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The estate of pop music legend Michael Jackson owes $702 million in federal taxes and penalties, the Internal Revenue Service charged in U.S. Tax Court, accusing the estate of undervaluing some of the star's assets by hundreds of millions of dollars. At issue is the wide difference between what the estate said Jackson's legacy was worth versus what the IRS determined was its taxable value. An IRS spokesman and lawyers for the estate declined to comment. Jackson died on June 25, 2009, the date of the estate tax return. His estate's beneficiaries are Jackson's mother, Katherine, his three children and...

241 Germania $>100 trillion 164 Eva $>100 trillion 90 Antiope $>100 trillion 253 Mathilde $>100 trillion 132 Aethra $>100 trillion 84 Klio $>100 trillion 2 Pallas $>100 trillion 1 Ceres $67.45 trillion 1910 KU $64.42 trillion Each white dot is an asteroid.

Call it the Evangelical vote or Value vote. I heard Rush talk about it a few days ago and an Evangelical in Ohio on FNC this morning. The Evangelical vote stayed home in 2008 but was back in full force in the 2010 mid-terms which were blow out wins for the GOP. Nothing has changed in 2012 and the Evangelicals are going to be deciding factors in many races nationwide. This is what Evangelicals have seen over the last few years. 1. Obama's assault on marriage, life and contraception 2. Obamacare (need I say more) 3. The attack on faith...

My company is contemplating the installation of a 1.2 MW solar photovoltaic (PV) generation solar panel project on the roof of our facility. We are located on Long Island and are powered by LIPA. LIPA has a new green initiative program called CLEAN. LIPA's CLEAN Solar Initiative will pay customers $0.22/kWh for PV plants between 50 kW and 20 MW under 20-year contracts. LIPA will begin accepting applications under the program on July 16th, 2012. The United States experiments with feed-in tariffs at the local level. A number of U.S utilities, municipalities and states have approved feed-in tariffs, however such...

Let's think about the kind of mess that we're in. Federal 2010 Medicare and Medicaid expenditures totaled $800 billion. The projected annual growth of both programs is about 7 percent. Social Security expenditures are more than $700 billion a year. According to the 2009 Social Security and Medicare trustees reports, by 2030, 49 percent of federal revenues will go for Social Security and Medicare payments. The unfunded liability of both programs is already $106 trillion.But not to worry. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that it's possible to sustain today's level of federal spending and even achieve a balanced budget. All...

To realize The value of a sister/brother Ask someone Who doesn't have one. To realize The value of ten years: Ask a newly Divorced couple. To realize The value of four years: Ask a graduate. To realize The value of one year: Ask a student who Has failed a final exam. To realize The value of nine months: Ask a mother who gave birth to a stillborn. To realize The value of one month: Ask a mother Who has given birth to A premature baby. To realize The value of one week: Ask an editor of a weekly newspaper. To...

Property values fall, yet taxes go upCharles Thomas Friday, September 23, 2011 (CHICAGO) (WLS) -- Cook County property tax bills will go out next month, and homeowners will be asked to pay more for having less. Even though most property values have dropped over the past three years, most property tax bills will be going up again. Falling property values and rising property taxes have turned the American dream for many into a nightmare in virtually every county in the state. Nowhere in Cook County have home prices fallen more dramatically than in the northern and northwestern suburbs -- anywhere...

In recent weeks, there has been some discussion over how to handle the soaring public debt of the United States; how that debt--its extent & the method by which it is managed--affects the credit worthiness of the United States & the likelihood of default on that debt; finally, the effect of such phenomena on the future economic well being of the people of the United States. There was also a hue & cry, when a popular financial rating agency issued a minor downgrade of the quality of that debt. In this essay, we will focus on the question of debt...

A San Francisco State University instructor writes in Poynter today that the media is misrepresenting some basic features of the debate over the value of a college education. In reviewing recent coverage, Sarah Fidelibus argues that journalists are taking surveys out of context in making the case that a college education isn't worth young people's time and money anymore. The critique comes on the heels of a piece in the New Republic titled "Why the media is always wrong about the value of a college degree." In the latter article, Education Sector's Kevin Carey mocks media stories that profile woeful...

DEERFIELD, Ill., May 2, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- One hundred colleges and universities out of some 2,000 U.S. schools that offer four-year degrees have been ranked as the top values by Consumers Digest. The rankings are based on attributes that validate or define the institutions' academic prowess factored against annual cost of tuition, fees and room and board. Among 50 public institutions cited, Truman State University, Kirksville, Mo., ranked No. 1. Among 25 private institutions, Yale University took top honors. Among 25 private liberal-arts schools, Grove City College, Grove City, Pa., held the first slot. The rankings, published in CD's June...

Believe it or not Ripley! The People’s Bank of China(PBOC) recommended yesterday that 1 billion Chinese consider buying gold as a hedge against inflation and to preserve values in a world where currencies can fall. The PBOC Financial Markets Review came out just as several major currencies were indeed declining in value against gold; the dollar,1%, the Swiss franc,2.5%, t he British pound, 2%, and the Japanese yen, 2%. Wow! Be like the Fed telling you to buy oil stocks or crude oil futures due to expectation higher gasoline prices this summer. So, add the PBOC to other secular influences...

Gold rose to within $10 of a record high on Friday, closing out an unprecedented tenth annual gain as the combination of a weaker dollar and global economic uncertainty seemed to pave the way higher next year. The entire precious metals complex had a stellar run in 2010, led by palladium's 97 percent rise, in a broad commodities rally that pushed the 19-commodity Reuters-Jefferies CRB index up 15 percent. Spot silver, too, swept higher for an 83 percent gain on the year, as investors sought the white metal as an alternative to gold. It was the best-performing assets in the...

The US dollar has hit a 15-year low against the yen after the G20 nations agreed to avoid a currency war. The weekend talks, in South Korea, saw the group of 20 major advanced and developing nations, agree to avoid competing to lower their currencies.

In their latest Business Review, Harvard, that fashion-obsessed place a quick private plane ride north of us, had an analyst assess the monetary value Michelle Obama has on fashion labels she wears publicly. Apparently when Michelle wears something, that company's stock spikes upward. If it's not the label seeing a gain, stores that carry the labels, like Saks, stand to benefit. From November 2008 to December 2009, David Yermack counted that Michelle made 189 public appearances, and wore items by or sold at 29 publicly traded companies, including J.Crew, the Gap, Dillard's, and DSW.

If you've recently had your house reappraised for sale or refinancing, and wonder where the equity went, consider this:Since the real estate boom ground to a painful close about 31/2 years ago, the nation's housing stock has shed from about $4 trillion to $7.1 trillion in value.The amount depends on who's counting. A study by Equifax Inc. and Moody's Analytics Inc. says the downturn began in early 2007 and cost $4 trillion through March. The Federal Reserve says the downturn began in the fourth quarter of 2006 and cost $7.1 trillion through March.

The United States is headed into a very important election in November of 2010, if the political pollsters are to be believed. Americans, besieged by a weak dollar and an even weaker economy, are reassessing some of their most basic assumptions about how the country works. RealClearMarkets has recently published columns on the mistakes of the Bush Administration along with others calling for higher taxes to pay down the national debt. Important as these subjects may be, they are only symptoms of a much larger malady. The public is really scratching its head as long held assumptions prove to be...

If there's one truism that goes virtually unchallenged these days, it's that a college degree has great value. Beyond the great books, beyond the critical reasoning skills, and beyond the experience itself, there's another way that a college degree has value: Over the course of a working life, college graduates earn more than high school graduates. Over the past decade, research estimates have pegged that figure at $900,00, $1.2 million, and $1.6 million. But new research suggests that the monetary value of a college degree may be vastly overblown. According to a study conducted by PayScale for Bloomberg Businessweek, the...

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama may end up playing a rather hands-off role in this fall's elections, a surprising turn for a political phenomenon who excited millions of voters just two years ago. Recent elections have tarnished Obama's luster a bit, and Democratic candidates are likely to be selective in seeking his help. Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania became the fourth Democrat in seven months to lose a high-profile race despite the president's active involvement. Specter's career-ending loss raises questions of whether Obama can transfer even small portions of the political charm that catapulted him to the White House. Campaign...

Nearly a decade after the United States began to focus its military training and equipment purchases almost exclusively on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. military strategists are quietly shifting gears, saying that large-scale counterinsurgency efforts cost too much and last too long. The domestic economic crisis and the Obama administration's commitment to withdraw from Iraq and begin drawing down in Afghanistan next year are factors in the change. The biggest spur, however, is a growing recognition that large-scale counterinsurgency battles have high casualty rates for troops and civilians, eat up equipment that must be replaced and rarely end...

Here is the current top ten list of the most expensive items to ever appear on the show ‘Antique Roadshow.’ These 'national treasures' are in the hands of some very lucky people. SEE TOP 10...