IN THE NEWS TODAY

IN THE NEWS:

Warren Buffett says he made $62,855,038 last year and only paid 17% taxes.

Warren Buffett has called himself mega-rich, but now he's revealing how much money he made last year: $62,855,038. Buffett had revealed that he paid $6,938,744 in federal taxes last year, or 17.4 per cent of his taxable income

Barack Obama more popular with Canadians than Stephen Harper

An Abacus Data survey released Monday found 55 per cent of Canadians think Obama deserves to be re-elected in the November 2012 presidential election.

When asked whether President Obama deserved to be re-elected, a majority of respondents agreed (55%) while 18% believed he did not deserve to be re-elected. Over one in four (27%) respondents were unsure.
A slight majority of Canadians (52%) believed that Obama being re-elected would be the best outcome for Canada while 9% a Republican being elected would be better. Four in ten Canadians (39%) said the outcome doesn’t matter.

Canada urged to arrest George W. Bush on B.C. visit

 

Do not pass go. Do not collect $150,000.
That’s the message from international human rights groups to former U.S. president George W. Bush — a popular, high-rolling guest speaker — when he arrives in Surrey, B.C., for a regional economic conference on Thursday.
Amnesty International wants Canada to hand him a “go to jail card” on charges of directing torture during the CIA’s secret detention programs between 2002 and 2009.
Amnesty is one of several human rights organizations that contend Canada can and should launch a criminal investigation of anyone who lands in the country and is suspected of torture.
They include Human Rights Watch, the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights and the Canadian Centre for International Justice, which filed a 70-page legal brief summarizing “4,000 pages of evidence of the widespread use of torture under the authorization and direction of G.W. Bush as President of the U.S. and Commander-in-chief of the U.S. Armed Forces.”
They cite the U.S. use of torture techniques during Bush’s term in office, including waterboarding, allegations of torture of Guantanamo Bay detainees, and enforced disappearances.
Bush himself has admitted to authorizing waterboarding — or simulated drowning — of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, and said “I’d do it again to save lives.”
For high-profile former officials on the lucrative celebrity speaking circuit, such embarrassment could be bad for business.
Talk may be cheap, but ex-presidents can command as much as $1 million a speech — a record set by Ronald Reagan in Japan. Bill Clinton tops the current list of must-haves with prices up to $350,000.
Bush, who won the Plain English Campaign’s Foot in Mouth lifetime achievement award, has pulled in some $15 million in speaking fees since leaving the Oval Office, a former spokesman told iWatch.



Best countries for business

Rising debt and regulatory constraints continue to damage the reputations of the U.S. and Europe as business-friendly locales, but America's northern neighbour is doing the right things to encourage entrepreneurship with robust tax reform, strong investor protections and a lack of red tape.

We determined the best countries for business by looking at 11 different factors for 134 countries. We considered property rights, innovation, taxes, technology, corruption, freedom (personal, trade and monetary), red tape, investor protection and stock market performance. Click through to see the top 10 countries for doing business.

10. United States:

Previous year's rank: 9; GDP growth: 2.8%; GDP/capita: $47,200; Public debt as % of GDP: 62.3
9. United Kingdom
Previous year's rank: 10; GDP growth: 1.3%; GDP/capita: $34,800; Public debt as % of GDP: 76.1
8. Norway
Previous year's rank: 8; GDP growth: 0.4%; GDP/capita: $54,600; Public debt as % of GDP: 48.9

7. Sweden
Previous year's rank: 7; GDP growth: 5.5%; GDP/capita: $39,100; Public debt as % of GDP: 39.8

6. Singapore
Previous year's rank: 5; GDP growth: 14.5%; GDP/capita: $62,100; Public debt as % of GDP: 105.8

5. Denmark
Previous year's rank: 1; GDP growth: 2.1%; GDP/capita: $36,600; Public debt as % of GDP: 43.4

4. Ireland
Previous year's rank: 6; GDP growth: -1.0%; GDP/capita: $37,300; Public debt as % of GDP: 96.7 

3. Hong Kong

Previous year's rank: 2; GDP growth: 6.8%; GDP/capita: $45,900; Public debt as % of GDP: 17.2

2. New Zealand

Previous year's rank: 3; GDP growth: 1.5%; GDP/capita: $27,700; Public debt as % of GDP: 30.3
1. Canada
Previous year's rank: 4; GDP growth: 3.1%; GDP/capita: $39,400; Public debt as % of GDP: 84.0

As an affluent, high-tech industrial society in the trillion-dollar class, Canada resembles the U.S. in its market-oriented economic system, pattern of production, and affluent living standards. Buffeted by the global economic crisis, the economy dropped into a sharp recession in the final months of 2008, and Ottawa posted its first fiscal deficit in 2009 after 12 years of surplus. Canada's major banks, however, emerged from the financial crisis of 2008-09 among the strongest in the world, owing to the financial sector's tradition of conservative lending practices and strong capitalization.