according to the FBI. Robbery has dropped from 272 per
100,000 in 1991 to 119 in 2010. There were nearly 4 million fewer
property crimes in 2010 than there were in 1991, which is amazing when
you consider the U.S. population grew by 60 million during that period.
===
And yet we have more people in prisons in the US than other places.
Something is wrong there.
Then there is the great hue and cry about "rape". It is another of
those news leaders. This is not to belittle the sickness of the act,
but the rate is dropping, yet the media coverage continues... What is
going on with that?
===
19. According to the Census Bureau, only one in 10 American homes had
air conditioning in 1960. That rose to 49% in 1973, and 89% today -- the
11% that don't are mostly in cold climates. Simple improvements like
this have changed our lives in immeasurable ways.
===
And can mitigate the effect of increased temperatures due to "climate
change." But only if you have energy to operate those air
conditioners...
===
20. Almost no homes had a refrigerator in 1900, according to Frederick
Lewis Allan's The Big Change, let alone a car. Today they sell cars with
refrigerators in them.
===
Think of the POSITIVE effects of that due to food not spoiling.
Another product that needs energy to operate.
===
21. Adjusted for overall inflation, the cost of an average round-trip
airline ticket fell 50% from 1978 to 2011, according to Airlines for
America.
22. According to the Census Bureau, the average new home now has more
bathrooms than occupants.
23. According to the Census Bureau, in 1900 there was one housing unit
for every five Americans. Today, there's one for every three. In 1910
the average home had 1.13 occupants per room. By 1997 it was down to
0.42 occupants per room.
24. According to professor Julian Simon, the average American house or
apartment is twice as large as the average house or apartment in Japan,
and three times larger than the average home or apartment in Russia.
25. Relative to hourly wages, the cost of an average new car has fallen
fourfold since 1915, according to professor Julian Simon.
26. Google Maps is free. If you think about this for a few moments, it's
really astounding. It's probably the single most useful piece of
software ever invented, and it's free for anyone to use.
27. High school graduation rates are at a 40-year high, according to
Education Week.
28. The death rate from strokes has declined by 75% since the 1960s,
according to the National Institutes of Health. Death from heart attacks
has plunged, too: If the heart attack survival had had not declined
since the 1960s, the number of Americans dying each year from heart
disease would be more than 1 million higher than it currently is.
===
Those are mind boggling numbers.
I remember when the "treatment" for a heart attack was stuffing you in
an oxygen tent. And that was the total treatment. Now due to those
big, bad, money grubbing drug companies there is a panoply of drugs
that are used to treat them, and have good recovery rates that are the
causes of those death rate reductions.
===
29. In 1900, African Americans had an illiteracy rate of nearly 45%,
according to the Census Bureau. Today, it's statistically close to zero.
30. People talk about how expensive college is today, but a century ago
fewer than one in 20 Americans ever stepped foot in a university.
College wasn't an option at any price for some minorities because of
segregation just six decades ago.
31. The average American work week has declined from 66 hours in 1850,
to 51 hours in 1909, to 34.8 today, according to the Federal Reserve.
Enjoy your weekend.
32. Incomes have grown so much faster than food prices that the average
American household now spends less than half as much of its income on
food as it did in the 1950s. Relative to wages, the price of food has
declined more than 90% since the 19th century, according to the Bureau
of Labor Statistics.
===
And the variety of food in the stores is HUGELY higher. I was the
food purchaser, and cook in college. I remember the fruit and
vegetable aisles then versus now. They were smaller then, and the
selection was HUGELY smaller.
===
33. As of March 2013, there were 8.99 million millionaire households in
the U.S., according to the Spectrum Group. Put them together and they
would make the largest city in the country, and the 18th largest city in
the world, just behind Tokyo. We talk a lot about wealth concentration
in the United States, but it's not just the very top that has done well.
===
Nu Skin a vehicle to increase those numbers
===
34. More than 40% of adults smoked in 1965, according to the Centers for
Disease Control. By 2011, 19% did.
35. In 1900, 44% of all American jobs were in farming. Today, around 2%
are. We've become so efficient at the basic need of feeding ourselves
that nearly half the population can now work on other stuff.
36. One of the reasons Social Security and Medicare are underfunded is
that the average American is living longer than ever before. I think
this is literally the best problem to have.
37. In 1940, less than 5% of the adult population held a bachelor's
degree or higher. By 2012, more than 30% did, according to the Census
Bureau.
38. U.S. oil production in September was the highest it's been since
1989, and growth shows no sign of slowing. We produced 57% more oil in
America in September 2013 than we did in September 2007. The
International Energy Agency projects that America will be the world's
largest oil producer as soon as 2015.
39. The average American car got 13 miles per gallon in 1975, and more
than 26 miles per gallon in 2013, according to the Energy Protection
Agency. This has an effect identical to cutting the cost of gasoline in
half.
40. Annual inflation in the United States hasn't been above 10% since
1981 and has been below 5% in 77% of years over the past seven decades.
When you consider all the hatred directed toward the Federal Reserve,
this is astounding.
41. The percentage of Americans age 65 and older who live in poverty has
dropped from nearly 30% in 1966 to less than 10% by 2010. For the
elderly, the war on poverty has pretty much been won.
42. Adjusted for inflation, the average monthly Social Security benefit
for retirees has increased from $378 in 1940 to $1,277 by 2010. What
used to be a safety net is now a proper pension.
43. If you think Americans aren't prepared for retirement today, you
should have seen what it was like a century ago. In 1900, 65% of men
over age 65 were still in the labor force. By 2010, that figure was down
to 22%. The entire concept of retirement is unique to the past few
decades. Half a century ago, most Americans worked until they died.
44. From 1920 to 1980, an average of 395 people per 100,000 died from
famine worldwide each decade. During the 2000s, that fell to three per
100,000, according to The Economist.
===
And what can we do w/ the NTC program!
===
45. The cost of solar panels has declined by 75% since 2008, according
to the Department of Energy. Last I checked, the sun is offering its
services for free.
46. As recently as 1950, nearly 40% of American homes didn't have a
telephone. Today, there are 500 million Internet-connected devices in
America, or enough for 5.7 per household.
===
I can remember the "party line" that we shared w/ another family when
I was growing up. Only two people on the line, not several people
that the ring type indicated who "should" pick it up.
===
47. According to AT&T archives and the Dallas Fed, a three-minute phone
call from New York to San Francisco cost $341 in 1915, and $12.66 in
1960, adjusted for inflation. Today, Republic Wireless offers unlimited
talk, text, and data for $5 a month.
===
I can remember calling the relatives in Michigan from Philly at
Thanksgiving or Christmas. Call the operator, and give her the
number. Be told when it would be likely they would call back with the
connection. When the connection was made up, you did not talk to long
cause it was EX$PEN$IVE.
I remember for me, when we could get long distance for ONLY 10 cents a
minute. Such a deal.
Now it is effectively "free," buried in the cost of phone service.
And then there is the technology in the phone you can hold in your
hand. That has far more power than that computer that Popular
Mechanics described.
===
48. In 1990, the American auto industry produced 7.15 vehicles per auto
employee. In 2010 it produced 11.2 vehicles per employee. Manufacturing
efficiency has improved dramatically.
49. You need an annual income of $34,000 a year to be in the richest 1%
of the world, according to World Bank economist Branko Milanovic's 2010
book The Haves and the Have-Nots. To be in the top half of the globe you
need to earn just $1,225 a year. For the top 20%, it's $5,000 per year.
Enter the top 10% with $12,000 a year. To be included in the top 0.1%
requires an annual income of $70,000. America's poorest are some of the
world's richest.
===
Another mind BOGGLING set of numbers. How good anyone in the
US/Canada/Mexico have it.
And think of what even a medium Nu Skin Business can do for lives.
Look at those numbers, and you can see why outside the US there is so
much enthusiasm for the Nu Skin Business.
===
50. Only 4% of humans get to live in America. Odds are you're one of
them. We've got it made. Be thankful.
===
There is a summary of these in a PDF here:
http://www.nationwidecompliance.com/2014_Qtr1.pdf
Check out "The Tale" "Spoke of the Wheel" Think of what it says as
you build your team.
--
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Ambassador BMW MOA |
Brian Curry |Courage is what it takes to stand up
"DEERsSLAYER" | and speak
K75RTs both coasts | -- Winston Churchill
Chester Springs PA |
(from The Motley Fool)
http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/01/29/50-reasons-were-living-through-the-greatest-period.aspx
Stuff between "===" are my observations.
1. U.S. life expectancy at birth was 39 years in 1800, 49 years in 1900,
68 years in 1950, and 79 years today. The average newborn today can
expect to live an entire generation longer than his great-grandparents
could.
2. A flu pandemic in 1918 infected 500 million people and killed as many
as 100 million. In his book The Great Influenza, John Barry describes
the illness as if "someone were hammering a wedge into your skull just
behind the eyes, and body aches so intense they felt like bones
breaking." Today, you can go to Safeway and get a flu shot. It costs 15
bucks. You might feel a little poke.
===
A vaccination. Some are bashing vaccinations. How fast we forget the
scourges of the past. The stuff that killed many. I remember growing
up and a neighborhood house a "Quarantine" notice on it. I forget
what it was for. However, it was not something like Ebola. That was
for the future. How often do you see a quarantine notice on a house
today? Courtesy of vaccinations and the "herd" effect of them.
===
3. In 1950, 23 people per 100,000 Americans died each year in traffic
accidents, according to the Census Bureau. That fell to 11 per 100,000
by 2009. If the traffic mortality rate had not declined, 37,800 more
Americans would have died last year than actually did. In the time it
will take you to read this article, one American is alive who would have
died in a car accident 60 years ago.
4. In 1949, Popular Mechanics magazine made the bold prediction that
someday a computer could weigh less than 1 ton. I wrote this sentence on
an iPad that weighs 0.73 pounds.
5. The average American now retires at age 62. One hundred years ago,
the average American died at age 51. Enjoy your golden years -- your
ancestors didn't get any of them.
6. In his 1770s book The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith wrote: "It is not
uncommon in the highlands of Scotland for a mother who has borne 20
children not to have 2 alive." Infant mortality in America has dropped
from 58 per 1,000 births in 1933 to less than six per 1,000 births in
2010, according to the World Health Organization. There are about 11,000
births in America each day, so this improvement means more than 200,000
infants now survive each year who wouldn't have 80 years ago. That's
like adding a city the size of Boise, Idaho, every year.
===
And think of what the infant mortality rate still is, in many parts of
the world. Large parts of Africa. Parts of Asia. Those getting this
are blessed to be living, and may be living, because of where they
were born and are living.
===
7. America averaged 20,919 murders per year in the 1990s, and 16,211 per
year in the 2000s, according to the FBI. If the murder rate had not
fallen, 47,000 more Americans would have been killed in the last decade
than actually were. That's more than the population of Biloxi, Miss.
===
Yet how many murder reports do you see in the nightly news media....
If it bleeds it still leads...
===
8. Despite a surge in airline travel, there were half as many fatal
plane accidents in 2012 than there were in 1960, according to the
Aviation Safety Network.
9. No one has died from a new nuclear weapon attack since 1945. If you
went back to 1950 and asked the world's smartest political scientists,
they would have told you the odds of seeing that happen would be close
to 0%. You don't have to be very imaginative to think that the most
important news story of the past 70 years is what didn't happen.
Congratulations, world.
10. People worry that the U.S. economy will end up stagnant like
Japan's. Next time you hear that, remember that unemployment in Japan
hasn't been above 5.6% in the past 25 years, its government corruption
ranking has consistently improved, incomes per capita adjusted for
purchasing power have grown at a decent rate, and life expectancy has
risen by nearly five years. I can think of worse scenarios.
11. Two percent of American homes had electricity in 1900. J.P Morgan
(the man) was one of the first to install electricity in his home, and
it required a private power plant on his property. Even by 1950, close
to 30% of American homes didn't have electricity. It wasn't until the
1970s that virtually all homes were powered. Adjusted for wage growth,
electricity cost more than 10 times as much in 1900 as it does today,
according to professor Julian Simon.
===
Those percentages are boggling. Think of the reactions when electric
power is out for a few hours, or HORRORS a few days...
===
12. According to the Federal Reserve, the number of lifetime years spent
in leisure -- retirement plus time off during your working years -- rose
from 11 years in 1870 to 35 years by 1990. Given the rise in life
expectancy, it's probably close to 40 years today. Which is amazing: The
average American spends nearly half his life in leisure. If you had told
this to the average American 100 years ago, that person would have
considered you wealthy beyond imagination.
13. We are having a national discussion about whether a $7.25-per-hour
minimum wage is too low. But even adjusted for inflation, the minimum
wage was less than $4 per hour as recently as the late 1940s. The top 1%
have captured most of the wage growth over the past three decades, but
nearly everyone has grown richer -- much richer -- during the past seven
decades.
14. In 1952, 38,000 people contracted polio in America alone, according
to the Centers for Disease Control. In 2012, there were fewer than 300
reported cases of polio in the entire world.
===
I remember the polio panics when I was a kid. Another example of the
power of vaccinations. I remember the "iron lung" that was on display
when I got the Sabin oral vaccine. I had already gotten the Salk
injection vaccine.
I know someone personally, that got polio when there was a
"vaccination window" when it was not being done. The guy is TOUGH, he
does not mope. But I bet he have preferred his life to be w/o braces
and crutches.
===
15. From 1920 to 1949, an average of 433,000 people died each year
globally from "extreme weather events." That figure has plunged to
27,500 per year, according to Indur Goklany of the International Policy
Network, largely thanks to "increases in societies' collective adaptive
capacities."
===
Remember this when the next big storm comes and it is due to "Climate
Change" That adaptive capacity came due to the great amount of energy
that is available due to the production of stuff that is stated to be
causing that "climate change."
Do we really want to not have that "adaptive capacity" due to energy production?
===
16. Worldwide deaths from battle have plunged from 300 per 100,000
people during World War II, to the low teens during the 1970s, to less
than 10 in the 1980s, to fewer than one in the 21st century, according
to Harvard professor Steven Pinker. "War really is going out of style,"
he says.
17. Median household income adjusted for inflation was around $25,000
per year during the 1950s. It's nearly double that amount today. We have
false nostalgia about the prosperity of the 1950s because our definition
of what counts as "middle class" has been inflated -- see the 34% rise
in the size of the median American home in just the past 25 years. If
you dig into how the average "prosperous" American family lived in the
1950s, I think you'll find a standard of living we'd call "poverty" today.
18. Reported rape per 100,000 Americans dropped from 42.3 in 1991 to
27.5 in 2010, according to the FBI. Robbery has dropped from 272 per
100,000 in 1991 to 119 in 2010. There were nearly 4 million fewer
property crimes in 2010 than there were in 1991, which is amazing when
you consider the U.S. population grew by 60 million during that period.
===
And yet we have more people in prisons in the US than other places.
Something is wrong there.
Then there is the great hue and cry about "rape". It is another of
those news leaders. This is not to belittle the sickness of the act,
but the rate is dropping, yet the media coverage continues... What is
going on with that?
===
19. According to the Census Bureau, only one in 10 American homes had
air conditioning in 1960. That rose to 49% in 1973, and 89% today -- the
11% that don't are mostly in cold climates. Simple improvements like
this have changed our lives in immeasurable ways.
===
And can mitigate the effect of increased temperatures due to "climate
change." But only if you have energy to operate those air
conditioners...
===
20. Almost no homes had a refrigerator in 1900, according to Frederick
Lewis Allan's The Big Change, let alone a car. Today they sell cars with
refrigerators in them.
===
Think of the POSITIVE effects of that due to food not spoiling.
Another product that needs energy to operate.
===
21. Adjusted for overall inflation, the cost of an average round-trip
airline ticket fell 50% from 1978 to 2011, according to Airlines for
America.
22. According to the Census Bureau, the average new home now has more
bathrooms than occupants.
23. According to the Census Bureau, in 1900 there was one housing unit
for every five Americans. Today, there's one for every three. In 1910
the average home had 1.13 occupants per room. By 1997 it was down to
0.42 occupants per room.
24. According to professor Julian Simon, the average American house or
apartment is twice as large as the average house or apartment in Japan,
and three times larger than the average home or apartment in Russia.
25. Relative to hourly wages, the cost of an average new car has fallen
fourfold since 1915, according to professor Julian Simon.
26. Google Maps is free. If you think about this for a few moments, it's
really astounding. It's probably the single most useful piece of
software ever invented, and it's free for anyone to use.
27. High school graduation rates are at a 40-year high, according to
Education Week.
28. The death rate from strokes has declined by 75% since the 1960s,
according to the National Institutes of Health. Death from heart attacks
has plunged, too: If the heart attack survival had had not declined
since the 1960s, the number of Americans dying each year from heart
disease would be more than 1 million higher than it currently is.
===
Those are mind boggling numbers.
I remember when the "treatment" for a heart attack was stuffing you in
an oxygen tent. And that was the total treatment. Now due to those
big, bad, money grubbing drug companies there is a panoply of drugs
that are used to treat them, and have good recovery rates that are the
causes of those death rate reductions.
===
29. In 1900, African Americans had an illiteracy rate of nearly 45%,
according to the Census Bureau. Today, it's statistically close to zero.
30. People talk about how expensive college is today, but a century ago
fewer than one in 20 Americans ever stepped foot in a university.
College wasn't an option at any price for some minorities because of
segregation just six decades ago.
31. The average American work week has declined from 66 hours in 1850,
to 51 hours in 1909, to 34.8 today, according to the Federal Reserve.
Enjoy your weekend.
32. Incomes have grown so much faster than food prices that the average
American household now spends less than half as much of its income on
food as it did in the 1950s. Relative to wages, the price of food has
declined more than 90% since the 19th century, according to the Bureau
of Labor Statistics.
===
And the variety of food in the stores is HUGELY higher. I was the
food purchaser, and cook in college. I remember the fruit and
vegetable aisles then versus now. They were smaller then, and the
selection was HUGELY smaller.
===
33. As of March 2013, there were 8.99 million millionaire households in
the U.S., according to the Spectrum Group. Put them together and they
would make the largest city in the country, and the 18th largest city in
the world, just behind Tokyo. We talk a lot about wealth concentration
in the United States, but it's not just the very top that has done well.
===
Nu Skin a vehicle to increase those numbers
===
34. More than 40% of adults smoked in 1965, according to the Centers for
Disease Control. By 2011, 19% did.
35. In 1900, 44% of all American jobs were in farming. Today, around 2%
are. We've become so efficient at the basic need of feeding ourselves
that nearly half the population can now work on other stuff.
36. One of the reasons Social Security and Medicare are underfunded is
that the average American is living longer than ever before. I think
this is literally the best problem to have.
37. In 1940, less than 5% of the adult population held a bachelor's
degree or higher. By 2012, more than 30% did, according to the Census
Bureau.
38. U.S. oil production in September was the highest it's been since
1989, and growth shows no sign of slowing. We produced 57% more oil in
America in September 2013 than we did in September 2007. The
International Energy Agency projects that America will be the world's
largest oil producer as soon as 2015.
39. The average American car got 13 miles per gallon in 1975, and more
than 26 miles per gallon in 2013, according to the Energy Protection
Agency. This has an effect identical to cutting the cost of gasoline in
half.
40. Annual inflation in the United States hasn't been above 10% since
1981 and has been below 5% in 77% of years over the past seven decades.
When you consider all the hatred directed toward the Federal Reserve,
this is astounding.
41. The percentage of Americans age 65 and older who live in poverty has
dropped from nearly 30% in 1966 to less than 10% by 2010. For the
elderly, the war on poverty has pretty much been won.
42. Adjusted for inflation, the average monthly Social Security benefit
for retirees has increased from $378 in 1940 to $1,277 by 2010. What
used to be a safety net is now a proper pension.
43. If you think Americans aren't prepared for retirement today, you
should have seen what it was like a century ago. In 1900, 65% of men
over age 65 were still in the labor force. By 2010, that figure was down
to 22%. The entire concept of retirement is unique to the past few
decades. Half a century ago, most Americans worked until they died.
44. From 1920 to 1980, an average of 395 people per 100,000 died from
famine worldwide each decade. During the 2000s, that fell to three per
100,000, according to The Economist.
===
And what can we do w/ the NTC program!
===
45. The cost of solar panels has declined by 75% since 2008, according
to the Department of Energy. Last I checked, the sun is offering its
services for free.
46. As recently as 1950, nearly 40% of American homes didn't have a
telephone. Today, there are 500 million Internet-connected devices in
America, or enough for 5.7 per household.
===
I can remember the "party line" that we shared w/ another family when
I was growing up. Only two people on the line, not several people
that the ring type indicated who "should" pick it up.
===
47. According to AT&T archives and the Dallas Fed, a three-minute phone
call from New York to San Francisco cost $341 in 1915, and $12.66 in
1960, adjusted for inflation. Today, Republic Wireless offers unlimited
talk, text, and data for $5 a month.
===
I can remember calling the relatives in Michigan from Philly at
Thanksgiving or Christmas. Call the operator, and give her the
number. Be told when it would be likely they would call back with the
connection. When the connection was made up, you did not talk to long
cause it was EX$PEN$IVE.
I remember for me, when we could get long distance for ONLY 10 cents a
minute. Such a deal.
Now it is effectively "free," buried in the cost of phone service.
And then there is the technology in the phone you can hold in your
hand. That has far more power than that computer that Popular
Mechanics described.
===
48. In 1990, the American auto industry produced 7.15 vehicles per auto
employee. In 2010 it produced 11.2 vehicles per employee. Manufacturing
efficiency has improved dramatically.
49. You need an annual income of $34,000 a year to be in the richest 1%
of the world, according to World Bank economist Branko Milanovic's 2010
book The Haves and the Have-Nots. To be in the top half of the globe you
need to earn just $1,225 a year. For the top 20%, it's $5,000 per year.
Enter the top 10% with $12,000 a year. To be included in the top 0.1%
requires an annual income of $70,000. America's poorest are some of the
world's richest.
===
Another mind BOGGLING set of numbers. How good anyone in the
US/Canada/Mexico have it.
And think of what even a medium Nu Skin Business can do for lives.
Look at those numbers, and you can see why outside the US there is so
much enthusiasm for the Nu Skin Business.
===
50. Only 4% of humans get to live in America. Odds are you're one of
them. We've got it made. Be thankful.
===
There is a summary of these in a PDF here:
http://www.nationwidecompliance.com/2014_Qtr1.pdf
Check out "The Tale" "Spoke of the Wheel" Think of what it says as
you build your team.
--
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Ambassador BMW MOA |
Brian Curry |Courage is what it takes to stand up
"DEERsSLAYER" | and speak
K75RTs both coasts | -- Winston Churchill
Chester Springs PA |
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