ImaginativePRO Blog

PLANETARY RESOURCES ANNOUNCES ASTEROID MINING VENTURE BACKED BY GOOGLE EXECS AND JAMES CAMERON

A newly unveiled company with some high-profile backers — including filmmaker James Cameron and Google co-founder Larry Page — is set to announce plans to mine near-Earth asteroids for resources such as precious metals and water.

Planetary Resources, Inc. intends to sell these materials, generating a healthy profit for itself. But it also aims to advance humanity's exploration and exploitation of space, with resource extraction serving as an anchor industry that helps our species spread throughout the solar system.

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Planetary Resources co-founder and co-chairman Eric Anderson told SPACE.com.

"If you look at space resources, the logical next step is to go to the near-Earth asteroids, They're just so valuable, and so easy to reach energetically. Near-Earth asteroids really are the low-hanging fruit of the solar system."

Planetary Resources is officially unveiling its asteroid-mining plans at 1:30 p.m. EDT (1730 GMT) Tuesday (April 24) during a news conference at Seattle's Museum of Flight.

 

Precious metals and water

Two of the resources the company plans to mine are platinum-group metals and water, Anderson said. 

Platinum-group metals — ruthenium, rhodium, palladium, osmium, iridium, and platinum — are found in low concentrations on Earth and can be tough to access, which is why they're so expensive. In fact, Anderson said, they don't occur naturally in Earth's crust, having been deposited on our planet over the eons by asteroid impacts.

Anderson said.

"We're going to go to the source.  The platinum-group metals are many orders of magnitude easier to access in the high-concentration platinum asteroids than they are in the Earth's crust."

And there are a lot of precious metals up there waiting to be mined. A single platinum-rich space rock 1,650 feet (500 meters) wide contains the equivalent of all the platinum-group metals ever mined throughout human history, company officials said.

Planetary Resources co-founder and co-chairman Peter Diamandis said in a statement.

"When the availability of these metals increase[s], the cost will reduce on everything including defibrillators, hand-held devices, TV and computer monitors, catalysts.  And with the abundance of these metals, we’ll be able to use them in mass production, like in automotive fuel cells."

 

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Many asteroids are rich in water, too, another characteristic the company plans to exploit. Once extracted, this water would be sold in space, providing significant savings over water launched from the ground.

Asteroid water could help astronauts stay hydrated and grow food, provide radiation shielding for spaceships and be broken into its constituent hydrogen and oxygen, the chief components of rocket fuel, Anderson said.

Planetary Resources hopes its mining efforts lead to the establishment of in-space "gas stations" that could help many spacecraft refuel, from Earth-orbiting satellites to Mars-bound vessels.

Anderson said.  

"We're really talking about enabling the exploration of deep space.  That's what really gets me excited." 

In addition to Page, Planetary Resources counts among its investors Ross Perot Jr., chairman of The Perot Group and son of the former presidential candidate; Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google; K. Ram Shriram, Google board of directors founding member; and Charles Simonyi, chairman of Intentional Intentional Software Corp, who has taken two tourist flights to the International Space Station.

Cameron serves the company as an adviser, as does former NASA space shuttle astronaut Tom Jones.

The plan

The company is not ready to break ground on an asteroid just yet. Before that can happen, it needs to do some in-depth prospecting work.

Of the roughly 8,900 known near-Earth asteroids, perhaps 100 or 150 are water-rich and easier to reach than the surface of the moon, Anderson said. Planetary Resources wants to identify and characterize these top targets before it does anything else.

To that end, it has designed a high-performance, low-cost space telescope that Anderson said should launch to low-Earth orbit within the next 18 to 24 months. This telescope will make observations of its own but also serve as a model for future instruments that will journey near promising asteroids and peer at them in great detail.

The prospecting phase should take a couple of years or so, Anderson added.

"We will then, at that time, determine which of these objects to pursue first for resource extraction, and what mission we'll be facilitating," he said. "Before you decide where to put the gas station, you've got to understand where the trucks are going to be driving by."

Mining activities will be enabled by swarms of unmanned spacecraft, according to company materials. Planetary Resources will focus on near-Earth asteroids, with no immediate plans to extend its reach to the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter or to the surface of the moon, Anderson said.

He declined to estimate when Planetary Resources would begin extracting metals or water from space rocks, saying there are too many variables to lay out a firm timeline. But a recent study sponsored by Caltech's Keck Institute for Space Studies estimated that a 500-ton near-Earth asteroid could be snagged and dragged to the moon's orbit by 2025, at a cost of about $2.6 billion.

Whatever Planetary Resources' exact schedule may be, Anderson said the company is already well on its way to making things happen.

Anderson said.  

"We're out there right now, talking to customers.  We are open for discussions with companies — aerospace companies, mining companies, prospecting companies, resource companies. We're out working in that field, to really open up the solar system for business."

COMMENTARY:     You know, I love big dreams, huge challenges, but this is just so much crock. Anderson makes it sound like all near-Earth asteroids are oozing with precious metals like platinum and gold ready to be mined.  That's just not the case.  Locating the right asteroids will take time, and finding those containing precious metals, and in sufficient quantities to make the venture economically feasible will take even longer.  "Snagging" an astroid is not going to be an easy thing either.   They rotate and wobble, and many of them are just plain huge.  Towing the "snagged" asteroid will be a challenge.  It is going to take a huge rocket.   The best asteroids will probably contain ice that could be converted into water and then into hydrogen that could be used to fuel rockets for towing and running mining operations.  We haven't returned to the Moon since the mid-1970's, so it's unlikely we will have the technology to tow an asteroid close to Earth by 2025.  What we have here are a bunch of greedy individuals who probably drank a little too much liquor during lunch.      

Courtesy of an article dated April 23, 2012 appearing in Space.com 

 

 

 

ZYNGA CONTINUES TO LOSE USERS, LOST 23.4 MILLION MONTHLY ACTIVE USERS IN JUNE 2012, STOCK PLUMMETS AND COULD HIT NEW LOW

Here’s the Top 25 Facebook game list for July 2012 from insidefacebook.com (AppData), according to Daily Active Users (DAU) and Monthly Active Users (MAU).

Daily Active Users (DAU)

Zynga’s Bingo and King.com's Candy Crush Saga were the biggest gainers during the month of June 2012 with increases of 1.8 million and 1.4 million users respectively.   Disney's Playdom's Marvel: Avengers Alliance placed third among gainers with 920,000 users in June.   The two biggest losers during the month of June 2012 were Zynga’s CityVille and Hidden Chronicles--down 1.4 million and 1.1 million users respectively.

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Monthly Active Users (MAU)

King.com's Candy Crush Saga and Disney Playdom's Marvel: Avengers Alliance were the biggest gainers during the month of June 2012 with increases of 5.2 million and 3.5 million users respectively.   Zynga’s CityVille, Hidden Chronicles, Castleville, Farmville and Texas Holdem Poker were huge losers during the month of June 2012--down 6.2 million, 4.3 million, 3.3 million, 3.0 million and 1.7 million users respectively.   Another big loser was Rovio's Angry Birds Friends--down 4.3 million users during the month of June 2012.   

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COMMENTARY:   Zynga placed nine games in the Facebook Top 25 by MAU, the most in a while, but they lost a combined 23.4 million users between June and May 2012.   In a blog post dated June 12, 2012, I said,

"Well, it appears that not only are Zynga's "ville" games like Farmville, Cityville and Castleville losing users, but the entire Zynga social game lineup is losing huge numbers of users in the AppData.com's Top 25 Facebook Games rankings."

Zynga's disasterous trend of losing users continues into the reporting month of July 2012 (For the month of June 2012).  This is the sixth straight month of losses.  

I just looked at Zynga's stock price and it peaked at $14.69 on March 2, 2012, but the price has declined rapidly week-to-week.  Zynga's stock peaked at $4.925 in very earling trading today (July 18, 2012), but ended at $4.61 with a total market market cap of $3.4 billion by the end of the day.   

In a blog post dated June 29, 2012, I reported that Zynga was planning to operate Zynga With Friends, its own social network, an apparent strategy to unhinge itself from Facebook.  It supposedly will offer its games on both platforms.  However, it is doubtful that having its own platform will stop the hemorraging.    

Zynga has failed to generate a profit since it had its IPO in mid-December 2011. Zynga's social games business model and management team led by Mark Pincus is under severe attack by stock market analysts and shareholders alike.  Mark Pincus, has voting control, thanks to the way the IPO was structured.   Zynga is obviously operating well below the breakeven point due to very high R&D costs to develop new games.   Zynga just announced an earnings call report scheduled on July 25, 2012.      

Courtesy of an article dated July 4, 2012 appearing in AppData

 

FIVE FACTS ABOUT WILLARD MITT ROMNEY'S SECRECY

Willard says, "Believe in America," but he "Invests in the Caymans"

The more everyone finds out about Mitt Romney's finances, the more questions they have. Perhaps that's why he's hiding as much as he thinks he can get away with.

Today, The Boston Globe reported that Romney was still running Bain Capital two years after he claims he left the firm, directly contradicting his campaign's denial that he was involved in deals that led to layoffs, bankruptcies, and American jobs getting shipped overseas.

It's a pattern of secrecy, and this is just the latest example of him trying to hide the truth from voters. There are a number of issues in play right now -- and voters deserve answers:

1. Mitt Romney refuses to release multiple years of taxes, ignoring decades of precedent.
2. He won't disclose his "bundlers," the people raising millions for his campaign.
3. He is the sole owner of a questionable shell corporation in Bermuda.
4. Until recently, Romney kept cash in a Swiss bank account.
5. According to The Boston Globe, he hasn't been honest about when he was running Bain Capital, even though legal documents refute his claims.

Share this graphic to help get the facts out (and, if you haven't already, join the Truth Team).

Connect & Share

COMMENTARY:    I think it's time that Willard Mitt Romney came clean with the American people about his past.  Releasing one year's tax returns (2010 only) is not enough.  I want to know more. I want to know his sources of income for the past five years.  I want to know why he had that Swiss Bank account.  Why does he have so many investments in foreign countries and refusing to provide details about those investments?  I wrote about this in a previous blog post.  Is Willard deliberately trying to avoid paying income taxes?   God, I hope not.  I want to know who his donors are, don't you?   Now The Boston Globe is reporting that Willard was still running Bain Capital for two years longer than he claimed.  We deserve a POTUS that is honest, don't you think?

Courtesy of Obama Biden 2012

SALE OF BLACKBERRY TO FACEBOOK OR AMAZON IS EMINENT, RIM LOSES MOUNT, LOOSES A THIRD OF MARKET SHARE IN ONE YEAR

Research in Motion CEO Thorsten Heims announces hiring of investment bankers to sell all or parts of the BlackBerry platform.  Possible suitors include Facebook and Amazon. (Click Image To Enlarge)

Facebook Inc (FB) and its future e-commerce rival, Amazon are gearing up to talk with Canadian telecom giant, Research in Motion (RIM), to discuss the purchase of its BlackBerry phone manufacturing division in an effort to expand their influence in the ever growing cellular market .

RIM is also considering dividing its interests and the sale of its handset production to either Amazon or Facebook. If that happens, the company is likely to retain its troubled but still popular e-mail processing services. RIM had previously confirmed that it is taking keen measures to develop a strategy for the company’s fortune to run, which could be selling or renting its assets.

Blackberry, the world’s largest mobile email company, which has long been in deep water,  is believed to be seriously considering selling part of their business to a rival as the last attempt to resuscitate the platform which is hitting brick walls, despite changing the management and laying off several thousand employees.

One of BlackBerry’s biggest challenges, apart from financial troubles, is innovation.  With the presence of Apple iPhone, Samsung Galaxy and Google’s Android phones, it is very hard for RIM to penetrate in the market which is loaded with designer phones. This is the reason why Blackberry and Nokia are not being able to compete in this market and the upcoming releases of Apple’s iPhone 5, Samsung Galaxy S3 and Google Nexus 7 will only add injury to BlackBerry plight.

Last month, RIM admittedly said in a press release that it had involved financial consultants  JPMorgan Chase and RBC Capital Markets to assist the company in evaluating various financial strategies and options, one of which they are particularly keen about is sharing the BlackBerry platform with other companies through a licensing agreement.

Facebook has long been rumored to launch its own mobile phone device and the acquisition of the BlackBerry’s manufacturing skills could help it overcome the difficulties pertaining to hardware services. Amazon will also have the similar advantage, primarily in the form of technology which it can use to improve its Kindle eBook reader.  Amazon will also have some advantage in getting into the smartphone market.

COMMENTARY:    In May 29, 2012, Reuters reported that Research in Motion announced it it was hiring some investment bankers to conduct a "strategic review" of its options due to huge losses of market share in the smartphone market, mounting operating losses and loss of confidence from shareholders due to a huge drop in the value of RIM shares.  It now appears that those bankers told RIM management SELL, SELL!!

I have been extremely critical of Research in Motion for quite some time now, especially for its lack of technology innovation and late entry in the touchscreen smartphone and tablet market, and slowness in making the necessary changes to turnaround the company.  

In a blog post dated January 23, 2012, I reported that co-CEO's Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis, were relinquishing their posts, and that Thorsten Heins, RIM operating officer for software, hardware and sales , was appointed as the new chief executive officer.   

New RIM chief executive Thorsten Heins faces the challenge of keeping existing customers happy while moving into the touchscreen era. Photograph: Geoff Robins/Reuters

Mike Lazaridis, who co- founded RIM with a childhood friend in 1985, becomes vice chairman and will lead an “innovation committee,” Ian Austen reports. Jim Balsillie, who invested $250,000 in the company in 1992, remains a director and will maintain his stake in the company.

Research In Motion co-CEOs Jim Balsillie, right, and Mike Lazaridis resigned under pressure to turnaround the troubled maker of BlackBerry cell phones

It's absolutely scary just how drastically and quickly RIM's smartphone marketshare has dwindled between Q1 2011 and Q1 2012.  Between these two quarters, RIM's market share declined by 29.7%.  That's nearly a one-third of its market share!!

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The handwriting has been on the wall for well over a year now.    On a quarter-to-quarter basis,  between Q4 2012 and Q4 2011, RIM's worldwide smartphone market share declined from 14.6% to 8.8%.   That's a drop of 24.9% in just one quarter!!  Most of that share went to Android and Apple iOS smartphones.  

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The bad news doesn't stop here.  RIM's worldwide market share of total mobile devices began to drastically decline during 2011 when both Android and iOS devices began to pickup steam. Although RIM's worldwide market share of total mobile devices declined slightly from 3.1% to 2.9% year-to-year between 2011 and 2010, the damage had already been done.  Not apparent from the following chart, RIM began to lose a huge chunk of its worldwide market share of total mobile devices in the U.S., its largest market, while international sales of of mobile devices remained relatively unchanged.

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When you look at a quarter-to-quarter comparison between Q4 2011 and Q4 2010, you can see that RIM's market share of total worldwide mobile devices declined by 6.6% (2.8% in Q4 2011 versus 3.3% in Q4 2010).  During this period, Apple took the lions share of RIMS market share when its market share more than doubled between Q4 2011 and Q4 2010.

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In spite of the huge layoffs that RIM recently announced, this DOG is DEAD!!   It's a shame too. BlackBerry was the mobile phone of choice for SMB's and corporate enterprise users for nearly ten years, but the mobile device market has changed dramatically within the last two years, and RIM failed to adapt and innovate.  Personally, I don't care who acquires the BlackBerry platform.  The mobile phone market is very crowded and industry consolidation is the order of the day.  I hope that Facebook and Amazon thoroughly think through any plans of acquiring BlackBerry.   Whoever acquires BlackBerry will have their hands full.  Are you listening Zuck?  Jeff?   

Courtesy of an article dated July 9, 2012 appearing in Potential Traders News and an article dated February 15, 2012 appearing in Gartner

COCA-COLA GIVES FACEBOOK GLOBAL REASON FOR BOOSTING MOBILE ADS AND ITS MOBILE AD STRATEGY

Wendy Clark, Coca-Cola Senior Vice-President of Marketing, is using her role as an advisor and member of Facebook's council of ad clients to outline what she says is a top reason the social networking service needs to get mobile advertising right:  reaching emerging markets.

Wendy Clark, Senior Vice-President of Marketing at Coca-Cola (Click Image To Enlarge)

Consumers in developing economies are more inclined to use handheld devices than traditional computers. So to reach customers in such regions as Africa and parts of Asia, Coca-Cola has to make mobile ads work on commonly used sites.  Clark says.  

“Facebook is the Internet for them.  If you start to cut into emerging and developing markets, the mobile phone is the easiest and most direct medium that we can reach consumers with.”

Facebook said during the runup to its initial public offering that growth in ads is lagging behind gains in its number of users as more people socialize on mobile phones. Turning the tide will be crucial as the company seeks to step up growth, reverse a 19 percent share-price slide—and keep the loyalty of customers like Coca-Cola that aim to win business with social media ads.  Clark says.

“We’re definitely looking at Facebook’s penetration and growth rate, and certainly for a global multinational like us, we’re very interested in them growing across the world.” 

Mobile ads, which Facebook started earlier this year, can help annual revenue more than double to $8.68 billion by 2014, from $3.71 billion last year, estimates JPMorgan Chase.   Much of that sales growth will probably come from developing nations.  

In economies other than the U.S., Canada, Europe, and Asia, Facebook’s market penetration will be 64 percent by 2014, up from 48 percent last year, Doug Anmuth, an analyst at JPMorgan in New York, writes in a June 27 research report. Emerging-market sales, primarily from mobile ads, will more than quadruple to $1.36 billion over that period.

According to the International Telecommunicatiions Union here are some interesting worldwide mobile stats:

• 5.98 billion mobile phone subscriptions worldwide. 
• 4.52 billion mobile phone subscriptions in developing countries. 
• Mobile penetration rates are about 79 percent of the population in emerging markets, where only 25 percent of households have computers.

Here are a few Facebook stats:

• Facebook is available in more than 70 languages. 
• Facebook sells ads to many of the world’s biggest brands, including Nestlé and Ford Motor
• Facebook had 488 million mobile users at the end of March, with 83 million accessing the site only on mobile devices.

Carolyn Everson, Facebook’s vice president of global marketing solutions, says global chief marketing officers very much want to talk about areas like Southeast Asia, India, and Africa. She says.  

“They are seeing that their next hundred million or billion consumers are mostly coming from developing countries where mobile is not just the dominant, it is often the only way that people are accessing these companies.”

Facebook opened an office in Dubai in May and Buenos Aires in March. When Everson joined in February 2011, there was one salesperson in Latin America. Now the region has several dozen, and the team is growing, she says. To capture more consumers in the developing world, Facebook is expanding beyond smartphones to more basic devices.  Last year it introduced an application for more than 2,500 more basic phones from such companies as Nokia, Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications, and LG Electronics. The app is available in markets including Romania, Tunisia, and the Dominican Republic.

The simpler phone models don’t yet have Facebook ads. Jay Altschuler, global media director for Unilever, says he sees the potential for using the devices to reach users.   Altschuler says after observing the devices in widespread use in agrarian parts of India outside Delhi and Bangalore.

“We sit in villages and talk to consumers about media habits.  They may not even have a roof over their house, but the one thing they do have is a mobile phone.”

Unilever, the maker of Lipton iced tea, Dove deodorant, and Vaseline skin lotion, gets more than half its business from developing countries, he says.

While Facebook generated $3.15 billion from advertising sales last year, none of it was from phones. Facebook announced plans for mobile ads in February, and the company hasn’t provided statistics on whether they work. Facebook has said revenue growth may slow because of a lack of mobile advertising and that its ability to profit from that source is unproven.

For now, Unilever and Coca-Cola are taking advantage of the only kind of mobile advertisement Facebook offers: a sponsored post on a user’s news feed, mixed in with the other updates from friends, like a relationship breakup or a set of graduation photos. With work to do, Everson says her job is “mobile-first.” She’s meeting with the company’s top marketing partners at least weekly, discussing ways to make advertising social. “In these countries, it’s literally Facebook,” she says.

COMMENTARY:     The Coca-Cola Company is the leading brand in the soft drinks marketplace and is responsible for an array of brands including the MyCoke collection, Fanta, Sprite, 5 Alive, Schweppes, Powerade, Kia Ora, Dr Pepper, Lilt, Relentless, Oasis and Glaceau Vitaminwater.

Coca-Cola is one company who has seen tremendous success with its social media marketing strategy. In their view, content and media is paid, earned, owned and shared according to Wendy Clark, SVP for Integrated Marketing and Communication at Coca-Cola.

See this graphical representation to better understand the breakdown of media and content.

Paid, Owned and Earned Media (Click Image To Enlarge)

Another important fact regarding Coca-Cola’s marketing strategy – engagement is much more valuable than actual followers.

Engagement has been explored before vis-à-vis Twitter, but it’s a universal principle that Coke has really gone with.  The numbers of followers isn’t so important – it’s the time people spent looking, sharing and commenting on your content.    

Coca-Cola crowed the social media champion (Click Image To Enlarge)

In Coke’s mind, advocacy trumps loyalty as well. Many businesses in the past have viewed loyalty as the top of the ladder.

According to Coke’s Chief Marketing Officer Joe Tripodi –

“Awareness is fine, but advocacy will take your business to the next level. I used to think that loyalty was the highest rung on the consumer pyramid until I became the CMO of Allstate Insurance. There, I saw clearly that so much business was driven through personal referrals and advocacy by individuals for their agent.”

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Coca-Cola has spent much time considering how they can create an emotional relationship with their brand, which is referred to by Clark as ‘extrinsic’ or ‘brand love’ messaging.  An example of this methodology can be found in Coke’s Happiness Machine video, which went viral on YouTube with no advertising and on to become a successful (…and economic) TV ad for the company.

‘Brand love’ though must be balanced with ‘brand value’ messaging, which basically refers to intrinsic value, or ‘functioning relationship.’ This concept is more closely aligned with traditional marketing and includes tangible things like coupons or some other means of driving a direct purchase.

Speaking at IAB Mobile Engage in London  on May 17, 2012,  Jude Brooks, Coca-Cola’s digital activation manager for Great Britain and Ireland, said:

“We are investing in apps, which is a huge opportunity for us, we’re optimising our websites and brand experiences and trying to put mobile as the starting point and desktop as a secondary channel [when it comes to digital advertising].”

Brooks admitted that investing so much in mobile is a “challenge” because the platform is so diverse, with many different handsets and operating systems, but this is outweighed by the opportunities to reach people in a new way.

She added:

“It’s definitely a challenge [working in] such an immature market. It’s easy to spend £5m on a TV campaign as it’s clear what you’re buying and the reach you will achieve as most companies will have years of data that shows it works.   The challenge with mobile - and it’s the same in digital - is that it’s so diverse and there’s so many different ways you can do it. I kind of wish we were still in the days of Mad Men, where you could just buy a spot on Coronation Street and you would know the reach, now it’s so complicated that it’s hard for companies to grow that spend.”

To demonstrate its mobile first strategy, Coca-Cola showcased its Project Rebrief campaign at the event, which was produced in partnership with Google.

 

The campaign sees Coca-Cola’s famous “Hilltop” TV ad reimagined for the mobile age by allowing consumers to “buy the world a Coke” via a mobile app and receive a video thank you from the recipient.

Also speaking at the event, Simon Morgan, industry leader of technology and hardware at Google, praised Coca-Cola’s “mobile first” strategy and urged other businesses to adopt a similar approach.

He added:

“Getting mobile right will mean your business will have a better future; get it wrong and your business won’t be as bright.”

Courtesy of an article dated July 3, 2012 appearing in BloombergBusinessweek and an article dated July 11, 2011 appearing in SEO-E Blog and an article dated May 17, 2012 appearing in MarketingWeek

WHY IS WILLARD MITT ROMNEY REFUSING TO DISCLOSE HIS OFFSHORE TAX HAVEN INVESTMENTS?

Republican POTUS candidate Willard Mitt Romney does a stump speech at Ormond Beach, Florida in January 2012.  God he looks good in designer jeans (Click Image To Enlarge)

Republican presidential challenger Wilalrd Mitt Romney shed dozens of stocks and holdings in various foreign companies in the last 10 months, beefing up his cash reserves while maintaining an overall fortune as high as $250 million, according to personal financial disclosures he filed Friday, June 2, 2012.

The disclosure — required of presidential candidates — showed that the GOP nominee's net worth has not changed greatly since September 2011's financial disclosure, when he reported his assets were worth between $190 million and $250million.

President Obama, meanwhile, reported in May 2012 that his assets are between $2.6 million and $8.3 million.

Most of the money held by Willard and his wife, Ann, is locked up in investments administered through two blind trusts established in 2003 after he was elected governor of Massachusetts. The trusts are stocked with debt securities, hedge fund investments and other complicated financial instruments — some of them based overseas — that date from his tenure running Bain Capital. Those Bain funds produced income between $720,000 and $6.3 million.

Andrea Saul, a Romney campaign spokeswoman said. 

"They do not control the investment of these assets, which are under the control and overall management of a trustee."

One of the biggest shifts in Romney's portfolio in the last year was his divestment of dozens of stocks, boosting his cash reserves to at least $6.4 million.

Two separate investment fund managers decided independent of Romney to shed nearly all of his stocks, the filing states. Among those sold were his holdings in Coca-Cola, Procter & Gamble and Apple. Romney held on to three U.S. stocks: at least $250,000 worth of shares in Ford Motor Co., at least $1,000 in

Marriott Vacations Worldwide and at least $100,000 in Marriott International, where he served as a director from January 2009 to January 2011.

He dumped his extensive foreign stock holdings, which included Wal-Mart de Mexico — now the subject of U.S. inquiries into bribery allegations — as well as several publicly traded firms in China. Romney has been a harsh critic of China's trade policies.

In several of his fund holdings, Romney provided no information on the underlying investments. His report said that his fund managers asked for that information, but were told it was "confidential and proprietary." That included Solamere Founders Fund, a private equity fund run by his son Tagg Romney.

The campaign said a third trust for the Romney children, not listed in the disclosure, was worth $100 million.

The royalties for Romney's 2010 book, "No Apology: The Case for American Greatness," dipped to between $50,000 and $100,000. Last year, the royalties came in between $100,001 and $1million. Romney has donated the profits to charity, according to the disclosures.

The filings do not allow for a precise calculation of Romney's fortune. In January, he pegged his net worth at "between 150 [million] and about 200 and some odd million" dollars during an appearance on Univision. A recent analysis of his holdings by Forbes estimated his fortune to be worth $230 million.

Such wealth would make him among the richest occupants of the White House — a group that includes George Washington, whose net worth, adjusted to today's dollars, may have been as much as $500 million because of his land holdings.

Romney's riches have presented obstacles for him on the campaign trail, particularly in the GOP primaries, when rival Newt Gingrich cast him as out-of-touch with the average voter. Under pressure, Romney released his tax returns in January for the first time, providing a glimpse inside the complicated architecture of his far-flung holdings.

During the last two years, the Romneys paid about $3 million in federal taxes annually on an income of about $21 million, largely derived through capital gains and dividends, the returns showed.

In 2010, the Romneys reported a gross foreign income of $2.7 million, the best measure of how much they gained from international investments that year.

His campaign said that Romney gains no tax benefit from his overseas investments.   However, a Vanity Fair article published this week revealed that Mitt Romney has heavily invested in foreign tax havens, raising questions about whether he's ever avoided paying U.S. taxes.

We already knew that he had a Swiss bank account until just last year, and that he still owns a mysterious corporation in Bermuda. The article notes that Romney's finances are "deeply entangled" with Bain Capital, including investment funds in the Cayman Islands. We don't know all the details because he won't follow precedent by releasing his tax returns, raising a lot of questions about his finances that Americans deserve to know the answers to. Take a look at this map of Romney's known investments in offshore tax havens, and make sure others see it, too:

  

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COMMENTARY:     I would love to know what Willard's foreign investments are don't you? When I think of foreign tax havens, I think Caymen Islands.  If you watched Tom Cruise in the film, "The Firm," you know what I mean.

With respect to Romney's foreign investments and bank accounts, Reuter's said.  

"Romney advisers stressed that the holdings in the Caymans — along with those in a Swiss bank account that was closed in 2010 after an investment adviser decided it could be politically embarrassing to Romney — were reported on tax returns and were not vehicles to avoid taxes."

Under intense pressure from Republican house members, including former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Republican presidential candidate, Willard finally released his 2010 tax return and estimated for 2011.  Here are a few highlights.

• Willard and wife Anne had combined income of $42.6 million over the past two years (2010 and 2011). 
• Most of Willard's income came from capital gains on investments.   
• Willard paid $6.2 million in taxes over the past two years-- about $3 million was for 2010 and $3.2 million for 2011.
• Willard made $7 million in charitable contributions over the past two years, including at least $4.1 million to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon Church).
• Willard's effective tax rate for 2010 was 13.9%.
• Willard's effective tax rate for 2011 is expected to be 15.4%   

Willard's effective tax rates for the last two years is lower than the vast majority of U.S. taxpayers. By comparison,  POTUS Barack Obama and Newt Gingrich's effective tax rates were 25% and 31% respectively.  

The Washington Post's Wonkblog looked at some historical data and found that Sen. John Kerry paid a 13.1 percent tax rate in 2003 and President Bill Clinton paid an 18.9 in 1990.

It's worth noting that Romney not only pays an effective tax rate that is lower than some middle-class Americans but he also pays a lower effective tax rate than most of his fellow millionaires.

The Tax Foundation reports had this to say:

"By contrast, millionaires pay an average rate of 25 percent. Although taxpayers earning between $2 million and $5 million pay an average tax rate of 26 percent, while those earning more than $10 million pay an average of 22 percent. We can speculate that one of the reasons for this is that much of their overall income comes from capital gains, which is taxed at 15 percent (only 20 percent of the total AGI for these $10 million-plus taxpayers is from salaries). However, even with this "preferential" tax rate on capital gains, the data clearly shows that their overall average tax rate is at least twice that of the nation as a whole."

Romney has vehemently defended his wealth and his tax rate, saying,

"I will not apologize for being successful."

During a late January debate, Romney added responded to questions about his tax returns:

"My tax bill is entirely legal and entirely fair.  You'll see my income, how much taxes I've paid, how much I've paid to charity.  I pay all the taxes that are legally required and not a dollar more. I don't think you want someone as the candidate for president who pays more taxes than he owes."

As a Republican taxpayer, wouldn't you want to know that your candidate for POTUS is paying ALL income taxes on domestic AND foreign investments.   As reflected in the above, the precise value and nature of the majority of Willard's foreign investments is still unknown.   If those foreign investments did not generate income, we all still deserve to know the nature of those investments, the value of those foreign investments, and if there were any losses.  

Willard needs to come clean, and clearly demonstrate that he is abiding to U.S. foreign tax regulations and NOT making those foreign investments in order to avoid income taxes on that income.  

If by happenstance Willard were to be elected POTUS (God forbid), we all deserve to know that he is honest and not willfully evading income taxes on his foreign investments.  Tax evasion is a serious felony, punishable by fines and penalties and five years imprisonment, and it is also an impeachable offense.  We all know how terrible dragging a POTUS through impeachment would be. I am jumping ahead of myself, of course.  Willard has not been elected POTUS yet, but I dare ask,

"Would a Republican (hopefully changed to Democratic) dominated House of Representatives pursue impeachment proceedings against their own POTUS?"        

When I heard that Willard had foreign investments in Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Switzerland and Luxembourg, and that those countries are known for their secrecy when it comes to protecting the identify of bank depositors, and have reputations as tax havens for the rich, I get a queezy feeling in my gut.   I know one thing, if POTUS Obama had similar foreign investments, the House of Representatives would be demanding full disclosure, yet I have not heard shit from those punks in Congress. Kind of makes you wonder if our politicians have similar foreign investments, and just don't want to stirup a hornet's nest. 

Courtesy of an article dated June 2, 2012 appearing in the Los Angeles Times and the Obama-Biden website and an article dated January 24, 2012 appearing in NPR

TEXTING AND DRIVING STATISTICS, WHY ITS DANGEROUS, STATE LAWS, AND TIPS TO STOP TEXTING WHILE DRIVING

Texting and driving has become commonplace among teenagers after more than half of high school seniors admitted to sending messages behind the wheel. 

A national survey, carried out anonymously, found that 58 per cent of seniors said they had texted or emailed while driving in the month of May 2012. 

Some 43 per cent of high school juniors in the U.S. also acknowledged that they had the dangerous habit, according to the study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention today.

Aaron Deveau, 18, was sentenced to a year in prison yesterday after he killed a father of three while texting and driving last year in Haverhill, Massachusetts.  (Click Image To Enlarge)

CarInsurance.org prepared the following texting and driving stastics, and the numbers are just appalling.

COMMENTARY:    Texting while driving is a serious crime.  How serious, you ask?   Aaron Deveau, an 18-year old teen, was convicted of motor vehicle homicide by texting – the first driver in Massachusetts to face such charges, the Boston Globe reported.  Prosecutors said Deveau, who pleaded not guilty, was texting on Feb. 20, 2011, when his vehicle swerved across the center line of a Haverhill, Mass., street and crashed head on into Daniel Bowley’s truck, killing the 55-year-old New Hampshire father of three.   On June 6, 2012, Deveau was sentenced to a year in prison and loss of his license for 15 years for causing a fatal crash by texting while driving.  This is the kid being carted off to prison.

Aaron Defeau, the 18-yr old Massachusetts teen shortly after sentencing to one year in prison for texting while driving (Click Image To Enlarge)

Bowley’s sister, Donna Burleigh, said her brother suffered severe head trauma and lingered in a Boston hospital for 18 days before dying.

Before imposing the maximum sentence on Deveau, District Court Judge Stephen Abany said he was sending a message of deterrence to Massachusetts drivers.

Abany said, according to the Globe report.

"Deterrence really seems to come to play in this case.  People really want to be safe on the highways. People need to keep their eyes on the road, keep their eyes on the road.’’

Courtesy of an infographic appearing in CarInsurance.org