Most Valuable Brand Names
Claim:  The three most valuable brand names on Earth are Marlboro, Coca Cola, and Budweiser, in that order. OUTDATED Example:  [Collected via e-mail, August 2001] I saw this statement in an e-mail.  Is this true? "The 3 most valuable brand names on earth: Marlboro, Coca-Cola, and Budweiser, in that order." Origins:  The value of a recognized brand name is both difficult to estimate and difficult to overestimate.  Certainly companies with long established, widely recognized brand names don't overestimate their value, spending millions of dollars in advertising every year not to directly promote sales of specific products but simply to keep their brand names in front of the public.  So of all the millions of brands in the world, which ones are at the top of the heap?  Which companies have been the most successful at  constantly nurturing their brands to keep pace in a rapidly changing world? A long-circulated bit of Internet trivia attempts to surprise readers by informing them that the "three most valuable brand names on Earth"  are ones they wouldn't necessarily peg for the very highest spots, namely Marlboro, Coca-Cola, and Budweiser.  But that tidbit was gleaned from brand rankings produced back in the 1990s, and a good deal has changed in the business world since then. Assigning comparative values to brand names is a process that involves a number of subjective elements, so brand rankings vary depending upon who is doing the ranking and what criteria they use.  One of the most prominent organizations in this field is Interbrand, a global branding consultancy that (among their other business activities) assigns values to brand names and publishes an annual list of brand name rankings, subject to some qualifications: Interbrand There are several criteria for inclusion in Interbrand's annual Best Global Brands report. The brand must be truly global and needs to have successfully transcended geographic and cultural boundaries. It must have expanded across the established economic centers of the world, and be establishing a presence in the major markets of the future. In measurable terms, this requires that:     At least 30 percent of revenues must come from outside the brand's home region.     It must have a presence in at least three major continents, as well as broad geographic coverage in emerging markets.     There must be sufficient publicly available data on the brand's financial performance.     Economic profit must be expected to be positive over the longer term, delivering a return above the brands operating and financing costs.     The brand must have a public profile and awareness above and beyond its own marketplace.  These requirements  that a brand be global, visible, and relatively transparent in financial results  lead to the exclusion of some well-known brands that might otherwise be expected to appear in the ranking. The Mars and BBC brands, for example, are privately held and do not have publicly available financial data. Walmart, although it does business in international markets, often does so under a variety of brands and, therefore, does not meet Interbrand's global requirements. Interbrand's 2013 ranking of the Best Global Brands finds that things have changed considerably since the days when Coca-Cola, Marlboro, and Budweiser held down the top spots on the "most valuable brand name" charts, however. According to Interbrand, Coca-Cola is still in a strong third-place position, but Budweiser has slipped all the way down to #31, and Marlboro no longer appears in Interbrand's top 100 at all (possibly due to Marlboro's lack of a social media presence). Best Global Brands social media Millward Brown's BrandZ 2013 list of the "Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands," which is more inclusive than Interbrand's and is based on a database of feedback from millions of consumers and professionals, shows the Coca-Cola and Marlboro brands still close to the top at #5 and #8, respectively, with Budweiser midway down at #34. Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands A comparison of the two organizations' most recent rankings shows a good deal of similarity in the top seven spots: Interbrand (2013) Brandz (2013)    #1 Apple #1 Apple #2 Google #2 Google   #3 Coca-Cola #3 IBM   #4 IBM #4 McDonald's  #5 Microsoft #5 Coca-Cola#6 General Electric #6 AT&T#7 McDonald's #7 Microsoft But Mark Ritson, writing for MarketingWeek, noted that the different approaches employed by Interbrand and BrandZ can also produce some quite disparate results: The two most well-regarded brand valuations are provided by Millward Brown's BrandZ Top 100 and Interbrand's Best Global Brands list. Both produce the same thing: a ranking of the 100 most valuable brands in the world, and each year we get to see their latest assessments. The problem for the two companies involved, and marketers in general, is how far apart their annual estimates of brand value tend to be. For example, in 2010 BrandZ estimated the value of the Google brand to be $114 billion, making it by far the world's most valuable brand and suggesting that approximately 75% of the overall market capitalisation of Google can be attributed to its brand value. In contrast, Interbrand valued Googles brand at $44 billion in 2010, well behind brands like Coke, IBM and Microsoft. That's more than a minor difference of opinion with BrandZ  that's $70 billion worth of disagreement. Or, to put it in perspective, the combined 2010 brand values of Porsche, Barclays, Audi, VW, HSBC, Ford, Nike, Burberry and Pepsi. The vast $70 billion difference is not derived from a difference of philosophy  both Millward Brown and Interbrand calculate the value of a brand the same way. Both firms also have access to the same financial data for each brand. The difference comes from the method each uses to estimate a brand's overall strength. BrandZ uses its own internal survey of "2 million consumers in 30 different countries" to assess brand strength. Interbrand relies on its "pool of global experts from over 40 countries" who each complete a 10 item assessment of every brand's strength. Additional information:        Best Global Brands (2013)   (Interbrand)        Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands (2013)   (BrandZ)  Last updated:  18 October 2013
Memesclaiming that former President Ronald Reagan continued his golf vacation after nearly300 people were killed in an attack in Beirut in 1983 are frequently circulatedon Facebook:      The above-displayed memes have been circulating for several years, but they regained popularity in March 2016 as President Obama was criticized for remaining in Cuba (where he was making a state visit) after 31 people were killed during terrorist bombings in Brussels, Belgium. criticized While these images correctly reflect that Ronald Reagan was on vacation when a suicide bomber crashed a truck full of explosives into an airport building that was being used as barracks for U.S. Marines in Beirut, Lebanon, on 23 October 1983 (killing 241 American servicemen), the former president did not continue his golf vacation after receiving the news.The first image showing Reagan on the golf course was taken the day before the bombing, not the day after: before President Reagan playing golf at the Augusta National Golf Club. 10/22/83. An article published by theNew York Timesthe day after the attack also noted that Reagan cut his vacation short to return to the White House: noted "There are no words that can express our sorrow and grief over the loss of those splendid young men and the injury to so many others,'' the President said gravely this morning, standing in the rain outside the White House after a hurried return from a golfing weekend in Augusta, Ga. The second photo displayed abovewas also taken the day before the Beirut bombings: before President Ronald Reagan, clad in pajamas and bathrobe, talking on telephone to Robert McFarlane and Secretary of State George Shultz, re urgent request from five members of Eastern Carribbean States on the situation in Grenada. However, the former president wasn't always necessarily quickto react after deadlyinternational incidents. After a Korean airliner was shot down by the Soviet Union on 1 September 1983, President Reagan remained at his ranch in Santa Barbara: remained At this point, (White House spokesman Larry Speakes) Speakes was interrupted and asked if Reagan was going back to Washington. He ignored the question and read a statement on the Middle East. Asked again if Reagan was going back to Washington, Speakes answered, "There are no plans for the president to return to Washington earlier than anticipated." Speakes walked away from the podium and then came back to take questions. He announced, as he does every day in California, what Reagan intended to do that day: "The president, as usual, is planning at horseback ride this morning and will generally work around the ranch in the afternoon. The weather there is as it is here, sunny and warm." Thesememes are based on an assumption that a U.S. president has to react immediately to breaking news of a violent incident or crisis by returning to the nation's capital, even when such an action does not facilitate the handling of the situation. When President Obama was criticized in 2014 for his reaction toMalaysian Airlines Flight 17 being shot down (reportedly by pro-Russian insurgents), reporter ChrisWallace noted that sometimes, "the best thing presidents can do is nothing": criticized I know there's like an immediate reaction, that you want to say he should have run back to Washington and gone back to the Situation Room. I know that a lot of folks at Fox here are saying that. As somebody who covered the White House and saw for six years Ronald Reagan in various situations, sometimes the best thing presidents can do is nothing, to continue on. If he had gone back to Washington and gone to the situation room  first of all, there's not much he can do, we're not in control of the situation. And it would have dialed it up. I was covering Ronald Reagan at that time [i.e., when the Korean airliner was shot down].He was in Santa Barbara at his ranch when that happened, and quite frankly he didn't want to leave. And his advisers realized how terrible this looked, and eventually persuaded him he had to fly back to Washington and had to give this speech to the nation, but it did take him four days. Pity the poor children of the United States  they, along with their parents, are already in hock to the federal government for thousands of dollars.Assemblywoman Caroline Casagrande (R-Monmouth) made that claim Oct. 26 during an interview with Michael Aron on NJTVs On The Record.Every American now is $51,000 in debt, Casagrande told Aron. Thats money I owe, thats money my children owe before they even go to kindergarten, thats their check to the federal government right now.Casagrandes number is solid, but she doesnt have to worry about whipping out her checkbook or debit card any time soon, some federal budget experts say.Lets start by reviewing the two commonly cited forms of national debt -- debt held by the public and total debt.Debt held by the public is money borrowed from investors outside of the federal government. The total debt represents debt held by the public as well as money the federal government owes itself, including for programs such as Social Security and Medicare.Now lets look at the numbers in Casagrandes claim.The U.S. Government Debt website on Nov. 6  the date we started looking into Casagrandes clam -- listed the national debt at $16,295,297,196,000. If thats divided by 314,719,484 -- the total U.S. population, according to the Census Bureau, each American owes the federal government $51,777.21.So, Casagrandes number is accurate. But should Americans actually expect to pay that bill? Not necessarily.Gary Burtless, a senior fellow of economic studies at the Brookings Institution who has worked as a government economist and served on federal advisory panels under presidents of both parties, explained that what the nation owes each year on the national debt is annual interest and principal payments.Do grandma and the grandkids have to pay off the national debt, as Assemblywoman Caroline Casagrande seems to suggest? No, they do not, Burtless wrote. Our grandkids great grandparents did not pay off the federal debt; neither did their parents or grandparents. There is no rule that the national debt has to be paid off in one generation, three generations, or even ten generations. Taxpayers do not face the possibility that they will receive a $51,000 bill in the mail anytime soon.An invoice might not be in the mail but Casagrandes statement is fair, according to spokespeople for the conservative Heritage Foundation and American Enterprise Institute.Were not even going to pay off the debt, were going to pay down the interest, said Matt Jensen, a research associate in Economic Policy Studies at the AEI. Under no proposal that Ive seen is someone paying down the debt in real dollars. What were really talking about is paying the interest on the debt, forever. Youll pay the interest, your children will pay the interest.Our PolitiFact colleagues in Virginia and New Hampshire also looked into similar claims in their states and found that the amount of debt cited by their lawmakers was largely accurate.Virginia Rep. Randy Forbes in January said the national debt amounted to $48,700 for every American or $128,300 for every U.S. Household. Our colleagues rated the claim True.In August, PolitiFact New Hampshire rated Mostly True a claim by Rep. Frank Guinta that every child in the United States has a $50,000 share in the national debt. Guinta  received a Mostly True because that would mean each of the nations nearly 74 million children would owe $216,102. Guintas figure was accurate, however, when the debt was spread across the entire population.Our rulingCasagrande said in a television interview, Every American now is $51,000 in debt. Thats money I owe, thats money my children owe before they even go to kindergarten, thats their check to the federal government right now.A simple mathematical calculation confirms that every American technically owes the government $51,777.21 toward the national debt. But will youngsters have to suddenly start handing over their allowances to pay down the federal deficit? Not likely. We rate the statement Mostly True. To comment on this story, go toNJ.com. Claim:  E-mail reproduces a 1999 newspaper article warning about potential troubles with Fannie Mae. Status:  True. Example:  [Collected via e-mail, September 2008] Right out of the pages of the NY Times!!!And look at the date..!!!  September 30, 1999Fannie Mae Eases Credit To Aid Mortgage Lending  In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders. The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets  including the New York metropolitan region  will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials say they hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring.  [Rest of article here.] here Origins:  In any crisis, one of the most common reactions is to ponder the question, "How did we get into this mess?"  People begin to search for explanations about who was responsible for bringing about the current state of  affairs, who had the ability to head it off (but failed to act or was thwarted), and who foresaw the looming danger (but declined to speak up or was ignored).  With the United States currently in the throes of an economic crisis, of which one symptom was the September 2008 government takeover of the foundering Federal National Mortgage Association (commonly known as Fannie Mae), a nine-year-old warning about the home mortgage underwriter's being vulnerable to economic problems that could require government rescue was bound to pique public interest. On 30 September 1999, the New York Times published an article entitled "Fannie Mae Eases Credit to Aid Mortgage Lending" by Steven A. Holmes.  The complete text of the article is available online, but in a nutshell the Times reported that Fannie Mae was easing its credit requirements for home mortgage loans in response to increasing pressure from a variety of groups: text  Clinton administration officials who wanted Fannie Mae "to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people" (particularly minority groups).  Stockholders who wanted Fannie Mae "to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits."  Banks, thrift institutions and mortgage companies (from whom Fannie Mae purchases loans) who wanted the company to facilitate  "more loans to subprime borrowers." In light of recent events, what caught the attention of most readers was a couple of paragraphs in the middle of the article cautioning about the possible consequences of Fannie Mae's loosening its credit requirements: In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980's.  "From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us," said Peter Wallison a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. "If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry." Another New York Times article that has attained a significant amount retrospective interest is an 11 September 2003 article entitled "New Agency Proposed to Oversee Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae" by Stephen Labaton, which reported on the efforts of the Bush administration to create a new regulatory agency to assume oversight of those mortgage lenders: article The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago. Under the plan, disclosed at a Congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry. The new agency would have the authority, which now rests with Congress, to set one of the two capital-reserve requirements for the companies. It would exercise authority over any new lines of business. And it would determine whether the two are adequately managing the risks of their ballooning portfolios. The plan is an acknowledgment by the administration that oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac  which together have issued more than $1.5 trillion in outstanding debt  is broken. A report by outside investigators in July concluded that Freddie Mac manipulated its accounting to mislead investors, and critics have said Fannie Mae does not adequately hedge against rising interest rates. Of especial interest to current readers were the following paragraphs about Congressional resistance to the Bush administration's regulatory proposal: Significant details must still be worked out before Congress can approve a bill. Among the groups denouncing the proposal today were the National Association of Home Builders and Congressional Democrats who fear that tighter regulation of the companies could sharply reduce their commitment to financing low-income and affordable housing. "These two entities  Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac  are not facing any kind of financial crisis," said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. "The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing." Last updated:  2 October 2008    Sources:   Holmes, Steven A.  "Fannie Mae Eases Credit to Aid Mortgage Lending."   The New York Times.  30 September 1999.    Labaton, Stephen.  "New Agency Proposed to Oversee Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae."   The New York Times.  11 September 2003. In November and December 2019, a meme circulated on Facebook warning that human traffickers were leaving zip ties on women's windshield wipers as they shopped to mark them as potential victims/targets for abduction:This was a variation of a familiar meme that we identified as false in July 2019. At that time we reported:  July 2019 Human trafficking affects millions of people worldwide, but its also the frequent subject of viral scarelore  fictional tales intended to frighten audiences, often prompting them to share without questioning the story. millions One such story went viral in October 2018 and again in late July 2019 when social media users shared a meme stating that human traffickers were leaving zip ties (in some posts, black in color) on homes, mailboxes, and cars, of potential female victims to either mark them as targets or distract and abduct them for sex-trafficking purposes when the women try to remove the ties. some The hoax initially centered on San Angelo, Texas, in October 2018 but police there quickly debunked it. We rate the newer variation as "False" as well, because although police in College Station, Texas, addressed the meme and reminded citizens to always be aware of their surroundings, officers were unaware of zip ties being used by human traffickers to mark potential victims. addressed   Have you seen other variations of this claim? Let us know. Let us know. As we've noted many times in these pages, one common way in which people attempt to demonstrate the aptness of a particular social or political viewpoint is to put its expression into the mouth of a revered historical figure.  [Collected via e-mail, April 2008] This quote is going around the internet. I would like to know if it really came from Cicero as claimed. "The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance."  Cicero, 55 BC Surely if one of great minds of our civilization, someone who lived hundreds (or even thousands) of years ago, said the very same thing we're thinking today, then surely that's proof we've hit upon some eternal truth that should be sagaciously heeded. In short, attributing apocryphal quotations to everyone from Confucius to Abraham Lincoln is an attempt to capitalize on the maxim that "great minds think alike." One prime representative of this phenomenon is the passage reproduced above, which warns about the perils of governments' overspending their budgets and lavishing too much money on foreign aid and welfare programs. For the last half century it has been attributed to Roman philosopher and statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero and widely quoted by politicians and pundits seeking to bolster their arguments in favor of fiscal conservatism. For example, Louisiana representative Otto Passman, who for thirty years "pursued a relentless battle against spending for foreign aid" in the U.S. Congress, read these words into the Congressional Record on April 25, 1968: read these words into the Congressional Record Mr. Speaker, the record shows that in all ages where republican forms of government have been lost, it has been through the pretense of a share-the-wealth program, a blind faith in public officials, and apathy on the part of those who could act but did not. To mention only one of many, many examples from past history, may I quote from a statement made by Cicero over 2,000 years ago: The budget should be balanced, the treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt, the mobs should be forced to work and not depend on government for subsistence. History reveals that public officials heeded not the warning  therefore, the government collapsed. On March 29, 1971 the Chicago Tribune published a letter from a reader who invoked the same words to make a similar point: Someone said years ago: "The more things change, the more they are the same." Today's problems are not new. The Roman Empire faced bankruptcy 2,000 years ago, as more and more power was concentrated in central government and government spending grew. Cicero spoke out against the trend. This great Roman senator said: "The budget should be balanced, the treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. The mobs should be forced to work and not depend on government for subsistence." Romans ignored Cicero; Rome fell. History is great if we learn from it. It is not too late for the United States to heed those words out of the past. Those words were never uttered by Cicero, however; and the reason no one ever quoted them as such until about fifty years ago is because they weren't written until 1965. They sprang from the pen of Taylor Caldwell, a fiction writer best known for historical novels such as Captains and the Kings, her 1972 best-selling chronicle of the rise to wealth and power of an Irish immigrant named Joseph Francis Xavier Armagh (which was also made into a popular television mini-series in 1976). popular television mini-series Caldwell penned several novels based on real-life religious and historical figures, including Genghis Khan (The Earth Is the Lord's), Cardinal Richelieu (The Arm and the Darkness), Saint Luke (Dear and Glorious Physician), Saint Paul (Great Lion of God), Aspasia (Glory and the Lightning), and Judas Iscariot (I, Judas). Her 1965 effort A Pillar of Iron was a historical novel about the life of Cicero, the great Roman statesman who "is a pillar of iron as he publicly maintains his search for honor and justice under law in the face of plots against his life and his country." Although A Pillar of Iron often drew directly from the recorded speeches and letters of Cicero for its dialogue, it was nonetheless a work of fiction, and the now famous statement from Cicero about "balancing the budget" was an invention of Caldwell's and not a reproduction of Cicero's own words. In fact, the novel doesn't even present these words as something spoken by Cicero, but rather as a summation of Cicero's political philosophy presented as a preface to an imagined conversation between Cicero and Gaius Antonius Hybrida: Reared in republican virtues, Cicero found himself frequently confounded by Antonius. Antonius heartily agreed with him that the budget should be balanced, that the Treasury should be refilled, that public debt should be reduced, that the arrogance of the generals should be tempered and controlled, that assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt, that the mobs should be forced to work and not depend on the government for subsistence, and that prudence and frugality should be put into practice as soon as possible. But when Cicero produced facts and figures how all these things must and should be accomplished, by austerity and discipline and commonsense, Antonius became troubled. "But this  or that  would bring hardship on this  or that  class," Antonius said. "The people are accustomed to lavish displays in the circuses and the theaters, and the lotteries, and free grain and beans and beef when they are destitute, and shelter when they are homeless and a part of the city is rebuilt. Is not the welfare of our people paramount?" "There will be no welfare of the people if we become bankrupt," said Cicero, grimly. "We can become solvent again, and strong, only by self-denial and by spending as little as possible until the public debt is paid and the Treasury refilled." "But one cannot  if one has a heart at all  deprive the people of what they have received for many decades from government, and which they expect. It will create the most terrible hardships." "Better that all of us tighten our girdles than Rome fall," said Cicero. As Jess Stearn observed in In Search of Taylor Caldwell, this imagined historical conversation was reflective of Caldwell's own political outlook much more than Cicero's: "She was a conservative politically, believing the spoils belonged to those who toiled for them. There were not free lunches. She abhorred the welfare philosophy that gave handouts to free-loaders, decrying rewards for indolence and incompetence." Or, as John Blundell aptly quipped in Ladies for Liberty, "Taylor Caldwell gives us fiscal policy, civil service reform, cuts in aid to less developed countries, and welfare reform all in one sentence." The reproductions of Caldwell's words as a historical quote from Cicero have altered the original a fair bit over the years: the admonition that "prudence and frugality should be put into practice as soon as possible" was quickly dropped from the end of the sentence; "people" have replaced "mobs" as the ones who should be "forced to work and not depend on the government for subsistence"; the proclamation that the "arrogance of the generals should be tempered and controlled" now refers to generic "officialdom" rather than military figures; and the warning that this advice need be followed "lest Rome become bankrupt" has mutated into the more ominous-sounding "lest Rome fall." Blundell, John.  Ladies for Liberty: Women Who Made a Difference in American History.
  New York: Algora Publishing, 2013.  0-875-86865-7  (p. 145). Caldwell, Taylor.  A Pillar of Iron.
  Lake Oswego, OR: eNet Press Inc., 2013.  ASIN B00CEINOCW. Collins, John H.  "False Quotations."
  Chicago Tribune.  20 April 1971. Connolly, Jerry.  "Warning from the Past."
  Chicago Tribune.  29 March 1971  (p. 14). Lueck, Thomas J.  "Otto Passman, 88, Louisiana Congressman Who Fought Spending."
  The New York Times.  14 August 1988. Stearn, Jess.  In Search of Taylor Caldwell.
  New York: Stein & Day, 1981.  0-812-82791-0. Tench, Helen.  "Cicero's Rome Quarried for a Scholarly Novel."
  Ottawa Citizen.  14 August 1965 (p. 24). Congressional Record [House].  "History's Warning."
  25 April 1968  (p. 10635). In December 2020, TikTok user @philupmecup posted a short clip, viewed more than 1 million times, that included the text "An 18 year old can legally adopt a 17 year old," along with the caption "Let that sink in": posted   Among the tens of thousands of comments posted in response to the video were some that appeared to come from teenagers excited or amused by the prospect of high school friends adopting one another once one of them turns 18.  teenagers In reality, the restrictions and protocols implemented by adoption agencies make it unlikely that one teenager could adopt another one, except in rare and tragic circumstances. However, on a purely legal, hypothetical basis, most U.S. states do not prohibit such an arrangement. As a result, we are issuing a rating of "Mixture." Adoption regulations vary from country to country, but the TikTok user who posted the claim lives in the United States, so our assessment will focus on the legal status quo there, which also varies between states. According to a January 2020 report published by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Colorado, Delaware, Oklahoma, and American Samoa explicitly prohibit adoption by anyone under 21 years old; and Georgia and Idaho set the minimum age at 25. report In seven states (California, Georgia, Nevada, New Jersey, South Dakota, and Utah) as well as the Northern Mariana Islands, the adopting parent must be at least 10 years older than the adoptive child, while in Puerto Rico that minimum age gap is 14 years, and in Idaho, it is 15 years.  In California, an exception exists to the age-gap requirement, namely where a court rules the adoption is in everyone's best interests and is done by a "stepparent, or by a sister, brother, aunt, uncle, or first cousin and, if that person is married, by that person and that person's spouse."  exception Similarly, Colorado law allows for an exception to the minimum age of 21, subject to court approval, and in South Dakota, the 10-year age gap can be waived where "the court finds the adoption of the child by the adult person in the best interest of the child." exception waived This means that only 10 out of the 50 states, whose combined population represents 79 million (or around 24% of the country's total population) legally prohibit an 18-year-old from adopting a 17-year-old  and in three of those states, loopholes exist which could, in principle, allow such an arrangement.  That's not to say that any 18-year-old could adopt any 17-year-old. Almost all states have some other legal prerequisites for adoption  in-state residency requirements, consent requirements, and the termination of the biological parents' parental rights. But  all other things being equal  only 10 states have age-specific limitations that would (in almost all cases) prohibit the arrangement in question. In practice, adoption agencies typically impose restrictions, or give preference to certain would-be adoptive parents, based on considerations such as financial stability. This alone would likely rule out the vast majority of 18-year-olds, who are only very rarely independently wealthy or have reliable, sustainable employment which they can balance with a college education and so on.  Another highly relevant consideration here is the time it can take to complete the rigorous procedures required for adopting a child. The California Department of Social Services, for example, advises that adoption agencies often taken between six months and one year to complete their assessment of would-be adoptive parents, and they typically take an additional "one to several months" to actually place the adoptive children with their new parents. Given these time frames, very few scenarios would warrant an 18-year-old's adopting a 17-year-old, when the 17-year-old will become a legal adult anyway, in at most 12 months.  advises Marc Katz, the Austin deli owner running for lieutenant governor, lists health care as his No. 1 campaign issue on his Web site. So it's no surprise that he took a shot at highlighting Texas' struggling mental health system on Twitter.Texas is LAST (50th) in spending for mental health care, he saidin a message on Twitteron Dec. 8.We wanted to know the source for Katz's claim, but he didn't respond to our phone calls or email. We assume Katz was referring to data published by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation for fiscal 2006, which tallied mental health care spending for the District of Columbia and the 50 states. Texas was indeed ranked 50th for spending  per capita  though that was second to last.Spending $34.57 per Texan, the state squeaked ahead of New Mexico, which spent $25.58 and ranked 51st. Florida came in third from last at $38.17, and the national average was $103.53.When you look at total dollars spent, Texas ranked 10th in 2006, spending about $805 million.Aware of the state's shortcomings in health care services, Texas legislators allocated $55 million in 2009 to be distributed during the next year (half of it has been already) to expand services at local mental health centers, and through August this year, community mental health centers will receive another $341.8 million in state money through the Department of State Health Services.Twitter sometimes leads to clunky writing because items are limited to 140 characters per tweet. In this case, though, Katz sliced information to give it more impact. Sure, he was only off by one state, but that was the difference between Texas ranking last and not, an important detail when you're showing Texas' rank in ALL CAPS. We rank Katz's statement Mostly True. Claim:  Photograph shows a 9-month-old baby tattooed by its mother's boyfriend.  Example:  [Collected on the Internet, December 2011] A local New York State resident, Franny Trokerns was arrested early this morning after being turned in by her babysitter. After the babysitter noticed the child was constantly screaming as if the baby was pain she took the baby's clothes off to give her a bath and saw the baby had a REAL tattoo on the her right arm. The babysitter was in disbelief and immediately called authorities. The mother works as a dancer at a local strip bar and apparently during a night of heavy drinking of shots she allowed her on-and-off-again boyfriend Derrek Honsteads (a tattoo artist) to tattoo her 9 month old baby for a little practice!   Origins:  This image does not show a 9-month-old baby whose mother, after a night of heavy drinking, allowed her tattoo artist boyfriend to ply his trade on her child.  The infant in the picture is not a real child, and the accompanying text is simply a bit of fiction crafted by someone to create a false outrage-provoking backstory. What's pictured here is a 2010 work by Brooklyn, New York, artist Jason Clay Lewis, who describes his art thusly: Jason Clay Lewis As an artist, my approach has always been, intentionally, to confound and challengeattempts to make things fit into what we already know and think. I strive to questionperceived beauty, passion, life, death, and creation. I have an urgent conviction that artis a passionate and essential affair, as if a matter of life and death, where one sensesthe only response to death is art. Without glossing over the violence of the natural worldI asks questions about man's suicidal folly, the one we call progress, a merger into apathetic religion of commerce and profit, of false facades, and using a strategy to makeus reconsider our world of visual imagery. I tinker with these visual explanations, tryingto give them purpose, direction, and meaning. Always perfectly aware that knowing thisconstant probing does not have a sequence to a perfect solution. Atypical andfascinating, as an adventurer blending expression, analysis, and experience, I use everymeans and media available to explore the love of knowledge and depict limits, whiletrying to push those limits even farther. My interest in unique materials helps to developmy ideas of attraction verses repulsion allowing my work to have both a strong visceralfeeling while maintaining a direct cerebral presence. This particular work is entitled 'Drill Baby' and features an infant constructed from vinyl rubber, mohair, oil paint, plaster, and aluminum armature.  Photographs of the full artwork, as well as close-ups taken from multiple angles, can be viewed here. here Last updated:  22 January 2012 In December 2019, we received multiple enquiries from readers about remarks that U.S. President Donald Trump reportedly made on the subject of wind power. In particular, readers asked us about a Dec. 23 meme published by the left-leaning "Occupy Democrats" Facebook page.  meme The caption that accompanied the meme read: "Yes, Trump really DID say this last night ..." The meme itself contained the introductory line "Future generations will look back on Trump's latest idiotic wind turbines rant in awe and horror," followed by what was presented as an extended quotation: "I never understood wind. You know, I know windmills very much. But they're manufactured tremendous  if you're into this  tremendous fumes. Gases are spewing into the atmosphere. You know we have a world, right? So the world is tiny compared to the universe. So tremendous, tremendous amount of fumes and everything. You talk about the carbon footprint  fumes are spewing into the air. Right? Spewing. Whether it's in China, Germany, it's going into the air. It's our air, their air, everything  right?"   The quotation included in the Occupy Democrats meme was a highly, though not perfectly, accurate presentation of real remarks made by Trump during a Dec. 21 speech at a conference held by the right-leaning youth organization Turning Point USA.  Appearing before a highly partisan, strongly supportive audience, Trump riffed on various familiar topics, attacking and ridiculing Democrats and boosting his own administration's record, often using hyperbolic language and eliciting laughter and cheers from the crowd. At times, the remarks appeared more like a stand-up comedy routine than an official speech.  Around 30 minutes in, Trump ridiculed the Green New Deal, riffed on the subject of wind power, and attacked wind turbines. The following is a transcript of the most relevant section from his speech, which can also be watched in the official White House video below. ...We'll have an economy based on wind. I never understood wind. You know, I know windmills very much. I've studied it [sic] better than anybody I know. It's [sic] very expensive. They're made in China and Germany mostly, very few made here, almost none. But they're manufactured -- tremendous, if you're into this, tremendous fumes, gases are spewing into the atmosphere. You know we have a world, right? So the world is tiny compared to the universe. So [a] tremendous, tremendous amount of fumes and everything -- you talk about the "carbon footprint" -- fumes are spewing into the air, right? Spewing. Whether it's in China, Germany, it's going into the air. It's our air, their air, everything, right?  So they make these things, and then they put them up, and if you own a house within vision of some of these monsters, your house is worth 50 percent of the price. They're noisy, they kill the birds. You want to see a bird graveyard? You just go, take a look, a bird graveyard? Go under a windmill some day. You'll see more birds than you've ever seen ever in your life ...  The remarks included in the meme are shown in boldface above. Occupy Democrats did not misquote Trump and quoted word-for-word from his actual remarks, though the creators of the meme made slightly different punctuation choices to those we made. They also left out a short section where Trump explained his purported knowledge of windmills: "I've studied it [sic] better than anybody I know. It's [sic] very expensive. They're made in China and Germany mostly, very few made here, almost none." That gap should have been reflected in the quotation with the use of an ellipsis, but the omission did not distort the meaning or sense of what Trump said, and we therefore issue a rating of "Correct Attribution." ellipsis Although his remarks were somewhat garbled at times, Trump appeared to have been making the point that the construction of wind turbines causes carbon emissions ("tremendous fumes"). For what it's worth, it's true that building and maintaining wind turbines does leave a carbon footprint, but analyses have shown that the overall negative environmental impact of wind power is far outstripped by that of the fossil fuel energy sources that wind power is intended to replace.  analyses National Renewable Energy Laboratory. "Life Cycle Assessment Harmonization."
 Accessed 26 December 2019. Schipani, Vanessa. "Wind Energy's Carbon Footprint."
 FactCheck.org. 14 March 2018. The congressional contest between Democratic Rep. Betty Sutton and Republican Rep. Jim Renacci is among the nations most costly and hard-fought races, and has also devolved into one of the nastiest.After Renacci placed ads accusing Sutton of voting to raise taxes on just about everyone, Sutton fired back with an ad that claims Renacci supports tax breaks for millionaires like himself and tried to avoid paying taxes on nearly $14 million that he made.We play by the rules but Renacci thinks hes above them, says a male blue collar worker shown in Suttons ad.On the same day that Sutton unveiled the ad that accuses Renacci of avoiding taxes, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee made a similar assertion in adifferent ad, which says: Renacci tried to skip out on paying over a million in taxes..The tax avoidance claims in Suttons new ad echo charges that were raised against Renacci in 2010, when he first ran for Congress and defeated Democratic Rep. John Boccieri. They stem from a dispute Renacci had with the Ohio Department of Taxation, which accused him and his wife, Tina, of misreporting their income in 2000 and assessed them nearly $1.4 million in back taxes, interest and penalties.The Renaccis filed state tax returns that claimed they had a loss of $247,336 that year, but auditors determined they actually made $13,730,440. The couple filed a tax appeal when the state dinged them for $954,650 in back taxes, $146,938 in interest and $293,876 in penalties.The quarrel was over Renacci's trust income from an S corporation, which wasnt taxable for several years before Ohio's tax commissioner changed the states policy. S corporations permit income to be taxed at an individual rate for federal tax purposes, and avoid double taxation on corporate income. Renacci was among a group of taxpayers who fought the state decision. He contended the trust income should have been tax-free and that he had reasonable cause to exclude it on his tax return, tax department and court documents say.Others dropped their appeals, but Renacci continued to fight, even after a 2006 Ohio Supreme Court ruling in a similar case in which the court said the trust income was subject to taxation. In that case, the taxpayers reported their S Corporation income on their 2000 tax return and then unsuccessfully asked for a refund.A 2007 legal brief the state of Ohio filed in Renaccis case observed that nearly all other litigants who created grantor trusts in an attempt to shelter, i.e., exclude their S corporation income from Ohio income taxation gave up their appeals, and that the Renaccis were almost alone in their persistence. Court records show the Renaccis eventually sent the state more than $1.3 million, but they continue to argue that $359,822 that they paid in penalties and interest were improper.He was proud of his fight, and to have fought till the end, along with many other Ohioans for tax fairness, Renacci spokesman James Slepian told the Plain Dealer in 2010.When asked about Suttons new ad,  Slepian this month called her a desperate politician who knows shes losing and has no record to run on, and said shes  engaging in the bogus, gutter politics of recycled personal attacks that have defined her sad career in Congress.Indeed, the charges against Renacci are somewhat recycled. The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union placeda television adin 2010 that contained a more extreme version of the charges that Sutton is making.That ad said he cheated on his income taxes, that he hid more than $13 million and was forced to pay $1.4 million in back taxes and penalties. Renacci filed a defamation suit against the union after the ads began to air.Court recordsshow he dropped the case on Feb. 3, 2011, shortly after he took office in Congress.PolitiFact Ohio founda claim in that ad to be Mostly True because Renacci could have disclosed the trust income on his state tax return, as the state warned he should, but he didnt. He also could have paid the taxes and contested the amount, but didnt. And he didnt amend his return, despite an explicit 2002 warning from Ohios tax Department that he could face penalties for fraud and failure to pay if he didnt. But Renacci ultimately worked within the system to resolve the case, paid the full amount that was due, and was not ever charged with tax fraud.The claim in this ad is an easier call. Reams of legal documents show that Renacci battled with the state over trust income from an S corporation, trying to avoid paying taxes on the $13.7 million at issue in the case.On the Truth-O-Meter, Suttons claim rates True.