A short lesson on where our oil comes from to meet our domestic needs. You will be surprised by these numbers!! Take a look...

This chart shows total crude oil imports to the US from the Top 20 source countries in the year 2010. From these 20 courtries, we imported a total of  3,259,534,000 Billion barrels of oil to help meet our domestic energy needs (the unit of measure for oil is in barrels. One barrel equals 42 US gallons of oil),  From Canada and Mexico alone we get 22% and 13%, respectively, for a total of 35% of imports from the Top 20.

 

There is a common misperception that we get "all our oil" from the Middle East.  If you look at the countries in the Top 20 that are Middle Eastern countries (Persian Gulf area) you will find only Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Kuwait.

Combined, these three countries supplied the US with 617,831,000 million barrels of oil, or 19% of the total from the Top 20.

Of this amount imported from the region, Saudi Arabia represents 64% of the total.  Saudi Arabia's imports to the US represent only 12% of the total from the Top 20. 

Since total oil imports are approx 50% (a little less in actuality) of our overall domestic oil use, you can cut all those percentages in half to get a rough estimate of how dependent we are on these foreign sources of oil.

Note: the TOTAL amount of crude oil (JUST crude oil) imported to the US from ALL sources in 2010 was 3,362,856.  The Top 20 countries above provided 97% the total amount imported.  While my calculations are not exact, you can see they will be in pretty close proximity. 

Very cool "Facebook at Night" map they included in their filing to sell their stock to the public. Worth a look!!

Below is a map similar to my favorite map---"The Map of the World at Night" (shown below too). This one was provided by Facebook in their legal filing to go public with their stock (HT: MoneyBox).  It shows the flow of interaction between users around the world.  Look at the dearth of "light" (hence, Facebook penetration) on the Eurasian continent.  Compare the two maps. Amazingly consistent.  BUT I do see a couple of areas in the world where the maps are at odds with each other. Can you see them???

Source: Mattew Yglesias at MoneyBox

Nice chart showing where the projected jobs in the next 10 years will be...Are you prepared?

Healthcare is the place to be for short to medium range employment prospects by a substantial margin.  The waves of late baby-boomers (early to mid 50's) are going to require more care.  Read more HERE.

Source: Economix

Google is known for its tough interview questions/scenarios---I think IKEA has them beat. How would YOU do with this one?

(HT: Mike Fladlein) I would not fair well in this interview. Having just relocated from the Dallas/Ft Worth area to the Chicago area, I have purchased and assembled furniture from IKEA in the past month.

Source: Mike Fladlien

Observations: the quality of "assemble yourself" furniture has improved tremendously in the last 10-15 years or so.  Gone are the days of putting in a screw and it coming out the side if you did not put it in perfectly straight.  The engineering has rendered this almost impossible to do. 

Second, with all the advancements it STILL takes me 2 to 3 times longer to put a piece together.  I underestimate my opportunity costs everytime! 

We had to hire a handyman for a couple of jobs as well.  He told me a good part of his business is FINISHING the assembly of  IKEA furniture that people started and could not finish.  Opportunity Costs...