Romney Wins Iowa Caucus by 8 Votes

The Iowa caucuses sounded the opening bell of the Republican contest for president. Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum each had 24.6 percent (with Romney winning by just 8 votes). The last time the Iowa caucuses produced such a close outcome was in 1980, when George Bush beat Ronald Reagan by two percentage points. Ron Paul was a close third with 21 percent. Newt Gingrich was in fourth place with 13 percent of the votes, followed by Rick Perry with 10 percent.

In Other News Virgin Galactic, the most prominent of the new space tourism companies, is now booking space flights. The first flights of the new airlines that will take tourists past the threshold of space are poised to take off in 2012 at $200,000 a seat. The United States holds a disproportionate amount of the world's richest 1% in the world. About half of them million -- live in the United States. Another four million live in Germany. The rest are mainly scattered throughout Europe, Latin America and a few Asian countries. Based on the statistics, even the poorest 5% of Americans are better off financially than two thirds of the entire world.