What are the largest companies in the world?   Nine of the top ten are from the USA.  We have long been the greatest. Note that #5 shows Google in parentheses next to Alphabet, and #7 has Facebook as part of Meta.  What happened? Google, as you know reinvented the way the world accesses information.   Why restructure? Without much warning in 2015, Google renamed itself Alphabet. This allowed the parent, Alphabet, to expand into domains outside of internet search and advertising. Google now runs a lesser risk of antitrust violations. You might get confused by GOOG and GOOGL, stock ticker symbols of Alphabet.  I won't try to explain it, but  you can click here for details . 52-year old  Sundar Pichai ( originally, Pichai Sundararajan ) is the CEO of Alphabet,  while founders Larry Page ( 52 ) and Sergey Brin ( 53 ) no longer are involved in daily operations.  Sundar's compensation last year was $10.72 million. Note that Alphabet is the 5th...

SORRY, THIS WAS FINISHED BUT NOT PUBLISHED.  SO HERE ISIS TODAY, THURSDAY.  The  American Energy Society's final publication  for the year featured the lighter side of energy. Darwin Energy Award. Given to a people who accidentally removed themselves from the gene pool by foolishly using energy or electricity. Winner:  Electrofishing, by Javier, to catch more fish faster.  Used an electrified metal fishing rod with a live electrical wire to stun fish in nearby waters.  I couldn't find out who Javier was or if this actually happened. Runner up:   A prisoner in Arizona was taken for an MRI. The technician told the guard he didn’t need to remove the prisoner’s shackles for the scan, nor did he need to remove his gun. Both the guard and the prisoner were immediately sucked up against the machine. To make matters worse, instead of hitting the big red emergency "off" button, the technician spent more than 15 minutes trying to call the supervisor to ask ...

One more craziness about the frozen Iowa caucus today.   Republican candidates have spent $123 million in advertising so far.   With such low temperatures throughout the state tonight, it would not be surprising if only 123,000 show up to vote.  $1,000/vote????  In the  2020 presidential election, $14.4 billion  was spent to gain 155.4 million votes.  That calculates to around $10/vote.  Does this make any sense?  Incidentally, the first official primary election state for Democrats is South Carolina, although only Joe Biden will get votes.  Bet you did not know that  President Grover Cleveland is on the newest $1000 bill , which has been discontinued.  The  appraised value if you have one is $5000. We're better off in the USA than anywhere else.  I say this on the basis of the following from  Wikipedia  ranking household expenditure per capita/year: #1      United States    ...