Oddly Relevant Mar-12-2013

What millionaires moving to save on taxes says about them, and us: John Paulson’s consideration for Puerto Rico for residency (he is apparently the 11^th wealthy American that does so) and Eduardo Saverin’s Singapore residency speak volume. [Note: a clever option that the wealthy has that does not restrict them from doing their regular business]…Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/03/12/what-millionaires-moving-to-save-on-taxes-says-about-them-and-us/

The rationale behind “smuggling” milk powder from Hong Kong: “when you get pregnant, go to Hong Kong and buy three cans of milk powder. When you get caught at the border and are unable to pay the 500,000, you will get sentenced to two years in jail. There, you are safe from gutter oil [a cheap recycled oil illicitly used in some Chinese foods]. When you give birth, your child automatically receives Hong Kong citizenship and the HK government will provide you with milk powder. After two years you return to the mainland, and when your child turns 18 you all move to HK to lead a happy middle-class life” [Note: ditto]…Source: http://www.tealeafnation.com/2013/03/from-one-hub-a-view-of-chinas-worldwide-underground-milk-powder-network/

How predictable are we on Facebook?  Perhaps quite so, according to PNAS research. Given a dataset of over 58,000 volunteers who provided their Facebook Likes, the researcher used dimensionality reduction techniques and regressed the processed variables to predict sexual orientation, ethnicity, and political views. It’s correct in differentiation 80%+ of the time. [Note: interesting, but what does it really tell us?]…Source: http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2013/03/you-are-fairly-predictable-perhaps.html