Where to stash your cash
While wealthy Europeans prefer to park their extra cash in Switzerland, Americans tend to keep their offshore bank accounts in Panama and the balmy Caribbean. Britain, the Channel Islands, and Ireland are second-tier offshore banking destinations for people on both sides of the Atlantic.
The Economist
Facebook's tax refund
Facebook’s first annual earnings report showed $1.1 billion in pretax profits, but the social networking firm will likely pay zero federal and state taxes. Instead, thanks to some clever bookkeeping, the company is expected to receive a $429 million tax refund.
Businessweek.com
The value of old phones
Americans are hoarding their old phones. Only 20 percent of Americans sell or recycle their old phones, and more than half say they have two or more unused cellphones lying around. Collectively, those phones stack up to a trade-in value of $34 billion.
MarketWatch.com
The wealth of America's megabanks
They don’t call them big banks for nothing. Assessed by international accounting rules, the four biggest U.S. banks—JPMorgan, Bank of America, Citigroup, and Wells Fargo—have combined assets totaling $14.7 trillion. That’s the equivalent of 93 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product in 2012.
Bloomberg.com
Grateful alumni
American colleges and universities raised a total of $31 billion last year. Stanford alone pulled in a record $1 billion. The top 10 fundraisers represent just 0.3 percent of the nation’s accredited nonprofit schools, but they drew 17 percent—or $5.3 billion—of donations nationwide.
Associated Press
