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Are you sick of being told what to eat, drink, and do? Then this is your lucky day! Here are ten things that people tell you are bad but actually have healthy aspects to them. In future when someone whines at you – you can point them in the direction of this list and have the last laugh! So onwards, the ten things that are healthier thank you think.
#10 Ice Cream
Ice-cream is a low GI (glycemic-index) food. This means that it is a slow sugar release food that keeps you satisfied for a longer period of time than a high GI food. For that reason, you are less likely to binge after eating ice-cream. 75 grams of Ben and Jerry’s Cookies and Cream ice-cream contains only 114 calories compared to a slice of cheesecake with 511 calories. Furthermore, ice-cream is made of milk which contains many essential nutrients and vitamins. 1 cup of milk contains up to 30% of a man’s daily recommended intake. Other nutrients in ice-cream are biotin, iodine, potassium, selenium, vitamins a, b12, D, and K. Studies show a possible link between milk consumption and a lowered risk of arterial hypertension, coronary heart disease, colorectal cancer.
Interesting Fact: In the 5th century BC, the ancient Greeks sold snow cones made with fruit and honey in the markets of Athens.
……for 1-9 go HERE
Rushing to beat Obamacare and gun bans. Americans can’t trust the government not to infringe on their traditional freedoms.
There is a New Year stampede developing that we have not seen for a long time.
Gun stores are swamped with panicking customers. They are looking for handguns, semiautomatic rifles, and as much ammunition as they can afford. But buyers are not just camouflaged hunters, conspiracy theorists, and gun hoarders. Instead, many of those purchasing firearms and ammo are so-called ordinary people, convinced that this administration will soon begin to centrally register — and then ban — far more than assault rifles.
There were probably lots of reasons why Adam Lanza shot 26 innocent children and adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. But so far the government and media are not focusing much on his prior obsessions with violent video games, on society’s seeming inability to hospitalize the unstable, or on the crude violence peddled in Hollywood and through popular music that portrays shooting people as a sort of cheap fantasy without consequences.
Instead, the administration is zeroing in on the ability of Lanza’s mother to legally buy semiautomatic weapons that her son then stole to murder her and the schoolchildren and employees. The result is a pandemic of fear that the Second Amendment will be reinterpreted and redefined as never before.
There will not be much deficit reduction and certainly no balanced budgets, adding insult to injury for those who must pay the government far more.
The new, higher rates come on top of state-income-tax hikes in much of the country — all in addition to further increases in capital-gains taxes, new Obamacare taxes, and much steeper inheritance taxes. The result is not just a 3 percent to 5 percent increase on the well-off, but for some payers aggregate hikes of 7 percent to 8 percent or even more.
No wonder many companies are rushing to pay dividends now to beat rising capital-gains-tax rates. Likewise, many individuals are considering expensive new life-insurance policies to protect their heirs from losing small farms and businesses to steep new federal estate taxes. Red states will attract even more refugees fleeing high-tax and near-insolvent blue states.
Most Americans are already seeing their health-insurance premiums shoot up in anticipation of the 2014 federal takeover of health care. To pay for the vast Obamacare programs — whose details still remain a mystery for most — money will be raised in all sorts of bizarre ways, from reducing Medicare coverage to taxing new medical devices and some drug makers.
A sense of foreboding hangs over the currently insured. Almost everyone is unsure whether the new federal statutes will still cover currently covered procedures — or whether they will be rationed or curtailed altogether. Expect many people to schedule check-ups and major medical procedures in 2013 before Obamacare kicks in.
There is a common denominator that underlies all this multifaceted uncertainty. Fairly or not, there is a sense that those who played by the rules and did well have instead done something wrong, or at least are under suspicion — and it is now time for their government to seek atonement from them. Worse still is the dread that the government’s new policies and taxes will not solve problems but may make them worse and prompt even more government engineering.
For the law-abiding gun owner, the federal government may make it more difficult to buy legal arms — even though there is little evidence that gun restrictions per se have stopped shootings, and some evidence that states with lots of armed citizens have lower crime rates. If the semiautomatic-rifle ban does not work, what gun will be banned next to stop violence?
Most well-off taxpayers add up their local, state, federal, payroll, and capital-gains taxes and feel they really have paid their “fair share.” They all know that handing over more won’t solve the fiscal crisis, but instead will only empower more government deficit spending. If new taxes won’t stop deficits, what’s next?
Finally, those who budgeted and provided their own health insurance feel that the new restrictions and higher taxes on their coverage are the costs of subsidizing many who could have bought, but chose not to buy, their own health insurance.
The ability of citizens to protect their households, to keep at least half their earnings safe from various government taxes, and to use their own judgment in making health-care decisions is central to a free people. No wonder the fear that a radically growing government will infringe on such traditional freedoms is stampeding millions of panicky Americans in all directions.
— Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and the author, most recently, of The End of Sparta. You can reach him by e-mailing author@victorhanson.com. © 2013 Tribune Media Services
“We are being played; it’s time we learned the game” Drawing blood is always an option, but there’s also a “cleaner” way to control the crowds by manipulating their minds with the cattle prods of collectivist morals and a fictional narrative that supplants the reality. Let’s call it the Mind Game of Manipulative Illusions……..
……read it all HERE
How could the U.S. still not be the first destination of global capital in search of safe (although historically low) prospective returns? Well, Armageddon is not around the corner. I don’t believe in the imminent demise of the U.S. economy and its financial markets. But I’m afraid for them.
Apparently so are many others, among them the IMF (International Monetary Fund), the CBO (Congressional Budget Office) and the BIS (Bank of International Settlements). What they’re saying is that when it comes to debt and to the prospects for future debt, the U.S. is a serial offender, an addict whose habit extends beyond weed or cocaine and who frequently pleasures itself with budgetary crystal meth. Uncle Sam’s habit, say these respected agencies, will be a hard (and dangerous) one to break.
What standards or guidelines do their reports use and how best to explain them? Well, the three of them all try to compute what is called a “fiscal gap,” a deficit that must be closed either with spending cuts, tax hikes or a combination of both which keeps a country’s debt/GDP ratio under control. The fiscal gap differs from the “deficit” in that it includes future estimated entitlements such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid which may not show up in current expenditures.
These studies (when averaged) suggest that we need to cut spending or raise taxes by 11% of GDP and rather quickly over the next five to 10 years. An 11% “fiscal gap” in terms of today’s economy speaks to a combination of spending cuts and taxes of $1.6 trillion per year! To put that into perspective, CBO has calculated that the expiration of the Bush tax cuts and other provisions would only reduce the deficit by a little more than $200 billion. As well, the failed attempt at a budget compromise by Congress and the President – the so-called Super Committee “Grand Bargain”– was a $4 trillion battle plan over 10 years worth $400 billion a year.
These studies suggest close to four times that amount in order to douse the inferno.??Look at who’s in that ring of fire alongside the U.S. There’s Japan, Greece, the U.K., Spain and France, sort of a rogues’ gallery of debtors. Look as well at which countries have their budgets and fiscal gaps under relative control – Canada, Italy, Brazil, Mexico, China and a host of other developing as opposed to developed countries.
America’s abusive tendencies can be described in more ways than an 11% fiscal gap and a $1.6 trillion current dollar hole which needs to be filled. It’s well publicized that the U.S. has $16 trillion of outstanding debt, but its future liabilities in terms of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are less tangible and therefore more difficult to comprehend. Suppose, though, that when paying payroll or income taxes for any of the above benefits, American citizens were issued a bond that they could cash in when required to pay those future bills. The bond would be worth more than the taxes paid because the benefits are increasing faster than inflation. The fact is that those bonds today would total nearly $60 trillion, a disparity that is four times our publicized number of outstanding debt. We owe, in other words, not only $16 trillion in outstanding, Treasury bonds and bills, but $60 trillion more. In my example, it just so happens that the $60 trillion comes not in the form of promises to pay bonds or bills at maturity, but the present value of future Social Security benefits, Medicaid expenses and expected costs for Medicare. Altogether, that’s a whopping total of 500% of GDP, dear reader, and I’m not making it up. Kindly consult the IMF and the CBO for verification.
Investment conclusions?
So I posed the question earlier: How can the U.S. not be considered the first destination of global capital in search of safe (although historically low) returns? Easy answer: It will not be if we continue down the current road and don’t address our “fiscal gap.” IF we continue to close our eyes to existing 8% of GDP deficits, which when including Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare liabilities compose an average estimated 11% annual “fiscal gap,” then we will begin to resemble Greece before the turn of the next decade. Unless we begin to close this gap, then the inevitable result will be that our debt/GDP ratio will continue to rise, the Fed would print money to pay for the deficiency, inflation would follow and the dollar would inevitably decline. Bonds would be burned to a crisp and stocks would certainly be singed; only gold and real assets would thrive within the “Ring of Fire.”
If that be the case, the U.S. would no longer be in the catbird’s seat of global finance and there would be damage aplenty, not just to the U.S. but to the global financial system itself, a system which for 40 years has depended on the U.S. economy as the world’s consummate consumer and the dollar as the global medium of exchange. If the fiscal gap isn’t closed even ever so gradually over the next few years, then rating services, dollar reserve holding nations and bond managers embarrassed into being reborn as vigilantes may together force a resolution that ends in tears. It would be a scenario for the storybooks, that’s for sure, but one which in this instance, investors would want to forget. The damage would likely be beyond repair.
If you want to live big, you have to pay big. Some of the greatest, largest, most exquisite homes in the world.
10. Rybolovlev Estate — $95 Million
Once owned by Donald Trump, This home has 18 bedrooms, 22 bathrooms, and last sold for $95 million from its original sale price of $125 million.
9. Silicon Valley Mansion – $100 Million
This one las went for 100 million. Only 5 bedrooms but 9 bathrooms. Has an indoor and outdoor pool.
8. Fleur De Lys – 125 Million
Currently being marketed as the world’s most expensive house, the Fleur De Lys has 41,000 square feet and 15 bedrooms.
7. The Manor – $150 Million
Aaron Spelling built and owns this. This house features 56,000 square feet, 123 rooms, a bowling alley, an ice rink and apparently an entire wing devoted to Spelling’s wife’s wardrobe.
6. The Pinnacle – $155 Million
Owned by Tim Blixseth, in Montana, this house is unique for it has a private chair lift directly from the house to a nearby ski-resort (which Blixseth owns). Best back yard because it’s a ski resort?
5. Franchuk Villa – $161 Million
This five-story, freestanding 10-bedroom Victorian Villa also features an underground indoor swimming pool, panic room, and private movie theatre.
4. The Hearst Mansion – $165 Million
This house was used in The Godfather and JFK spent his honeymoon there. Features three swimming pools, 29 bedrooms, a movie theatre and a disco.
3. Fairfield Pond – $198 Million
This 66,000 square-foot main house has a basketball court, bowling alley, and a $150,000 hot tub.
2. Villa Leopolda – $736 Million
Built by King Leopold II of Belgium in 1902 and located on the French Riviera, this home was purchased by Russian billionaire Prokhorov as a summer home. It has 27 stories, 19 bedrooms, and a rumored 50 full-time gardeners.
1. Antilla – $1,000,000,000
The one billion dollar home. Located in Mumbai, Antilla challenges pretty much everything you’d expect about “what is possible in a home” and “what is possible for architecture.” The 27-story house features six floors of parking, a health level with a jacuzzi, gym, and “ice room,” a ballroom level, several floors of bedrooms and bathrooms and even a four-story garden. The architecture is based on an Indian tradition called Vastu Shastra, which is supposed to be conducive to the movement of positive energy. In keeping with this, each floor has not only a unique design, but an entirely unique set of materials and aesthetic design – meaning each room is meant to look like it’s from a different house.
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