Let's say you want to buy a house and go the bank and get a loan. Say 200k. The simple truth is, after thirty years you will have payed back 600k. 200k for the principal and 400k (!!) in interest.
Now this might be ok, or at least somewhat understandable, if you were borrowing this money from somebody else, who has been saving it. But as we know, this is not the case. The money is produced the moment the loan is granted by the bank. In a computer program. By pressing a few buttons.
So basically you pay 400k interest for pressing a button. Granted, the bank needs to manage the loan during the time it is being repaid. But the cost for this is still only a fraction of the income they get through the interest.
Interest - Our Invisible Slavery
Nuclear watchdog groups say corners cut on fire safety
Nuclear watchdog groups say that an internal report by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on fire safety at nuclear plants shows that regulators don't have enough information to know whether its new fire rules will ensure safety.
The NRC, in response, said the new fire plan was the product of years of extensive research, would improve safety and was ready to use. The first plant approved to use the new regulations is Progress Energy's Harris nuclear plant in North Carolina.
50 state attorneys general announce foreclosure probe
The attorneys general of all 50 U.S. states announced Wednesday that they are joining to probe mortgage loan servicers who are accused of submitting false affidavits, but they stopped short of calling for a national moratorium.
The multistate investigation will initially focus on whether Bank of America, J.P. Morgan Chase, Ally Financial and other large mortgage companies made misleading or fraudulent statements to evict struggling borrowers from their homes.
FDA warns of thigh fractures with bone drugs
Osteoporosis drugs used by millions of women to prevent bones from breaking may increase the chances for an unusual type of thigh fracture, U.S. health officials warned on Wednesday. The drugs known as bisphosphonates include Merck & Co Inc's Fosamax, Roche Holding AG's Boniva, Novartis AG's Reclast and Warner Chilcott Plc's Actonel.
The action could drive patients to Amgen Inc's just-launched rival medicine, Prolia, a different type of osteoporosis drug that is the company's most important future growth driver.
NPR Bans Employees From Jon Stewart's & Stephen Colbert's Rallies
NPR has reminded its employees that they are not allowed to participate in the upcoming rallies led by Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert."NPR journalists may not participate in marches and rallies involving causes or issues that NPR covers, nor should they sign petitions or otherwise lend their name to such causes, or contribute money to them," Senior Vice President for News, Ellen Weiss, wrote in a memo Wednesday morning.
"This restriction applies to the upcoming John [sic] Stewart and Stephen Colbert rallies." NPR CEO Vivian Schiller forwarded the memo, sent initially to news staff, to the entire organization, telling employees that the note applied to "digital, programming/AIR, legal and communications" employees in addition to the news staff.
Big Ag lobbyists wrote UK government's report on GM foods
Agribusiness lobbyists took an active role in writing a U.K. government report on genetically modified (GM) foods, two former members of the Food Standards Agency's (FSA's) steering group have revealed.
Dr. Helen Wallace of Genewatch U.K. and Professor Brian Wynne both resigned recently in protest of what Wynne calls a "dogmatically entrenched" pro-GM attitude at the FSA, whose head recently accused GM critics of being "anti-science."
Are We Giving Our Soldiers Drugs That May Make Them Kill Themselves?
More troops are dying by their own hand than in combat, according to an Army report titled "Health Promotion, Risk Reduction, Suicide Prevention." Not only that, but 36 percent of the suicides were troops who were never deployed.
Fossils of earliest land plants discovered in Argentina
The earliest plants to have colonised land have been found in Argentina. The discovery puts back by 10 million years the colonisation of land by plants, and suggests that a diversity of land plants had evolved by 472 million years ago.
The newly found plants are liverworts, very simple plants that lack stems or roots, scientists report in the journal the New Phytologist. That confirms liverworts are likely to be the ancestors of all land plants.
Israeli troops accused of shooting children in Gaza
At least 10 Palestinian children have been shot and wounded by Israeli troops in the past three months while collecting rubble in or near the "buffer zone" created by Israel along the Gaza border, in a low-intensity offensive on the fringes of the blockaded Palestinian territory.
Israeli soldiers are routinely shooting at Gazans well beyond the unmarked boundary of the official 300 metre-wide no-go area, rights groups say.
Page 717 of 1152
