Interesting data and presentation by Pew Research, here.
There’s a button at the top that lets you choose between “Favorable” and “Unfavorable” and one that lets you zoom into a particular year and see the rankings by country, toggling between favorable and unfavorable.
My take is that from 2002 from now our favorability in most countries went down substantially in the 2002->2007 time period, then back up, since. YMMV.
This week’s topic was is about non-profits. It was prompted by a comment about the way that non-profit PBS is treated under the law, and the tax code, and through public subsidies rather than the way that for-profit business, that seem to do similar things are treated.
Underlying that, was this principle (again, as best I can remember it) that there should be equal treatment under the law.
There are two subjects here: public subsidies and tax treatment of non-profits, and tax-deductions for donors. I’ve only begun to dig into the subject. Here is some interesting reading.
Forbes article suggests the possibility of taxing non-profits.
Article from Pew Charitable trusts on taxing non-profits. Includes a description of the plan proposed by Gov. Le Page, and a table of asset holdings of exempt organizations, by state. The total is $5 trillion. (We are a rich country!)
An article from the Washington Post on the effect of Virginia’s law which, like the Le Page proposal, lets local governments tax some non-profits.
But of course, not religious organizations! Neither Le Page’s proposal nor Virginia’s allow that. This piece in Time proposes that churches should pay their share. Although neither proposes to remove the exemption for donations.
But why not? And why not churches, too.
Here is some interesting reading related to that:
“Are churches making America poor” from Newsweek.
“How 727 megachurches spend their money” from Christianity today.
Finances of the Catholic Church in the United State from The Economist. Interesting facts: the Economist estimates that the Church spends about $170 billion a year. Bigger than GE. More employees than Wal-Mart.
“Only a third of charitable contributions go to the poor” from Washington Post.
Could the United States meet its electricity requirements using solar power? The answer seems to be yes, in theory, but there’s a long, long, long, loooong way to go to get there.
A 2012 report from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory gives the total consumption of electricity in the US (2011) as 3,856 TWh (Terrawatt-hours). The report assess the “available renewable energy resources” for each state and state that “urban utility scale photovoltaics” could supply almost 2/3 that amount, rooftop photovoltaics could produce 20% more. Rural scale photovoltaics, onshore and offshore wind could produce way, way more. The total, if exploited, would be more than 100 times current consumption. Wikipedia Ref. Source material ref.
Where are we now? Here’s a graphic that shows the sources and uses of energy in the United States
Sources and uses of energy
A looooong way to go.