Your Tuesday morning brief
Paleoclimatologist Marina Suarez studies rocks for evidence of how carbon influences climate.
TUESDAY, March 22, 2016
Good morning Taquista!
We awaken this morning with troubling news from Belgium. Two suspected terrorist attacks (for legal and ethical reasons we call them suspected, but bombs in airports and subways these days leave little to suspect) have claimed at least 26 lives.
There were two explosions at the Brussels airport at 8:30am local time, and a third reported one hour later at a Metro station close to EU buildings. All roads between Belgium and France have been closed, and all European capitals have intensified their security measures.
This is an evolving situation and the best source, I find, for up-to-the-minute information is THIS PAGE of the UK’s Telegraph. It’s well organized (a luxury in chaotic moments) and updated every 30 seconds.
Let’s do the rest of the news.
►Tuesday’s numbers
A hat-tip to Taquista and Latino daily subscriber Ana Valdez, who sent us the source article. I like these numbers. They’re smart and they’re what I call back-pocket statistics that we can carry with us to use when the need arises to shift the Latino narrative – we all encounter these moments on a daily basis. It’s a story of U.S. Latino consumer power.
320 million – The total U.S. population.
38 – The median age of the U.S. population.
55 million – The total U.S. Latino population.
27 – The median age of the Latino population.
1.5 trillion – The combined U.S. Latino buying power, in dollars.
80 to 90 billion – The projected yearly growth of the U.S. Latino buying power, in dollars.
5.8 – The percentage of growth of U.S. Latino consumption.
3.8 – The percentage of growth of overall U.S. consumption.
90 – The percentage of year-on-year sales growth at Walmart attributed to Latino consumers.
96 – The percentage of year-on-year sales growth at Ford and Chevrolet attributed to Latino consumers.
33 – The percentage of year-on-year sales growth at Nissan attributed to Latino consumers.
35 – The percentage of year-on-year sales growth at Toyota attributed to Latino consumers.
100 – The percentage of year-on-year sales growth at Honda attributed to Latino consumers.
15 – The overall U.S. automotive sales percentage attributed to Latino buyers.
Source: Forbes – CEO Daily
►There was tension behind the smiles between Barack Obama and Raul Castro
It was the anticipated meeting between the two heads of state, the high-point of Obama’s two-day visit to Cuba. As expected of these occasions, the two smiled for the cameras and made their remarks to the press. Then the issue at hand turned to human rights and political prisoners.
Here’s how the BBC told the story:
“Mr Castro said if he was given a list of political prisoners, he would ‘release them tonight.’”
“The White House has said it has given Cuba lists of dissidents in the past.
“Mr Castro does not view the prisoners as dissidents, US officials said.
“That disagreement is central to the conflict between US and Cuban officials.”
So it’s a matter of semantics? Cuba has no political prisoners because what the U.S. calls political prisoners Cuba calls something else . . .
Listen to what Obama said: “Cuba’s destiny will not be decided by the United States or any other nation… The future of Cuba will be decided by Cubans not by anybody else.”
There are tomes to be read between those lines . . . READ MORE
