Page 37 - Business Facts

Some Oregon beggars make $100 000 per year.

A police survey says that panhandlers stationed outside the Wal-Mart in Coos Bay can make up to $300 a day. That’s what clerks stationed inside the Wal-Mart may earn in a week. Police Officers claim that there is no legal remedy to this phenomenon; asking for money is considered protected free speech. 

According to Captain Rodger Craddock; “most have lived in the city for a long time and have homes. This is just their chosen profession.” While asking for money is not a crime, lying to the public for money is. There should be a complementary police survey that counts the number of panhandlers or their signs that say “I have nowhere to sleep tonight.” or other lies about what and who people are actually giving their money to. 

However, this news should not diffuse the seriousness of poverty and homelessness. A majority of people in such conditions can barely have food and shelter at the end of the day, let alone $300.

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96% of the US population lives within 20 miles of a Walmart.

Walmart is the Arkansas based big box retailer that needs little introduction. In 2008, Walmart earned 400 billion dollars and had a combined floor space larger than Manhattan. If Walmart were a country, it would be the world’s 26th largest economy, just behind Austria. 

1.4 million Americans work at Walmart, making it the second largest private employer in the US, just behind the federal government. Though Walmart had a degree of trouble in the years following the 2008 recession, it still remains one of the most powerful, burgeoning businesses in existence.

It was a study by Matthew Zook and Mark Graham, geographers at the University of Kentucky, who confirmed the percentage of Americans who live near the almost 3,400 Walmart stores. 

60 percent lives within 5 miles of a Walmart, and 96 percent are within 20 miles. It really is quite amazing (and a little scary) to consider just how much Walmart is growing, and how fast it continues to grow. 

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When AOL 4.0 launched in 1998, they used ALL of the world-wide CD production for several weeks.

It sounds just as ridiculous as it is. AOL used the entire world’s CD production for a few weeks in 1998. That means not a single music CD, software CD, or any other kind of CD was made during that whole time. 

There were so many people receiving these CDs that even those who used AOL already were getting them. Amazingly, before this happened, AOL’s logo was already on 50% of the CDs produced worldwide. 

The statistics show it actually helped, too. Before AOL 4.0, there were about 8 million members, and one year later there were 16 million. Those days have long since gone, though, as AOL is gradually fading from the public eye as a booming business. 

Last April, AOL announced its plans to sell and license patents to Microsoft for $1.056 billion. Since 2001, its subscribers have dropped from 25 million to less than 4 million. 

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Oreo filling used to be made of pork fat!

Oreo cookies are the best selling cookies in the 20th century, selling a whopping 500 billion cookies since their debut in 1912. The annual Oreo recipe calls for 18 million pounds of cocoa and 47 million pounds of its delicious cream filling. 

That delicious cream filling used to be made of pork fat, though. Oreos are obviously widely popular, which is why their slogan was “America’s favorite cookie.” They didn’t want to be too cocky about how good their cookies were, though, and switched their slogan to “Milk’s favorite cookie.” 

The Oreo sandwich is made up of 71% crème and 29% cookie. It was created by the National Biscuit Company, now know was Nabisco. Get it? NaBisCo! Anyways, it started in New York City, but their headquarters are now in New Jersey.

They’ve maintained their number one status as America’s favorite cookie in the 20th and into the 21st century. They have changed minor things to actually make the cookie somewhat healthier, like replacing its trans fat with non-hydrogenated vegetable oil. That is pretty cool.

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Crash Bandicoot was almost changed to

Crash Bandicoot was a very popular and very well received platforming video game published by Sony and produced by Universal Interactive Studios (known more recently as Vivendi Games). It was developed by Naughty Dog for the PlayStation in 1996 and spawned a successful franchise. 

The series follows Crash Bandicoot, an anthropomorphic cartoon of the weird animal in the picture, and his attempts to stop his nemesis, Doctor Neo Cortex, from taking over the world. While getting ready for the game’s demo at the 1996 Electronic Entertainment Exposition, the team decided on the titular character’s name. The team simply took the name of the animal he is based on and added the first name from the character’s destruction of boxes throughout the game. 

The marketing people at Universal didn’t like it too much, however, and insisted that the character should be called Wuzzle/Wez/Wezzy the Wombat or Ozzie the Ottsel. Once Naughty Dog threatened to leave the production, marketing backed off and he was crowned Crash Bandicoot. 

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