A Lesson From the World’s Richest People

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One of the most fascinating elements of Switzerland’s success is its determination to remain neutral under unimaginable pressure to pick sides. The country has not declared a state of war since 1847 (it never entered the World Wars or the Iraq war) and opted out of joining the European Union. They didn’t even join the United Nations until 2002 and that was only after a country wide referendum.

Despite what you may think of Switzerland’s neutral geopolitical stance, it is hard to argue with the economic results of neutrality:

• The World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report currently ranks Switzerland’s economy as the most competitive in the world.
• In 2010, the Global Wealth Report by Credit Suisse Research Institute found that Switzerland has the highest average wealth per adult at $372,692, with wealth defined by the value of financial and nonfinancial (such as real estate) assets.
• According to Trading Economics, the worst the Swiss unemployment rate ever got during the recent worldwide financial crisis was 4.2 percent in January 2010; today the unemployment rate is around 3.4 percent.
• According to Mercer Consulting, in 2010, Zurich and Geneva were respectively ranked as the cities with the second- and third-highest quality of life in the world (behind Vienna).

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Tea Party: Polls Show Importance To GOP Base

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WASHINGTON — As negotiations continue over raising the debt limit, Republican leaders are at odds with their own base, amid reports that their electoral coalition is breaking down. Public polling data illustrating the growing importance of the Tea Party vividly depicts the intra-party split and demonstrates the pressure Republican leaders now face.

Many national media polls now track the number of Americans who consider themselves Tea Party “supporters.” As shown below, most now find between 25 and 30 percent of respondents fall into that category, with no consistent trend over the last year.
Republican pollster Bill McInturff has taken this measurement a step further in the polls he conducts with Democrat Peter Hart for NBC News and The Wall Street Journal. Since October of last year, their surveys have asked those who identify or lean Republican and consider themselves supporters of the Tea Party to choose the term that describes them better, between “supporter of the Tea Party Movement” and “Republican.”
According to a presentation McInturff posted on his company website, in the NBC/Wall Street Journal surveys conducted in October 2010, this question split Republican voters into roughly thirds.

• 10 percent (of all voters) think of themselves as Tea Party supporters first, Republicans second
• 10 percent who think of themselves as Republicans first, Tea Party supporters second
• 12 percent who are Republicans but do not think of themselves as Tea Party supporters

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A Texas Two-Step: When Rick Perry Backed Al Gore

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There’s an inconvenient political truth for Texas Governor Rick Perry: he was his state’s 1988 campaign chairman for then U.S. Senator Al Gore’s first run at the presidency.
The way their partnership has dissolved and their paths diverged in the past three decades speaks eloquently to the way American politics has been reshaped. Gore has sailed left, while Perry’s political odyssey has seen him tack in the other direction — and to the opposing party. The two men opted for different paths across a dynamic, changing political landscape, and while one man fell short of the White House, the other now contemplates that prize. (See the top 10 debate flubs.)
The tale begins in 1984, four years before Perry took the helm of Gore’s Texas campaign, when Gore, then 36 and a congressional wunderkind from Tennessee, followed in his father’s footsteps by winning a U.S. Senate seat. That same year, Perry, who was 34 and from much humbler roots as the son of a Texas Rolling Plains cotton farmer, won a seat in the Texas house of representatives. Both young men were handsome sons of the South and proudly touted their philosophical bearings in the regionally dominant conservative wing of the Democratic Party.
In 1988, seizing on the opportunity afforded by a lineup of southern primaries on Super Tuesday, Gore announced his bid for the Democratic nomination for President. Ronald Reagan’s second term was drawing to a close, and Republicans were set to nominate the next in line, then Vice President George H.W. Bush. The Democratic field was wide open, with a raft of candidates to the left of Gore, who was dubbed the “southern centrist” by the press.
The young Senator, described by the New York Times as “solidly built, dark and indisputably handsome,” lined up a list of conservative Democratic big-name supporters, including Senators Howard Heflin of Alabama, Terry Sanford of North Carolina, Bennett Johnson of Louisiana and Sam Nunn of Georgia and Governors Jim Hunt of North Carolina and Buddy Roemer of Louisiana. (In 1991 Roemer, like Perry, left the Democratic Party for the GOP; he is now also reportedly considering a Republican presidential run.)Share this article :

News Corp. Reports $125K In 2011 Political Donations

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COLUMBUS, Ohio — Under assault in a phone hacking scandal, News Corp. has met a self-imposed deadline for reporting its 2011 political contributions online.
On Friday, the media company reported a little more than $125,000 in donations, with the biggest single gift of $25,000 going to the Democratic Governors Association.
The company’s board approved a new disclosure policy for its political giving in April after two donations by Rupert Murdoch, the Australian mogul who controls the company, raised concern among shareholders. Murdoch gave $1 million to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and $1.25 million to the Republican Governors Association. He said the RGA contribution was intended to help Republican John Kasich (KAY’-sik), a former commentator on News Corp.’s Fox News. Kasich won the governorship.Share this article :

‘Rescue Me’ Items Head to Smithsonian, Callie Thorne Talks Final Season

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‘Rescue Me’ is fast approaching its swansong. As the cast, crew and fans start to ponder life without the drama, it’s been revealed that creator Denis Leary is giving items — including his firefighter costume and tools — to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.
Executive producer Peter Tolan and actor Lenny Clarke (Teddy Gavin) will join Leary for a donation ceremony at 2PM ET Thursday.
The objects will join the museum’s popular culture history collections. The Smithsonian says today’s ceremony is the first in a series of events to mark the 10th anniversary of Sept. 11 and examine how it will be remembered and how life has changed.
‘Rescue Me’ focuses on the professional and personal lives of a group of New York City firefighters in the fictitious Ladder 62/Engine 99 firehouse as they deal with the grief of losing friends and relatives at Ground Zero. It tackles the daily drama of the life-and-death situations associated with being a firefighter while exploring the ways the men use dark humor to protect their true emotions.
'Rescue Me' Items Head to Smithsonian, Callie Thorne Talks Final Season
The Series Finale of ‘Rescue Me’ is due to air on Wednesday Sept. 7th, a few days ahead of the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
Leary’s co-star Callie Thorne, who’s played Shelia Keefe since the beginning, has spoken about the sadness of filming the final scenes after seven years of working with the same cast and crew.
She told ‘People’ that “The final days of ‘Rescue Me’ were terrible. There were a lot of tears. Especially when people heard, ‘That’s a series wrap on Denis Leary.’ A lot of the guys got really choked up.”
“Denis didn’t cry,” she added. “But he was very quiet. Which is a big deal for Denis Leary.”