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The bank bailouts were composed of two separate packages, the TARP and the Fannie and Freddie bailout. As of right now, the TARP, a total of $475 billion, and the Fannie and Freddie bailout, $187 billion, come together for a total of $618 billion.So our question here is, if $618 billion in loans were given to the banks, as of right now, roughly 7 years later,  how much have American taxpayers gotten in return? First we need to see in more detail where this money went. Let's address the TARP first. So it's $475 billion and split into 13 separate programs. The money that was allocated through these programs are organized as follows by descending order.$205 billion to the Capital Purchase Program. This is where most banks received their funding.$81.3 billion to the Automotive Industry Financing Program. This was used to keep Chrysler and GM afloat.$69.8 billion to the Systematically signNow Failing Institutions. It was actually just one company that received these funds and it was AIG.$40 billion to the Target Invested Program. While Citigroup and Bank of America already received $25 billion a piece from the Capital Purchase Program, the Target Invested Program allocated more.$29.9 billion to the Making Home Affordable. This provided incentives to mortgage services to modify their mortgage loans and other foreclosure alternatives.$21.6 billion to the Public-Private Investment Program. This purchased the toxic and hard-to-value mortgage backed securities from a multitude of banks to get them off their books.$7.6 billion to the Housing Finance Agency Innovation Fund. This helped families in states that were hit hardest by the crisis.$1.03 billion to the FHA Refinance Program. This helped homeowners who owed more on their mortgage than their home was worth.$783 million to the Community Development Capital Initiative. This was designed provide cheap financing to Community Banks in the hopes that small businesses would receive these loans.$431 million to the Auto Supplier Support Program. This provided financing to auto part suppliers.$368 million to the Small Business and Community Lending Initiative. This program purchased securities provided by the Small Business Administration as a way to ensure that entrepreneurs and small business owners would retain their credit.$100 million to the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility. This program was a collaboration between both the Treasury and the Fed.  It would provide loans to owners of highly-rated asset-backed securities.$0.0 to the Asset Guarantee Program. This one may look strange since it has no money allocated to it, but it's purpose was to act as a last resort in case Citigroup and Bank America continued to tack on more losses. Now that's just the TARP program. As for the second package of the Bank Bailouts, the Fannie and Freddie Bailout, it just had one program.$187 billion to the Preferred Stock Investments. This program nationalized Fannie and Freddie and overhauled regulation. For the TARP, there are some important details to understand about these numbers$475 billion is the overall cap. All of the numbers listed under the TARP section are what the Treasury is allowed to loan. They can go under the cap if they find the program no longer needs funding.With this in mind, the Treasury has only spent 96% of its cap or $458 billion on a total of 954 recipients.Of this $458 billion pledged to these 954 recipients, and because it's not distributed all at once, as of March 2nd 2016 these recipients have received $431 billion. That means 94% of the money they were promised to receive since the Bail Outs were initiated have actually been put into their hands.As for Fannie and Freddie, the full $187 billion has been invested, so not too complicated.Now, let's look at all of this translated into monetary terms for the average American citizen. Looking at the TARP, which dished out a total of $431 billion, a total of $390 billion has been returned.  The TARP also has been receiving returns on the money originally invested and loaned. In total this return is $52.4 billion. This return made by the Treasury is composed of $23.1 billion from interest payments and dividends, $20 billion from selling of equity or acquired assets (these assets are mainly Citigroup stock), and $9.63 billion in stock warrants. With these revenues in mind, the US government has made a total profit of $11.6 billion. ($390B returned and $52.4B in profits minus $431B to equal $11.6B). Going back to the 954 recipients of the TARP programs funds, only 780 were in the form of investments, the rest of the money allocated to the other 174 recipients was in the form of subsidy. This means $18.8 billion isn't returning. Now of the 780 investments made by the Treasury, 578 of them have resulted in a profit, that's roughly 74%. As for the Fannie and Freddie investments of $187 billion, the Treasury has a return of $241 billion. So, in total combination, how much has the US government made in return? Combining both the TARP and the Fannie and Freddie bailout results in $618 billion of outflow invested, loaned, or subsidized. As of March 2nd, 2016, $390 billion has been returned so far. But because of the returns made by the Treasury on the money invested and loaned, it has made $294 billion. With all of this in mind, the government has made a profit of $65.3 billion.What does all of this mean for the average US citizen? You can say the bank bailouts have expressed a return of an extra ten cents for every dollar put in. Source: https://projects.propublica.org/...

I live in Germany. I got an invite to the Quora partner program the day I landed in USA for a business trip. So from what I understand, irrespective of the number of views on your answers, there is some additional eligibility criteria for you to even get an email invite.If you read the terms of service, point 1 states:Eligibility. You must be located in the United States to participate in this Program. If you are a Quora employee, you are eligible to participate and earn up to a maximum of $200 USD a month. You also agree to be bound by the Platform Terms (https://www.quora.com/about/tos) as a condition of participation.Again, if you check the FAQ section:How can other people I know .participate?The program is invite-only at this time, but we intend to open it up to more people as time goes on.So my guess is that Quora is currently targeting people based out of USA, who are active on Quora, may or may not be answering questions frequently ( I have not answered questions frequently in the past year or so) and have a certain number of consistent answer views.Edit 1: Thanks to @Anita Scotch, I got to know that the Quora partner program is now available for other countries too. Copying Anuta’s comment here:If you reside in one of the Countries, The Quora Partner Program is active in, you are eligible to participate in the program.” ( I read more will be added, at some point, but here are the countries, currently eligible at this writing,) U.S., Japan, Germany, Spain, France, United Kingdom, Italy and Australia.11/14/2018Edit 2 : Here is the latest list of countries with 3 new additions eligible for the Quora Partner program:U.S., Japan, Germany, Spain, France, United Kingdom, Italy, Canada, Australia, Indonesia, India and Brazil.Thanks to Monoswita Rez for informing me about this update.

Make it compellingQuickly and clearly make these points:Who you are and why you are doing thisHow long it takesWhats in it for me -- why should someone help you by completing the surveyExample: "Please spend 3 minutes helping me make it easier to learn Mathematics. Answer 8 short questions for my eternal gratitude and (optional) credit on my research findings. Thank you SO MUCH for helping."Make it convenientKeep it shortShow up at the right place and time -- when people have the time and inclination to help. For example, when students are planning their schedules. Reward participationOffer gift cards, eBooks, study tips, or some other incentive for helping.Test and refineTest out different offers and even different question wording and ordering to learn which has the best response rate, then send more invitations to the offer with the highest response rate.Reward referralsIf offering a reward, increase it for referrals. Include a custom invite link that tracks referrals.

Nothing. Nada. Zero.In fact, in bailing out GM the government made something like $20 Billion.Those treasuries the Fed owns? Probably profitable at this time.Sorry to burst the bubble of the “the government bailout cost Billions” conspiracy theorists, but the government bought stock and loaned money. They didn’t ‘give any away.’That I’m aware of, anyway, and I watched pretty closely.

Well consider two facts:The total debt of the Greek government in 2012 was 340 Billion dollarsThe population of Greece was and is around 12 million peopleI think it is wise to be guided by the words of Thucidides, (460 BC),“...good deeds can be shortly stated but where wrong is done a wealth of language is needed to veil its deformity.”So when you read long, convoluted explanations using arcane jargon which seeks to convince that it was the fault of the horrible Germans for lending Greece all that money…well, how shall we say it, IT DOES NOT PASS THE SMELL TEST.I guess it’s sort of like borrowing 1 million dollars to party like a madman for a month and then when you can’t pay it back, casting the blame on the bank for having lent it to youYes it’s a simple explanation, perhaps too simple but perhaps when, in time, the fog clears, it was indeed the simple explanation that explained it“...good deeds can be shortly stated but where wrong is done a wealth of language is needed to veil its deformity.” - Thucidides, (460 BC),

Get an introduction to the target company through a referral if possible.  A lot of the companies that retain us even talk explicitly about "no agency referrals" on their website.  There are times that going in through HR or their staffing org can be to your benefit but more often that not it helps to have a referral with a "VP" in their title to get you that introduction.  You might still be a long way from getting a fee agreement signed (retained or contingent) but you'll be a lot close than being one of the hundreds of agency recruiters leaving voicemails for the VP HR or Staffing Manager.

Departments of education and school districts always have to make decisions about what to include in their curriculum.  There are a lot of life skills that people need that aren't taught in school.  The question is should those skills be taught in schools?I teach high school, so I'll talk about that.  The typical high school curriculum is supposed to give students a broad-based education that prepares them to be citizens in a democracy and to be able to think critically.  For a democracy to work, we need educated, discerning citizens with the ability to make good decisions based on evidence and objective thought.  In theory, people who are well informed about history, culture, science, mathematics, etc., and are capable of critical, unbiased thinking, will have the tools to participate in a democracy and make good decisions for themselves and for society at large.  In addition to that, they should be learning how to be learners, how to do effective, basic research, and collaborate with other people.  If that happens, figuring out how to do procedural tasks in real life should not provide much of a challenge.  We can't possibly teach every necessary life skill people need, but we can help students become better at knowing how to acquire the skills they need.  Should we teach them how to change a tire when they can easily consult a book or search the internet to find step by step instructions for that?  Should we teach them how to balance a check book or teach them how to think mathematically and make sense of problems so that the simple task of balancing a check book (which requires simple arithmetic and the ability to enter numbers and words in columns and rows in obvious ways) is easy for them to figure out.  If we teach them to be good at critical thinking and have some problem solving skills they will be able to apply those overarching skills to all sorts of every day tasks that shouldn't be difficult for someone with decent cognitive ability  to figure out.  It's analogous to asking why a culinary school didn't teach its students the steps and ingredients to a specific recipe.  The school taught them about more general food preparation and food science skills so that they can figure out how to make a lot of specific recipes without much trouble.  They're also able to create their own recipes.So, do we want citizens with very specific skill sets that they need to get through day to day life or do we want citizens with critical thinking, problem solving, and other overarching cognitive skills that will allow them to easily acquire ANY simple, procedural skill they may come to need at any point in their lives?