MillionFace

Wat Pa Maha Kaew Temple is the only temple in the world build out of glass bottles and bottle caps.

\

It all began in 1984 when the Buddhist monks started gathering bottles to decorate their shelters.

Read the rest of this entry »

Like all other occupations Media has been dominated by the males. Top positions are usually enjoyed by the males. No doubt the females have been able to make some inroads. In the year 2001, percentage of women journalists was 38%. Twenty eight of the editors of newspapers were females. Percentage of women among television producers, writers and directors stood at 24%.

Some of the women have been able to change the situations prevailing in the media to their favor and become very powerful. Some of the most powerful women in the media who have brought drastic changes in the media world are as follows.

1. Oprah Winfrey: She is one of the most popular television host. She came into limelight through the Oprah Winfrey Show. The Hearst’s O launched by her has a paid circulation of 2.6 million readers. Now she is one of the most famous publishers.

2. Anne Sweeney: She is the co-chair of Disney media networks and president of Disney ABC Television Group. She is responsible for the entertainment offered by Disney and its news television properties all over the world. She is also responsible for maintaining equity of interests of Disney. She has also served as the president of ABC Cables Networks Group and The Disney Channel Worldwide.

Read the rest of this entry »

Special Offers, Price Reductions, Promotions Not Applicable To Victoria Secret 5,000,000 USD Black Diamond Fantasy Miracle Bra, for heaven’s sake somebody tell me, would the person who is spending an obnoxious sum on buying this bra even bat an eyelid about cheap discount offers. Sorry, Victoria Secret, this is sad marketing communication. we are talking about a FIVE MILLION DOLLAR BRA (super duper Luxury, product way far beyond prestige value) and putting discount offer messages on this ad kills the whole style, taste and prestige value attached it.

Anyways more about this Bra

Adriana Lima is the model for the the uber-expensive 2008 fantasy miracle bra from Victoria Secret for this holiday season. The bra, covered in 3575 black diamonds, 117 certified 1-carat round diamonds, and 34 rubies, with two very large black diamond drops (totaling 100-carats) that hang from the center, costs an estimated $5 million. Yes, $5 million will buy you this lavishly decorated bra with a total of 1500-carats.

Celebrity jeweler Martin Katz created this exclusive, one-of-a-kind creation for Victoria’s Secret.

Probably, there are no country with opened economy in the world, which has not suffered from financial crisis. Troubles about solvency of the biggest financial institutions of U.S.A. and Europe push the world financial system to systematic collapse.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling ask parliament to adopt £500 billion bailout for the British banking system.

Lame duck U.S. President George W. Bush held an Oct. 11 meeting with finance ministers of G7, as well as with heads of the IMF and World Bank. At the end of the meeting, Bush said that all its members recognize the seriousness of the current crisis, and that the global crisis requires a global response. The challenge is that the actions of one country do not run or do not undermine the actions of another.

U.S. Treasury Henry Paulson.

George W. Bush and Henry Paulson after the U.S. Congress from the second attempt passed bill on the redemption the country’s financial system over 700 billion dollars owed to American taxpayers.

Protests spread to the United States of the people, who oppose the proposed White House plan of support of financial sector, which will cost the budget in the amount of $ 700 billion.

Women’s anti-war activists and human rights organization «Code Pink» defend the interests of ordinary
taxpayers.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Right to left: British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

At October 6 index of Dow Jones for the first time in four years dropped below 10,000 points.

New York Stock Exchange.

New York Exchange (NYSE).

Since the beginning of the financial crisis the richest Russians have lost a total of $ 230 billion or 52% its capital. These are the outcome of the crisis in the financial projections for the state of Russian billionaires.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Chairman of the Supervisory Board «Alfa Group» Mikhail Fridman.
There is information about the imposition of economic censorship on public television, which allegedly banned on-air mention the word «crisis» and «collapse». None of the three major Russian channels - Channel One, Russia and NTV did not report record 19-percent fall in Russian stocks on Monday October 6. Instead, they talked about meeting of President Medvedev and Mikhail Friedman, during which were discussed opportunities that have arisen for Russian companies in connection with the global financial crisis.
During a recent visit to the Magadan region Dmitry Medvedev got acquainted with the production of gold and silver ingots at Kolymsky Affinazhny plant and an exhibition of Magadan Local History Museum.

Dubai Stock Exchange.

Brazilian Mercantile & Futures Exchange (BM&F).

Panic on Sao Paolo Exchange.

Frankfurt Stock Exchange.

Frankfurt Stock Exchange (FSE).

London Stock Exchange (LSE).

The protest outside the bank Lloyd’s TSB in London.

This ran as part of a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal early this year. Pure brilliance.

Underneath what’s pictured above were these sentences:

No 1st or 2nd Checked Bag Fees

No Change Fees

No Fuel Surcharges

No Snack Fees

No Aisle or Window Seat Fees

No Curbside Checkin Fees

No Phone Reservation Fees

Yes, there are plenty of good reasons why Southwest trounces the competition in customer satisfaction surveys, but this ad sums the main one up nicely. I know what I pay for a ticket is the final price and, to borrow their language, they won’t #$*!% me over.

Now if only they would start flying to Latin America…

Q) What shall I do ?

Ans) I do understand your pain. But please read the following on Stock Market Funda

Once upon a time in a village, a man appeared and announced to the villagers that he would buy monkeys for $10 each. The villagers seeing that there were many monkeys around, went out to the forest, and started catching them. The man bought thousands at $10 and as supply started to diminish, the villagers stopped their effort.

He then announced that he would now buy at $20 each. This renewed the efforts of the villagers and they started catching monkeys again.

Soon the supply diminished even further and people started going back to their farms. The offer increased to $25 each and the supply of monkeys became so little that it was an effort to even see a monkey, let alone catch one!

The man now announced that he would buy monkeys at $50! However, since he had to go to the city on some business, his assistant would now buy on his behalf.

In his absence, the assistant told the villagers, ‘Look at all the monkeys in the big cage that the man has collected. I will sell them to you at $35 and when he returns from the city, you can sell them to him for $50 each.’

The villagers rounded up with all their savings and bought all the monkeys.

Then they never saw the man nor his assistant ever again; only monkeys everywhere!

You now have a better understanding of how the Stock Market works.

FRANKFURT

UK

NYSE

TOKYO

INDIA

PARIS

AND FINALLY

PAKISTAN

$440,000 partying at a swanky California resort days after your $85 billion bailout

In less than a week after federal officials agreed to an $85 billion bailout of American International Group, the insurance firm spent more than $440,000 for a corporate retreat at a swanky California resort.The late-September AIG gathering at the St. Regis Resort in Monarch Beach cost $443,343, according to the invoice. The six-figure sum covered hotel rooms, banquets, golf fees, and spa services at the resort south of Los Angeles.
Read the rest of this entry »

I’m against the $85,000,000,000.00 bailout of AIG. Instead, I’m in favor of giving $85,000,000,000 to America in a ‘We Deserve It Dividend’.

To make the math simple, let’s assume there are 200,000,000 bonafide U.S. Citizens 18+. Our population is about 301,000,000 +/- counting every man, woman and child. So 200,000,000 might be a fair stab at adults 18 and up.. So divide 200 million adults 18+ into $85 billion that equals $425,000.00.

My plan is to give $425,000 to every person 18+ as a ‘We Deserve It Dividend’. Of course, it would NOT be tax free. So let’s assume a tax rate of 30%. Every individual 18+ has to pay $127,500.00 in taxes. That sends $25,500,000,000 right back to Uncle Sam.

But it means that every adult 18+ has $297,500.00 in their pocket. A husband and wife has $595,000.00.

What would you do with $297,500.00 to $595,000.00 in your family?
• Pay off your mortgage – housing crisis solved.
• Repay college loans – what a great boost to new grads
• Put away money for college – it’ll be there
• Save in a bank – create money to loan to entrepreneurs.
• Buy a new car – create jobs
• Invest in the market – capital drives growth
• Pay for your parent’s medical insurance – health care improves
• Enable Deadbeat Dads to come clean – or else

Remember this is for every adult U S Citizen 18+ including the folks who lost their jobs at Lehman Brothers and every other company that is cutting back. And of course, for those serving in our Armed Forces.

If we’re going to re-distribute wealth let’s really do it…instead of trickling out a puny $1000.00 ( “vote buy” ) economic incentive that is being proposed by one of our candidates for President.

If we’re going to do an $85 billion bailout, let’s bail out every adult U S Citizen 18+!

As for AIG –
• liquidate it.
• Sell off its parts.
• Let American General go back to being American General.
• Sell off the real estate.
• Let the private sector bargain hunters cut it up and clean it up.

Here’s my rationale. We deserve it and AIG doesn’t.

Sure it’s a crazy idea that can “never work.” But can you imagine the Coast-To-Coast Block Party! How do you spell Economic Boom?

I trust my fellow adult Americans to know how to use the $85 billion We deserve the ‘We Deserve It Dividend’ more than the geniuses at AIG or in Washington DC .

And remember, The Family plan only really costs $59.5 billion because $25.5 billion is returned instantly in taxes to Uncle Sam.

Ahhh…I feel so much better getting that off my chest.

Click to Enlarge Image

Don’t know how far this is true, but a friend of mine forwarded me this

This is so shocking…….wish black money deposits was an Olympics event….India would have won a gold medal hands down. The second best Russia has 4 times lesser deposit. US is not even there in the counting in top five !! India has more money in swiss banks than all the other countries
combined

Recently, due to international pressure, Swiss govt. agreed to disclose the names of the account holders only if the respective govts formally asked for it. Indian govt. is not asking for the details…….no marks for guessing why ????

We need to start a movement to pressurize the govt. to do so !! this is perhaps the only way, and a golden opportunity, to expose the high and mighty and weed out corruption !!

Please read on……and forward to all the honest Indians to…..like somebody is forwarding to you…….and build a ground-swell of support for action !!

Is India poor, who says? Ask Swiss banks With personal account deposit bank of $1500 billion in foreign reserve which have been misappropriated, an amount 13 times larger than the country’s foreign debt, one needs to rethink if India is a poor country?.

DISHONEST INDUSTRIALISTS, scandalous politicians and corrupt IAS, IRS, IPS officers have deposited in foreign banks in their illegal personal accounts a sum of about $ 1500 billion, which have been misappropriated by them.

This amount is about 13 times larger than the country’s foreign debt. With this amount 45 crore poor people can get Rs 1,00,000 each. This huge amount has been appropriated from the people of India by exploiting and betraying
them.

Once this huge amount of black money and property comes back to India , the entire foreign debt can be repaid in 24 hours. After paying the entire foreign debt, we will have surplus amount, almost 12 times larger than the foreign debt. If this surplus amount is invested in earning interest, the amount of interest will be more than the annual budget of the Central government. So even if all the taxes are abolished, then also the Central government will be able to maintain the country very comfortably.

Some 80,000 people travel to Switzerland every year, of whom 25,000 travel very frequently.

“Obviously, these people won’t be tourists. They must be travelling there for some other reason,” believes an official involved in tracking illegal money. And, clearly, he isn’t referring to the commerce ministry bureaucrats who’ve been flitting in and out of Geneva ever since the World Trade Organisation (WTO) negotiations went into a tailspin!

Just read the following details and note how thesedishonest industrialists, scandalous politicians, corrupt officers, cricketers, film actors, illegal sex trade and protected wildlife operators, to name just a few, sucked this country’s wealth and prosperity. This may be the picture of deposits in Swiss banks only. What about other international banks?

Black money in Swiss banks — Swiss Banking Association report, 2006 details bank deposits in the territory of Switzerland by nationals of following countries:

Top five
India—- $1,456 billion
Russia —$ 470 billion
UK ——-$390 billion
Ukraine - $100 billion
China —–$ 96 billion

Now do the maths - India with $1456 billion or $1.4 trillion has more money in Swiss banks than rest of the world combined. Public loot since 1947:

Can we bring back our money? It is one of the biggest loots witnessed by mankind — the loot of the Aam Aadmi (common man) since 1947, by his brethren occupying public office. It has been orchestrated by politicians, bureaucrats and some businessmen.

The list is almost all-encompassing. No wonder, everyone in India loots with impunity and without any fear.

What is even more depressing in that this ill-gotten wealth of ours has been stashed away abroad into secret bank accounts located in some of the world’s best known tax havens. And to that extent the Indian economy has been stripped of its wealth.

Ordinary Indians may not be exactly aware of how such secret accounts operate and what are the rules and regulations that go on to govern such tax havens. However, one may well be aware of ‘Swiss bank accounts,’ the shorthand for murky dealings, secrecy and of course pilferage from developing countries into rich developed ones.

In fact, some finance experts and economists believe tax havens to be a conspiracy of the western world against the poor countries. By allowing the proliferation of tax havens in the twentieth century, the western world explicitly encourages the movement of scarce capital from the developing countries to the rich.

In March 2005, the Tax Justice Network (TJN) published a research finding demonstrating that $11.5 trillion of personal wealth was held offshore by rich individuals across the globe.

The findings estimated that a large proportion of this wealth was managed from some 70 tax havens.
Further,augmenting these studies of TJN, Raymond Baker — in his widely celebrated book titled ‘Capitalism’ s Achilles Heel: Dirty Money and How to Renew the Free Market System’ — estimates that at least $5 trillion have been shifted out of poorer countries to the West since the mid-1970.

It is further estimated by experts that one per cent of the world’s population holds more than 57 per cent of total global wealth, routing it invariably through these tax havens. How much of this is from India is anybody’s guess.

What is to be noted here is that most of the wealth of Indians parked in these tax havens is illegitimate money acquired through corrupt means.

Naturally, the secrecy associated with the bank accounts in such places is central to the issue, not their low tax rates as the term ‘tax havens’ suggests. Remember Bofors and how India could not trace the ultimate beneficiary of those transactions because of the secrecy associated with
these bank accounts?

The Hong Kong International Airport was named the world’s best for the seventh year in an annual survey of passengers, with Asian airports dominating the top positions in the list.

The annual survey conducted by Skytrax, a U.K.-based consultancy, judges airports on more than 40 categories, ranking them after collecting 8.2 million questionnaires completed by passengers over a 10-month period.

The passengers judged 190 airports on factors like shopping, dining, staff courtesy, baggage delivery and wait-times at security.

Hong Kong, with its reputation for efficiency and comfort, bested airports in Singapore and Seoul, South Korea, which ranked second and third.

Also in the top 10 were airports in Kansai, Japan, and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Airports in Europe - Munich, Germany; Copenhagen, Denmark; Zurich, Switzerland; and Helsinki, Finland - took most of the remaining top spots.

Cape Town, South Africa rounded out the list at No.10.

Missing from the list were any airports in the United States, for me which is not hard to believe considering the amount of Traffic handled by American Airports. After all 10 out of the top 20 worlds busiest airports by passenger traffic are in the US .

Here is the list of top 5 busiest US airports, Atlanta and O’ Hare have been the busiest in the world for many many years

1) Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport - Atlanta
2) O’Hare International Airport - Chicago
3) Los Angeles International Airport - Los Angeles
4) Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport - Dallas-Fort Worth
5) Denver International Airport - Denver

Read the rest of this entry »