Jul01

How Much Is Cocaine? The Price Of Cocaine In Europe And The US

Cocaine is more expensive in Norway than in any other European country, according to a report released on Thursday by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

The report also notes that more cocaine is consumed in the United States than anywhere else in the world.

For cocaine, the United States remained the biggest market, with consumption estimated at 157 tons in 2009 - equal to 36 percent of the global share. Europe, particularly Western and Central Europe, were second in terms of market share, with an estimated consumption of 123 tons.
The U.N. agency noted "massive declines in recent years" of overall world cocaine use. Still, it said consumption in Europe had doubled over the past decade - with the estimated value of the European cocaine market at $36 billion (euro25 billion) a year, approaching that of the United States at $37 billion (euro25.7 billion).

The Economist notes that cocaine's street price in Europe -- even after adjusting for impurity and inflation -- has decreased over the last 20 years.

And be sure to check out The Economist's Daily Chart for more data and information.

Norway: $154 per gram

Finland: $139 per gram

United States: $120 per gram

Washington DC

Greece: $104 per gram

Sweden: $104 per gram

Italy: $99 per gram

Austria: $97 per gram

Ireland: $97 per gram

Denmark: $94 per gram

Luxembourg: $87 per gram

Jun20

The Government's Gadget Habit Has Cost You Hundreds of Millions

The federal government is just like you and me. Except it can legally kill people, and, instead of spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on gadgets, it spends millions. Think you buy a lot of Apple gear? Not even close.

Given what dire financial straits the government is in, we thought it would be interesting to see how many of our tax dollars are going to gadgets. We also wanted to see what kind of electronics the government is buying—in case there was a company making a consumer-grade teleportation machine that we might have overlooked. We searched through a decade's worth of government purchase orders, from June 2001 through today. It turns out, the government has some serious gadget lust, spending hundreds of millions of dollars on garden variety consumer electronics.

But don't go gettin all outraged. Some of these purchases are easily explained. For example, the Air Force spent $663,000 on Playstation 3s. Sounds outrageous if you're picturing a bunch of airmen sitting around getting high and playing Ace Combat. But in fact it's for a supercomputer built from an array of PS3 consoles.

The Veteran's Administration tends to buy a lot of gaming consoles, too, but I'm not going to begrudge wounded vets a little XBox time. Same goes for air bases in Bagram. And of course there are other caveats as well. The longer a device has been around—like a Blackberry or an iPod—the longer purchasing history it will have.

Moreover, not all of the money goes to straight up device purchases. Sometimes books and documents are listed as Kindle purchases, or iPhone and Blackberry expenses are related to app development. Also included in these gadget expenses are the cost of using them, which can be hefty. Like the FBI's most recent Verizon bill for its Blackberry voice and data service, for example. It was $10 million. And you thought you got reamed when you took your iPhone to Paris.

In other cases, the purchases are a little more mysterious For example, the Department of Agriculture's Rural Housing Service spent $5,000 on B&N Nooks and $15,000 on Apple iPods last year. Why? And WTF is with the $12,000 the Army spent on 30GB Zunes in 2007? What are they using those for, body armor? God knows they aren't good for much else.

The Army has also spent $1.1 million on iPads to date, and you have to wonder if that's really necessary. Sorry to go all line-item on you, Army, but I have a hard time justifying the $1200 I've spent on mine, and I work for fucking Gizmodo. And while it's not a gadget, strictly speaking, we'd really love to know what's up with the $50,000 the State Department spent on a Porsche in Budapest in 2009. (And why it was funded by the Department of Justice? And can I get a job driving Porsches for the Department of Justice?)

I've got emails in to the procurement officers responsible for some these purchases (when one was listed) to try to learn more, but as of yet have not heard anything back. Unsurprising! Don't worry. We're still digging.

In the meantime, here's a breakdown of what the federal government spends on some of its favorite gadgets, courtesy of the federal procurement database.

Jun11

Why Mobile Payments Are the Safest Solution for Online Transactions

In the past, the urge to anonymously surf the web has always had a somewhat negative connotation. Now, with new data and identity theft issues being revealed on an almost daily basis — Sony’s PSN outages being the latest — the idea of purchasing and paying online anonymously without providing any sensitive data is having an unsoiled renaissance.
Ecommerce has made its way into everyday life and established itself as a multibillion dollar industry. The comfort of shopping online while staying at home is unparalleled. But, of course, there is a downside. When purchasing something online, you have to provide data to complete the transaction. Normally this would be your name, address and credit card or bank account details. That’s fine and good so long as this data is only available to the respective merchant. But the Internet has taught one important lesson: Whenever there is data exchanged or stored, there is a chance for third parties to compromise it.
In order to prevent this from happening, consumers need to start employing payment solutions that enable them to quickly and easily make online purchases without requiring them to share copious amounts of confidential, identifying and financial data. The less personal information a consumer supplies, the less risk there is for the consumer to be affected by identity theft or fraudulent charges.
Removing data linked to a person’s name, bank account, SSN, etc., eliminates the risk of identity theft, making it virtually impossible for hackers to exploit it. But since cash payments — by far the most anonymous form of paying in terms of data required — do not work in ecommerce, and credit card and bank transfer payments require an awful lot of data, other payment methods need to be taken into account.
Convenience & Security
Mobile payments require buyers to provide the minimum amount of data. Mobile payments rely on consumers providing a phone number to complete a transaction — there’s no need to provide a name, address or other sensitive data. Hence they remove the majority of risks associated with identity theft. Transactions are carried out via text message and appear on the consumer’s phone bill.
In fact, mobile payments are an even more effective method when it comes to microtransactions (small charges, generally under $10). Why should consumers risk compromising personal data for a small transaction if there’s a more convenient way to pay that doesn’t require identifying info and credit card numbers? Mobile payments enable consumers to safely purchase even on websites where security might be of concern.
Mobile Data Isn’t Attractive to Hackers
Due to the absence of exploitable data, mobile payment providers and systems are rarely targeted by hacker attacks. Hackers would not bother trying to crack open databases that only provide mobile phone numbers. Phone numbers are essentially considered anonymous data since it is much more difficult to connect a number to a name, address or even bank account.
Even if a hacker decides to try his or her luck on such a database, he or she will realize that they are as well-guarded as any other database. If a hacker was to gain access, the risk of identity theft remains marginal. Mobile payments providers simply do not request that much data from their consumers. And the little data they have is forwarded to the respective carriers for further processing. Thus mobile payments pose the lowest security risk for all parties.
Consumers pay much closer attention to security features these days. By removing the majority of risk associated with a devastating security breach, consumers feel more confident in purchasing goods online via mobile. This ultimately results in superior sales figures for merchants. Most people know their phone numbers by heart as opposed to their credit card or bank account numbers, which have to be looked up every time and entered in a lengthy purchasing process.
Authorization
Finally, mobile payments help reduce risk by requiring authorization for each and every transaction. Anytime you make a mobile payment, you must provide authorization — access to the phone itself to confirm the purchase. Making purchases via credit cards can easily be done by hackers even if they do not actually possess the physical card.
As the call for more secure payment methods grows louder, the ecommerce industry finds itself with a working solution right at hand. Mobile payments are least prone to data and identity theft compared to any other online payment method simply because they do not require linking consumers to bank accounts. They present a safer alternative for online retailers and providers while affording consumers peace of mind against identity theft.

via mashable.com

Jun11

U.S. Can't Justify Its Drug War Spending

Name one government program that for 40 years has failed to achieve any of its goals, yet receives bigger and bigger budgets every year. If you said "the War on Drugs," you've been paying attention.

The Obama Administration is unable to show that the billions of dollar spent in the War On Drugs have significantly affected the flow of illicit substances into the United States, according to two government reports and outside experts.

The reports specifically criticize the government's growing use of U.S. contractors, which were paid more than $3 billion to train local prosecutors and police, help eradicate coca fields, and operate surveillance equipment in the battle against the expanding drug trade in Latin America over the past five years, reports Brian Bennett of the Los Angeles Times.

"We are wasting tax dollars and throwing money at a problem without even knowing what we are getting in return," said Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO), who chairs the Senate subcommittee that wrote one of the reports, which was released on Wednesday.

Professor Bruce Bagley, University of Miami: "I think we have wasted our money hugely"

"I think we have wasted our money hugely," said Bruce Bagley, an expert in U.S. anti-narcotics efforts. "The effort has had corrosive effects on every country it has touched," said Bagley, who chairs international studies at the University of Miami at Coral Gables, Florida.

Predictably, Obama Administration officials deny reports that U.S. efforts have failed to reduce drug production and smuggling in Latin America.

White House officials claim the expanding U.S. anti-drug effort occupies a "growing portion" of time for President Obama's national security team, even though it doesn't get many Congressional hearings or headlines.

The majority of wasted American counter-narcotics dollars are awarded to five big corporations: DynCorp, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, ITT and ARINC, according to the report for the contracting oversight committee, part of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

Counter-narcotics contract spending increased by 32 percent over the five-year period from $482 million in 2005 to $635 million in 2009. Falls Church, Va., based DynCorp got the biggest piece of the wasted pie, a whopping $1.1 billion.

Sen. Claire McCaskill: "We are wasting tax dollars and throwing money at a problem without even knowing what we are getting in return"

These contractors have plenty of ways to waste your tax money. They train local police and investigators in anti-drug methods, provide logistical support to intelligence collection centers, and fly airplanes and helicopters that spray herbicides to supposedly eradicate coca crops grown to produce cocaine.

The Department of Defense has wasted $6.1 billion of tax money since 2005 to help spot planes and boats headed north to the U.S. with drug payloads, as well as on surveillance and other intelligence operations.

Some of the expenses are "difficult to characterize," according to Senate staff members, which is government-speak for "OK, you caught us wasting money again." The Army wasted $75,000 for paintball supplies for "training exercises" in 2007, for example, and $5,000 for what the military listed as "rubber ducks."

The "ducks" are rubber replicas of M-16 rifles that are used in training exercises, a Pentagon spokesman claimed.

Even the Defense Department described its own system for tracking these contracts as "error prone," according to the Senate report, which also says the department doesn't have reliable data about "how successful" its efforts have been. Go figure.

In a separate report last month by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, there is the conclusion that the State Department "does not have a centralized inventory of counter-narcotics contracts" and said the department does not evaluate the overall success of its counter-narcotics program.

"It's become increasingly clear that our efforts to rein in the narcotics trade in Latin America, especially as it relates to the government's use of contractors, have largely failed," Sen. McCaskill said.

The latest criticism of the United States' War On Drugs comes just a week after a high-profile group of world leaders called the global Drug War a costly failure.

The group, which included former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan and past presidents of Mexico, Brazil and Colombia, recommended that regional governments try legalizing and regulating drugs to help stop the flood of cash going to drug cartels and other organized crime groups.

James Gregory, a Pentagon spokesman, demonstrated his willingness to lie his ass off by claiming the Defense Department's efforts against drugs "have been among the most successful and cost-effective programs" in decades.

"By any reasonable assessment, the U.S. has received ample strategic national security benefits in return for its investments in this area," said Gregory, who seems to inhabit a particularly improbable alternate reality.

Back in the real world, the only effects most objective observers can see run along these lines: Backed by the United States, Mexico's stepped-up Drug War has had the unintended effect of pushing drug cartels deeper into Central America, causing violence to soar in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

Another effect has been the vast expansion of Orwellain surveillance technology, supposedly to combat drugs, but ever-so-useful to the authoritarian regimes in Central America (and in the United States) in suppressing dissent.

The U.S. is currently focusing on improving its efforts to intercept cellphone and Internet traffic (of "drug cartels," yeah right) in the region, according to U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.

During a visit to El Salvador in February, William Brownfield, the head of the State Department's anti-drug programs, opened a wiretapping center in San Salvador, as well as an office to share fingerprints and other data with U.S. law enforcement.

Jun08

NFC is more than just mobile money

Once upon a time, a phone was just a phone. Then it became our camera, radio, and even TV. Recently, with the announcement of its Near Field Communication (NFC) mobile commerce program, Google made it our wallet. But that’s only the start of how NFC will affect our lives.

Google Wallet makes paying for everything from a T-shirt to a soda as easy as waving your phone. The initial list of partners including Macy’s, Subway, Citibank and Mastercard are a good indicator of just how excited mainstream businesses are about this technology and just how quickly it’s going to spread through consumers.

NFC is more than just an avenue for mobile payment. The secure technology spans industries from health to marketing, and the rise of the NFC enabled smartphone (predicted to make up 50% of the market by 2014) has the potential to have a disruptive effect on some of the most important trends and technologies of today.

Checking In

One of the early promises of Location Based Social Networking (LBSN) apps such as Foursquare and Gowalla was a new form of loyalty program; one where instead of punching a hole or sliding a card, loyalty would be measured by mobile check-ins. But as long as the inaccuracy of GPS allows users to stand across the street or even a block away and check in at an establishment, businesses aren’t able to trust LBSN as a valid loyalty system. As a result, fewer than 4% of internet consumers have actually adopted LBSN services.

NFC effectively solves the validity issue by placing a hotspot inside businesses that consumers simply have to wave their phones near to check in. In the past year, Google Places began putting NFC-enabled markers on the doors of businesses in several cities — Mutual Mobile’s Austin office is among these establishments – and Google has also already stated that they will integrate a loyalty system into Google Wallet.

Gamification

Just as social media has crept its way into every industry – from Yammer in the enterprise, to Schoology in education – gamification has the potential to do the same. Apps like Bobber and Miso have shown that badges and points work as motivators for finance and entertainment, and NFC is set to push gamification into the real world.

Although not known for its gaming and social abilities, Google has made a big investment in game mechanics via its involvement with SCVNGR. At this year’s South By Southwest Interactive Festival, SCVNGR founder Seth Priebatsch spoke about the game layer that they were applying to the real world. This would supposedly give the check-in and daily deal trends a second life by instilling a sense of interaction between person and location.

At around $2 a piece, NFC tags are a cheap and an affordable way for a company to start applying its own game layer. Clothing brand WeSC, for example, used an older form of NFC-style technology to turn the company’s shoes into keys to unlocking features in the world around wearers. Tags were embedded in shoes and by stepping on specific mats around cities, wearers could become Facebook friends, have their photo taken and sent to the brands Twitter, or unlock free deals at certain businesses.

Information In a Natural Way

To use a QR code or LBSN, users have to pull out their phones, open an app, snap a photo, or type in a location – these are unnatural behaviors and take a fair amount of time to complete. What NFC offers is convenience. With NFC, a poster on the street could offer a coupon and collecting it would be as easy as brushing your pocket against the display. The small, flat size of NFC tags makes them ideal to embed in almost any medium, and they can be waterproofed and ruggedized to withstand time and trials.

Secure Documents Sharing

Health applications make up one of the fastest growing segments of the app market. People are hungry to take control of the documents and health management that have so long been kept behind lock and key by doctors. However, security in how this information is stored and exchanged has remained a primary concern on both the personal and medical industry level.

NFC allows information to be securely transferred to caregivers instantly – and it goes well beyond our phones. NFC can be put into medical devices such as blood sugar monitors or even skin patches, allowing doctors to offload the information when the patient comes in for a visit or for the patient to upload it via their phone. Google has long envisioned empowering people medically via Google Health, and wide distribution of NFC is one more step in that direction.

Today’s announcement hints at only a small part of the larger role NFC is set to play in our lives. As more NFC enabled phones hit the market and as more retailers acquire the technology to accept it, the adoption rate will undoubtedly skyrocket.

Just as the iPhone sent every company scrambling for a way to use apps, businesses today should be asking themselves: How can we use NFC?

May10

How Credit Card Data Is Stolen and Sold

Stolen credit card numbers can sell for up to $10 each in online underground markets.

Last week, after the Sony PlayStation Network was attacked by a group of unknown hackers, Sony’s 77 million customers, along with security specialists and government officials, were surprised by the amount of information that might have been stolen from the company.

But there was another group that worried about the attack: other hackers who steal credit card numbers and personal identity online and then sell and trade this information in underground markets.

“We’re keeping a close eye on the Sony story as it would drastically affect the resale of other cards,” explained an experienced hacker based in Europe who declined to share his name due to the nature of his work.

Kevin Stevens, senior threat researcher at the computer security firm Trend Micro, explained in an interview last week that there was a lot of discussion taking place in hacker forums about the Sony data breach. Several credit card dealers are worried that the distribution of millions of credit cards would flood the market and lower prices, he said.

According to a number of security researchers, the sale of stolen information and credit cards often takes place completely underground in secret credit forums, where hackers exchange or sell data. These forums are closed to the public, and people who join the groups are vetted by forum administrators to ensure they are not from law enforcement.

Posts on the forums usually list the type of information for sale, including names and addresses associated with the cards, and a price that can be negotiated. Once someone agrees to buy the information, the transaction takes place out of the forum in a secret chat room, usually using a private and secure I.C.Q. room.

Mr. Stevens said stolen credit cards usually sold for about $5 to $10 online, yet the prices vary based on the amount of information supplied with the card data and the account limit.

Hackers who claim they are responsible for the Sony breach wrote on underground forums last week that they had access to over 2.2 million credit cards. If these millions of new stolen cards were sold online, the price could fall to well below the standard rate to as low as $1 or $2 each.

To make matters worse, Sony said Monday that another server had been affected by the breach last week and as many as 12,700 credit and debit cards could have been stolen during the attack.

Mathew Solnik, a security consultant with iSEC Partners, said he doesn’t see any signs of a slowdown with the sale of credit card data or personal information online. “As more companies keep databases of people’s personal data, including credit cards, there is more incentive for hackers to gain access to their servers and make a lot of money reselling this sensitive information.”

So what can be done to stop the resale of personal information?

Kevin Mahaffey, the chief technology officer at Lookout Mobile Security, said companies needed to stop collecting so much personal information. “Data has a new lever of value in society,” he said in an interview. “We now have robust economies that have grown around personal information and credit cards.”

“One of the best things companies can do is not collect the data in the first place,” explained Mr. Mahaffey. “Some companies now consider this type of data nuclear waste; you don’t want to store if you don’t have to.”

May06

Former Crack Kingpin "Freeway" Rick Ross On The Economics Of Drugs

"Freeway" Rick Ross was one of L.A.'s biggest crack dealers.

The academic argument against drug criminalization goes like this.

When you make a drug illegal, you make it harder and riskier to produce. That makes it more expensive.

But demand for many drugs is what economists call inelastic: No matter what drugs cost, people will still pay. So making drugs more expensive through criminalization just sends more money to drug dealers.

That's the theory, anyway.

To test the claims of the academic theory, I spoke with "Freeway" Rick Ross, one of L.A.'s biggest crack dealers in the '80s and '90s. Ross was arrested in 1996, and paroled in 2009. So he's a perfect real-world test for the academic theories.

First, I asked him about claim number one: Making drugs illegal drives up the price.

Ross told me that he once grossed $3 million in a single day.

"When I sold drugs, if they'd told me they were going to legalize it, I'd have been mad, because I knew that was going to drive the price down," he said.

Claim number one: Confirmed.

Next up, claim number two: When drugs are illegal, criminals get rich.

"I had guys around me that were ruthless and were tough," Ross said. "If I gave the word, they would hurt you."

And Ross's money wasn't just going to his own crew. He'd also hand out cash to other players around the neighborhood.

"I had a fund where I'd take care of what's called the big homies, the shot callers, the guys that ran the neighborhood," he said. "Because you know, they kidnap drug dealers in South Central. ... They were robbers, they were killers. Jackers, as we called them."

Claim number two: Confirmed.

These days, Ross says he's trying to undo all the harm he did to his community by selling crack. He talks to schools and youth groups. He says a big part of the reason he got into drug dealing in the first place is that he was illiterate. (He learned to read in prison.)

Talking to Ross, you realize there was another incentive that doesn't always show up in the economics literature. At least when you get to Ross's level, drug dealing is not only lucrative; it's complex and engaging.

Ross was a CEO, a manager, a publicist, an accountant. Society had done everything it could to make Rick Ross hate his job and give up. His product was illegal. His costs were enormous. He was a hunted man.

And yet, he says:

I loved it. I felt like I was on top of the world, I felt I was powerful. ... It was every man's dream to be free. ... You love the feeling that you're good.

So does all of this mean, we should legalize drugs like crack and heroin? If we really wanted to make the Freeway Rick Rosses of the word miserable, we'd take away their earning potential.

And some of the economists I spoke to said, yes: Make them legal.

Other economists weren't so sure. Peter Reuter has written many, many pages on the topic of drug criminalization. And he says, if you legalize drugs, sure, crime would go down. But drug use would go up.

"How do we compare the bad outcomes in the two cases — a very large increase in addiction, with a very large decrease in crime?" he says. "I take them both to be real, but I don't know ... which is better."

That choice is a value judgement, he says.

May03

Is Facebook worth $100 billion now?

Analysts were skeptical when investors valued Facebook at $50 billion. Now, people familiar with the numbers says it's more like $100 billion.Really?

via:allfacebook

Facebook is still a private company, but the moment it goes public, Mark Zuckerberg will really be rolling in it: The company is reportedly now valued at $100 billion.

Four short months ago, Facebook raised eyebrows when it was valued at $50 billion, based on a $1.5 billion investment from Goldman Sachs and Russia's Digital Sky Technologies. Now, people with knowledge of Facebook's closely held finances tell The Wall Street Journal that the social networking giant is on track to exceed its 2011 target of $2 billion in pre-tax income, and could easily be worth $100 billion or more. Is Facebook really worth more than Amazon and Cisco?

These numbers are dubious: Despite Facebook's impressive earnings, some "early investors are trying to cash out" now, worried that the company's valuation has inflated too quickly, says Ryan Tate at Gawker. It wouldn't be surprising if these same pessimists are trying to talk up the price of their private shares first — "classic bubble behavior."

Facebook is sitting on gold: These unfair accusations of "'bubble-like' talk" have been hurled at Facebook believers for years, says Nick O'Neill at All Facebook. But "everybody I talk to now is practically convinced that Facebook will become as big as Google," which is valued at $175 billion. In fact, Facebook's fledgling ad business will likely crush Google's AdSense platform in a few years. Most website owners are already giving Facebook "the keys to a massive vault."

It's all speculation till the IPO: When investors buy small stakes in privately held companies like Facebook, "the numbers put forward are always mind boggling," says Emil Protalinski in ZDNet. In the last value-setting transaction, a mere 100,000 Class B share pushed Facebook's valuation up to $80 billion. So is $100 billion plausible? Sure. But until Facebook goes public — which will probably happen next year — it's all speculation.

Apr25

THE MOST INFLUENTIAL MOGULS UNDER 35

via:mogulite

Sure, anybody can become a titan of industry by the time they’re 65 (at least that’s what we’re banking on), but climbing the ranks of the business world before you’re an AARP member takes a whole other level of commitment… or genetics, as the case may be. With that in mind, we’ve compiled a (rather subjective) list of the most influential CEOs and innovators who’ve reached mogul status at a tender age. Some of these folks made it on our Power Grid — others didn’t — but we think all are worthy of your attention.

At 34, Chad Hurley is close to slipping off our list -- but as co-founder and former CEO of YouTube, it's safe to say he's left his mark on the all-important business of office procrastination. Hurley, who has an estimated net worth of $300 million, also has an artistic claim to fame: he's credited with designing the original PayPal logo.

Forget Britney, Gaga and Jessica – 29-year-old Beyoncé Knowles is the real pop star mogul (and she's never attacked the paparazzi with an umbrella or worn a raw meat dress so, kudos to her). Knowles, who earned $87 million in 2010, has an estimated net worth of upwards of $300 million, making her one of the richest women under 30 in the U.S. Although she's sold more than 11 million albums in her career, her entrepreneurial skills aren't exactly terrible either: in addition to her own fragrance line, Knowles debuted her clothing line, House of Deréon in 2005 -- to a packed audience on the Oprah Winfrey Show.

There are princes and then there are princes. This German royal and 27-year-old heir to the Thurn and Taxis fortune has been a billionaire since he was eight, according to Forbes, but formally received his $2 billion fortune when he was 18. Although he's hardly an entrepreneur, Prince Albert has no problem throwing his weight around. He's attracted plenty of (negative) attention for his plan to build the world's biggest solar farm on a parcel of land in southern Germany and, with more than 74,000 acres to his name, Prince Albert owns one of the largest tracts of land on his continent.

14-year-old-sindhuja-rajamaran-is-the-youngest-ceo

It would be easy to dismiss 14-year-old Sindhula Rajaraman, the purported youngest CEO in the world, as a mere beneficiary of nepotism -- after all, her father installed her at chief executive at Seppan, an Indian animation company. But Rajaraman has successfully nabbed headlines for her firm at an age when most kids aren't allowed to be at home unattended (no? That was just me?). She's currently awaiting approval from the Guinness Book of World Records committee for her three-minute animated film, which she reportedly completed single-handedly in a record 10 hours. She might not be among the world's most powerful yet but, given her age, we'd say she's already wielding her fair share of influence.

Yes, we had to put him on the list. Mark Zuckerberg became the world's youngest billionaire in 2008 and today, at age 26, can claim a $13.5 billion net worth. We'd talk about him more but you've probably already seen the movie.

Let's move on. The undisputed (according to us) prince of the New York City dining scene, David Chang might be the youngest power player in a crowded field of celebrity chefs. This 33-year-old entrepreneur boasts packed houses almost every night at his high-end eateries, including Momofuku Noodle Bar and Má Pêche, and has won enough 'rising star'-esque awards to solidify himself in a notoriously finicky industry. Now if only we could get a table.

Diane von Furstenberg, she's not. But Stacey Bendet, the founder of Alice + Olivia, a $50 million-a-year clothing line, reigns supreme as one of the most influential young designers in the fashion world. While she's been known to fudge her age from time-to-time, we're willing to believe she's 32.

This 35-year-old CEO and Chairman of the Board of Steve Madden controls a roughly $430 million-a-year footwear empire -- and, subsequently, the hearts and minds of thousands of teenage mallrats. Edward Rosenfeld, who was appointed to the retailer's top spot in 2008, had a trial-by-fire when he joined the scandal-plagued company in 2005.

While her net worth may have plummeted to $4.1 billion in recent years, Yang Huiyan was the undisputed richest person in China back in 2007, when the then-26-year-old heir to the Country Garden Holdings real estate dynasty had $16.2 billion to her name. Still, this notoriously reclusive billionaire wields tremendous influence: Yang remains the majority shareholder at Country Garden, one of China's largest and most prolific development firms.

Go ahead and laugh, it's fine. In the meantime, we'll give you some stats: this 35-year-old rapper-turned-entrepreneur has an estimated net worth of $250 million, has sold over 26 million albums, has an eponymous Vitamin Water flavor and his own clothing line. At one point he even sold a line of prophylactics called "Magic Stick Condoms." Okay, we'll admit that last one is a little bit silly. But with a line of video games and a handful of high-profile movie credits, 50 Cent has some serious business clout.

Apr22

Walmart Could Easily Pay Its Workers $12 An Hour

Ethonomic Indicator of the Day: $12 - The minimum wage Walmart could pay its workers without affecting prices.

Walmart is plowing through its global responsibility goals, cutting down on plastic waste, improving energy efficiency in factories, and reshaping the crop diversity of entire U.S. regions. But it's doing a less-than-stellar job when it comes to doing right by its workers. According to a new report (PDF) from the University of California, Berkeley, Walmart could significantly raise the wages of its employees without affecting its low prices. Chronically underpaid people around the country could benefit.

When Walmart inevitably moves into cities like New York City, Boston, Los Angeles, and San Francisco (all places where it wants to expand this year), its cheapskate policies could actually lower the local average wages. And since the costs of living a comfortable life march inexorably upward (especially in big cities), this is a problem for all of us.

According to UC Berkeley's report, Walmart employees earn 14.5 percent less than other workers in large retail companies. Depressing stuff, but there is any easy enough fix: If Walmart implemented a $12 per hour minimum wage for all employees, it would cost the company $3.2 billion. That is a lot of money, unless you're Walmart, in which case it's just 1% of your overall annual $305 billion in sales. Even if Walmart passed on the entire burden of the wage increase to customers, it would only average out to a cost increase of 46 cents per shopping trip. That's surely something that most Walmart shoppers can afford.

But they wouldn't even have to. Remember Walmart's exceptional energy-saving plans? Perhaps it could take some of the money it will inevitably save from energy and materials efficiency and pass it on to workers.

There is reason for Walmart to consider this. If the company raises wages, it might garner more community acceptance in the cities where it is trying to expand. Because who doesn't like the idea of a relatively well-paying employer coming to town? It's an especially big deal when that well-paying employer has 1.4 million members in its workforce.