400 richest Americans now worth $2 trillion

CNBC's Robert Frank.
The 400 richest Americans are now worth a combined $2 trillion, according to Forbes. That sets a record, Forbes said, and marks a jump from last year's total of $1.7 trillion.

The average net worth of a Forbes 400 member is now $5 billion—also the highest ever. And the costs of being part of the 400 Club rose to $1.3 billion.

But it's the $2 trillion number that remains the most interesting. The 400 richest are now worth more than the GDPs of many nations—and they are worth more than most governments spend or tax.

Here is some perspective on what the 400 richest Americans are really worth.

$2 trillion is more than the combined net worth of half of all Americans. The bottom half, of course.
$2 trillion is more than the annual GDP of Italy, Mexico or Canada.
$2 trillion is equal to the Federal Reserve's holdings of publicly traded U.S. Treasurys.
$2 trillion is the estimated size of the underground economy, mostly unreported income.
$2 trillion would fund all government spending through July of this year.
$2 trillion is equal to about two-thirds of all taxes to be collected in the U.S. for 2013.
$2 trillion would pay for all of the existing home sales in the U.S. in 2012 AND 2013 year-to-date.

Death of Privacy

Imagine the government passed a law requiring all citizens to carry a tracking device. Such a law would immediately be found unconstitutional. Yet we all carry mobile phones.

If the National Security Agency required us to notify it whenever we made a new friend, the nation would rebel. Yet we notify Facebook. If the Federal Bureau of Investigation demanded copies of all our conversations and correspondence, it would be laughed at. Yet we provide copies of our e-mail to Google, Microsoft or whoever our mail host is; we provide copies of our text messages to Verizon, AT&T and Sprint; and we provide copies of other conversations to Twitter Inc., Facebook, LinkedIn or whatever other site is hosting them.

The primary business model of the Internet is built on mass surveillance, and our government’s intelligence-gathering agencies have become addicted to that data. Understanding how we got here is critical to understanding how we undo the damage.

Computers and networks inherently produce data, and our constant interactions with them allow corporations to collect an enormous amount of intensely personal data about us as we go about our daily lives. Sometimes we produce this data inadvertently simply by using our phones, credit cards, computers and other devices. Sometimes we give corporations this data directly on Google, Facebook, Apple Inc.’s iCloud and so on in exchange for whatever free or cheap service we receive from the Internet in return. Read more >>

Revealed: Microsoft handed the NSA access to encrypted messages

*Secret files show scale of Silicon Valley co-operation on Prism 
*Outlook.com encryption unlocked even before official launch
*Skype worked to enable Prism collection of video calls
*Company says it is legally compelled to comply

Microsoft has collaborated closely with US intelligence services to allow users' communications to be intercepted, including helping the National Security Agency to circumvent the company's own encryption, according to top-secret documents obtained by the Guardian.

The files provided by Edward Snowden illustrate the scale of co-operation between Silicon Valley and the intelligence agencies over the last three years. They also shed new light on the workings of the top-secret Prism program, which was disclosed by the Guardian and the Washington Post last month. Read more >>

New Xbox by NSA partner Microsoft will watch you 24/7

Possible privacy violations by Microsoft’s upcoming Xbox One have come under new scrutiny since it was revealed Thursday that the tech giant was a crucial partner in an expansive Internet surveillance program conducted by the National Security Agency and involving Silicon Valley’s biggest players.

One of the console’s key features is the full integration of the Kinect, a motion sensing camera that allows users to play games, scroll through menus, and generally operate the Xbox just using hand gestures. Microsoft has touted the camera as the hallmark of a new era of interactivity in gaming.

What Microsoft has not promoted, however, is the fact that you will not be able to power on the console without first enabling the Kinect, designed to detect both heartbeats and eye movement. and positioning yourself in front of it.

Disturbingly, a recently published Microsoft patent reveals the Kinect has the capability to determine exactly when users are viewing ads broadcast by the Xbox through its eye movement tracking. Consistent ad viewers would be granted rewards, according to the patent. Read more >>

Wealthy Eye London, New York as World’s Rich to Increase by 50%

London and New York will be the top destinations for the world’s wealthy elite as the number of people worth more than $30 million swells 50 percent over the next decade, according to Knight Frank LLP’s Wealth Report.

The two cities will remain the favored locations for the world’s richest people until 2023 even though the fastest wealth creation will be in Asia and Latin America, according to the London-based property consulting firm.

The wealthiest 100 billionaires’ net worth rose by $241 billion to $1.9 trillion in 2012 in spite of Europe’s debt crisis and a stalling U.S. economic recovery, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a daily ranking of the world’s 100 wealthiest individuals. Carlos Slim, the telecommunications magnate who controls Mexico’s America Movil SAB (AMX), is the richest person in the world with a net worth of $71 billion, followed by Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) founder Bill Gates and Amancio Ortega, founder of retailer Inditex SA. (ITX)

“Wealth creation has not been dented by the global economy slowing, nor has this affected the demand for prime property as the search for safe haven investments has continued,” said Liam Bailey, global head of residential research at Knight Frank. “These factors will likely drive prime values higher in the short to medium term.” Read more >>

Are we throwing in the towel on American workers?

Last week the nation's jobless rate ticked back up to 7.9%, yet at Microsoft more than 6,000 jobs go begging. These are jobs that pay, on average, $104,000 for applicants with only a bachelor's of science degree. "Great jobs," notes Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith. No kidding.

Multiply that across America's high-technology landscape and the total is tens of thousands of jobs requiring math, science and engineering skills that companies can't fill—a good chunk of the 3.7 million job vacancies reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Whether those jobs should be reserved for Americans who someday may qualify—or farmed out to a ready-made pool of high-skilled foreigners—will be one of many pitched debates over the immigration reform legislation introduced last week. Read more >>

Company develops eye-control software for phones, tablets

 A Danish company hopes to clinch deals with major mobile phone and tablet makers after developing software that enables users to control their devices by moving their eyes, it said Wednesday.

"You can use it for basic control, such as turning to the next page in an e-book, and playing games with your eyes," chief executive and co-founder of The Eye Tribe, Sune Alstrup Johansen, told AFP.

The software uses infrared light reflected from the pupil of the eye, which is recorded by the device's camera, enabling users to scroll or click on their screens with their eyes.

When you are reading an e-book and get to the bottom of the page, the software will know to turn to the next page, or if you look away from the screen it will dim it.

The Eye Tribe is made up of four PhD students who founded the company a year ago. They received $800,000 (615,000 euros) in funding in August to develop the technology. Read more >>

Intel sales sink as PCs slump

Weak PC sales finally caught up to Intel, dragging the chipmaking giant's sales and profits lower in the third quarter. Back-to-school sales typically boost computer demand in the late summer, but a weakening global economy and consumers' shift to tablets cut PC demand to half its third-quarter norm, Intel said. The company's PC chip sales fell by 8% last quarter, in-line with the overall global PC market.

For the current quarter, Intel doesn't expect any improvement, anticipating that PC sales will grow at half their seasonal rate. Computer makers are taking a very cautious approach with their inventories as the global economy continues to slump. They are also taking a wait-and-see approach to Microsoft's Windows 8 launch, which will take place on Oct. 26.

"Our third-quarter results reflected a continuing tough economic environment," said Paul Otellini, Intel's CEO, on a conference call with analysts. "The world of computing is in the midst of a period of breakthrough innovation and creativity. Intel has a history of navigating industry's transitions and emerging better and stronger." Read more >>

NYPD unveils new Orwellian super computer

The NYPD is starting to look like a flashy, forensic crime TV show thanks to a new super computer system unveiled Wednesday near Wall St.

The Domain Awareness System designed by the NYPD and Microsoft Corp. uses data from a network of cameras, radiation detectors, license plate readers and crime reports, officials said.

“We’re not your mom and pop police department anymore,” Mayor Bloomberg crowed. “We are in the next century. We are leading the pack.”

The system, which cost somewhere between $30 and $40 million to develop, could also help pay for itself with the city expecting to earn 30% of the profits on Microsoft sales to other city’s and countries, Bloomberg said.

The joint venture began when the NYPD approached Microsoft about the effort, officials said. Cops were involved with the programmers throughout the process, earning the city its cut of the proceeds.

Officials declined to predict how much the city’s share of the system could be worth. “For years, we’ve been stovepiped as far as databases are concerned,” NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly said. “Now, everything that we have about an incident, an event, an individual comes together on that workbench, so it’s one-stop shopping for investigators.” Read more >>

FBI Pushing For Forced Wiretap-Ready Web Sites

The FBI is asking Internet companies not to oppose a controversial proposal that would require firms, including Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo, and Google, to build in backdoors for government surveillance. In meetings with industry representatives, the White House, and U.S. senators, senior FBI officials argue the dramatic shift in communication from the telephone system to the Internet has made it far more difficult for agents to wiretap Americans suspected of illegal activities, CNET has learned.

The FBI general counsel's office has drafted a proposed law that the bureau claims is the best solution: requiring that social-networking Web sites and providers of VoIP, instant messaging, and Web e-mail alter their code to ensure their products are wiretap-friendly.

"If you create a service, product, or app that allows a user to communicate, you get the privilege of adding that extra coding," an industry representative who has reviewed the FBI's draft legislation told CNET. The requirements apply only if a threshold of a certain number of users is exceeded, according to a second industry representative briefed on it. More...

CEO's Earn More Than Firms Pay in US Taxes

At least 25 top United States companies paid more to their chief executives in 2010 than they did to the federal government in taxes, according to a study released on Wednesday.

The companies — which include household names like eBay, Boeing, General Electric (Msnbc.com is a joint venture of Microsoft Corp. and NBC Universal, which is jointly owned by Comcast Corp. and General Electric) and Verizon — averaged $1.9 billion each in profits, according to the study by the Institute for Policy Studies, a liberal-leaning research group. But a variety of shelters, loopholes and tax reduction strategies allowed the companies to average more than $400 million each in tax benefits — which can be taken as a refund or used as write-off against earnings in future years. More...

Microchip Implant to Link Health Records, Credit History, Social Security

By Jim Edwards
Novartis and Proteus Biomedical are not the only companies hoping to implant microchips into patients so that their pill-popping habits can be monitored. VeriChip of Delray Beach, Fl., has an even bolder idea: an implanted chip that links to an online database containing all your medical records, credit history and your social security ID.

As this presentation to investors makes clear, the chip and its database could form the basis of a new national identity database lined to Social Security and NationalCreditReport.com. The VeriMed Health Link homepage describes the chip:

… a tiny, passive microchip (the nation’s first and only microchip cleared for patient identification by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration) and a secure, private online database that links you to your personal health record. Your Health Link is always with you and cannot be lost or stolen.

That database can be accessed by doctors and nurses:

About the size of a grain of rice, the microchip is inserted just under the skin and contains only a unique, 16-digit identifier. The microchip itself does not contain any other data other than this unique electronic ID, nor does it contain any Global Positioning System (GPS) tracking capabilities. And unlike conventional forms of identification, the Health Link cannot be lost, stolen, misplaced, or counterfeited. It is safe, secure, reversible, and always with you.

But VeriChip’s ambitions don’t end there, as this diagram indicates:

Yes, it shows your Health Link chip linked to Google, Microsoft, employers and insurers. The company also sees the VeriMed Health Link linked to your “identity security services,” through a separate VeriChip product, PositiveID. This slide show states:

PositiveID puts people in control of their personal health records and financial information, bridging the gap between secure medical records and identity security

PositiveID dovetails with Health Link:

Cross marketing opportunities: cross-sell the NationalCreditReport.com customer base the Health Link personal health record and vice-versa

Differentiates PositiveID as the only personal health record that offers identity theft protection

It’s a future in which your doctor tags you like a dog with a microchip that allows anyone with the right privileges to look at your medical records, credit history, social security number (see slide 6), and anything else that stems from that.

Suddenly, storing medical records on paper in locked cabinets inside a single doctor’s office starts to look like something we may not want to rush to give up.