Welcome to the United States: A Guide for New Immigrants

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Once in a while, usually after you have figured out all the missing pieces yourself, you realize that there was a nice collection of information available that would have saved you countless hours. This is what happened to me with this guide-for-new-us-immigrants. This is what I would have liked to have about 11 years ago when I first came to the U.S. to study for a couple of months in Hawaii. How do I find an apartment? How do I open a bank account? What kind of documents do I need? It’s amazing, it’s all there.

Even for a lot of Americans the history part and the part about the political system and election systems would probably be a great refresher for the upcoming elections. For a foreigner who wants to live, work, or study here, this is a great starting document to learn a bit more various aspects of living in the U.S.

Welcome to the United States: A Guide for New Immigrants is available online in English, Spanish, Chinese, Arabic, French, Haitian Creole, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Tagalog, Urdu, and Vietnamese.

America Is All About (Mad) Money

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One thing that strikes people from the outside is how obsessed America is about money. Money matters, and is discussed everywhere. That’s not to say that everyone is smart and educated about money, but simply means that money is an omnipresent topic in the society and media. A lot of people actually leave money on the table by not contributing to their retirement accounts, even though their employer would match a part of it.

Dedicated TV stations like CNBC or Bloomberg broadcast 24h about the global and domestic stock market, but those you can find in almost all developed countries. What’s different here the interest in how the rich are living their life, how much money they have, and all the good stuff you can buy with money. That is obviously of great interest since the consumer consumption accounts for about 2/3 of the gross domestic product.

One especially noteworthy item are all the shows about the American Dream – how people made it and how you can make it too. TV shows are often a reflection of the culture they are created for, so check out the following examples to get a better understanding of the different aspects of the money theme happening here. See Donald Trump’s “The Apprentice” and Suze Orman’s personal finance show, Tyler Mathisen’s “High Net Worth”, Erin Burnett’s “The Millionaire Inside”, and especially Donny Deutsch’s “The Big Idea” and Jim Cramer’s “Mad Money”.

You should check out the soundboard for the show… ;-)

San Francisco Marathon 2008

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After 5 years I finished the San Francisco Marathon on Sunday for the second time. This was exiting as even with a few years (and pounds) more and despite the fact that I did not practised as much as I should have (again) I still managed to shave off a few minutes of my time. Also, this was the first year for me to run the race accross the Golden Gate bridge, which I thought was very exiting.

The race itself has propelled itself from a niche event with 8,000 people in 2003 to almost 19,000 runners this year, it’s really getting popular. It is a beautiful run for sure, so if you are into running, you should consider participating yourself as well. Check out the video to get an idea about the course:

Here is a photo of the start at about 5:45 am:

San Francisco Marathon Start 5:45 am

Anyway, it was fairly windy, but it’s a really nice run. The 2009 San Francisco Marathon™ will take place on Sunday, July 26, 2009. Registration will open in October.

Why Visit California?

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You have to give the motherland of marketing and advertising the proper credit. America really does know how to do ads. Not that anyone would really need to be convinced to want to check out California, but I think they did a really good job with this one. Enjoy, it’s really a tough life.

The Rich Are Getting Richer …

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Well, in technical terms, one could say the average tax rate of the richest 1% of the country has fallen and not kept up with their share of income. The WSJ reported a few days ago that according to the latest IRS data “the richest 1% of Americans in 2006 garnered the highest share of the nation’s adjusted gross income for two decades, and possibly the highest since 1929″.

“According to the figures, the richest 1% reported 22% of the nation’s total adjusted gross income in 2006. That is up from 21.2% a year earlier, and is the highest in the 19 years that the IRS has kept strictly comparable figures.”

“The average tax rate in 2006 for the top 1%, based on adjusted gross income, was 22.8%, down slightly from 2005 and the fifth straight year of declines. The average tax rate of this group was 28.9% in 1996, and was 24% in 1988.”

I guess it is like almost everywhere else in the world. If you work as an employee and cannot invest and offset your gains you will most likely pay too much taxes compared to others, in relative terms. But then again, not everybody is willing to take the risks associated with it. But there comes a point where you wonder how much money people do need or should have, and whether this is a healthy trend for the rich in the long run. But that is a more philosophical discussion.