RANDOM FACTS

From time to time the wonder of mass media via the Internet produces some strange and often interesting items of information. Here are 10 of these items:



1) No Kentucky college made the list of the 15 most expensive schools in America. The closest was Vanderbilt and it was only #8. Few if any of what are considered traditional "Ivy League" schools broke into this top 15.

2) A listing of 20 recession proof cities was generated by a federal government agency (great way to spend our tax dollars) and no Kentucky city made the list. However, to no one's surprise, one of these cities was Washington, DC.

3) New home sales in America for 2010, listed by an annual rate of closed transactions, are at the lowest level since 1963. By the way, this index was first used in, you guessed it, 1963.

4) American used home sales for 2010 are anticipated to be at their lowest level since 1999.

5) Communist China has the second largest economy in the world. It is second only to the USA but China is gaining rapidly.

6) Communist China has currently in its nation 65,400,000 constructed but unoccupied apartments. The everyday Chinaman just cannot afford these units.

7) In July of 2010 Communist China had a trade surplus of $28.7 trillion. During June of 2010, the USA had no trade surplus but did have a trade deficit of $49.9 billion. Washington is still working on July's numbers.

8) In 1981 American government T-Bills were sold bearing an interest rate of 16.7% per year. Today the same, and I use that term loosely, T-Bills bear around 1% per year.

9) During the first half of 2010 there was withdrawn from American Money Market Funds (MMF) $509,200,000.000.00. Put another way, that is $509.2 billion. Economists believe this huge amount of money was not to a large degree reinvested but rather used to meet maturing debts and everyday living expenses.

10) The US government is today buying US government T-Bills with money printed by the US government. This process is referred to as quantitative easing (QE). What? How about out-of-control deficit spending?



Stay tuned for I am sure more of this dribble will emerge in the future particularly if quantitative easing becomes a common term.