Land of Oz

FDIC

Last year, DeMotte paid $42,000 into the fund [FDIC]. This year, because of failures in other parts of the country and particularly among national banks, that sum will rise to $500,000 or more.

Here's something you don't hear much about. Who pays for FDIC. If you don't know, FDIC is the insurance that covers your bank account. It used to be up to $100K and now is up to $250K. This is for people whose banks invested stupidly and now are looking at closing. The FDIC will make good on your account.

Mr. Goetz is the president of the DeMotte bank - a plain dull local bank in Indiana. This bank isn't going under. It also isn't paying 15% returns on investments or loaning big bucks to people who don't have a chance in the world of paying those big bucks back. In other words, it's a safe, comfortable place to keep your money to do safe, comfortable things with. It hasn't taken any "TARP" money from the government and it isn't in danger of closing. However, even after all that it is still suffering from the stupidity and mostly, greed, of the mega-banks.

One more reason why I don't like mega-sized businesses. Sure, in a mega bank, you might get a couple of percentage points more interest or in a mega depot, you might save a few percentage points on the cost of a gallon of paint, but there's still a high price to pay. I'd much rather deal with a Mr. Goetz at a local bank or Fred at the local mom and pop hardware store. Sure, I might pay a little more, but not in the long run.

Labels: government, scams

Why We're Broke

Why are we spending $780 billion to try to save  USof A companies? The below is an article I just read. This company has gone bankrupt three times since 2005!! Yet, the CEO says, nothing will change and we'll do business as usual. What the hell?? If you've gone bankrupt three times in four years, you're obviously doing something wrong - even a business cretin like myself can see that. Change something, you moron.

CHICAGO (Reuters) The Chapter 11 filing marks the third plunge into bankruptcy for the company [Trump Entertainment], which was created out of a restructuring in 2005. It also underscores the struggles facing the casino business as recession squeezes casino gambling.

"This filing will result in no immediate change in our daily operations, and we expect to make no changes regarding our operating structure or philosophy," Trump Chief Executive Mark Juliano said in a statement.

Labels: government, scams

Bail Outs 2

Big Three

Hmmm, let me see if I understand this. A couple weeks ago the Big Three flew down to D.C. in their private jets to try to get money to rescue their companies. Congress said, "show us a plan."

One week later the Big Three is set to return to D.C. (not in private jets) with the plan. If it only takes a couple of weeks to figure out what is wrong, why didn't they do it last year - or the year before?

Banks

What exactly are the banks doing with their $700 billion or thereabouts? These are the folks who have been throwing money away to bad credit risks for years now. So suddenly we're going to trust them with $700B of our hard earned taxes?

Mom and Pop

Where does Mom and Pop and their little snack shop fall in this meeting of the financial minds? Do they get a piece of the unknown trillions of dollars we're tossing around lately? Or do they just watch their livelihood get sold for pennies on the dollar?

Me

Yeah, me. OK, so I'm greedy. Do I get any benefits out of this trillion dollar fiasco? I'm one of those idiots who's lived within their means for the past few years. Will I have anything to show except for a drained retirement savings account and a house I can't even sell for what I owe on it?

Labels: government, scams

Money

"the Republican National Committee spent $150,000 on makeup consultations and clothes at high-end department stores such as Neiman Marcus and Saks in New York and St. Louis."

Obviously the Obama folks are looking for any kind of dirt to throw McCain's way. Equally obviously, the McCain folks should've seen this coming. I would guess that for something with the stature of the Republican convention, spending a bunch on clothes and makeup could be justified. Equally, however, in these days of economic downturns and the painting of Palin as "Mrs. Joe Six-Pack" and hockey mom extradinaire, you'd think they'd have had more sense than to spend the price of a home on dresses and lipstick.

And speaking of money, I think Obama has now raised something like $600+ million for his campaign! That means, to my cynical way of thinking, that a bunch of people have paid a bunch of money to Obama in the hopes that stuff he does will pay them back for all the money they've sent him. (and really, how do you say NO to someone who just handed you $1,000,000) I'll tell you what Mr. Obama, you send me just .0165% of that, about $100,000, and I'll be more than happy to vote for you and you don't even have to do me any favors in the future.

P.S. Do you realize that as much as Obama's $600,000,000 seems, it's only .075% of what Bush has us paying out to bail out the banks and loan companies - who seem to be spending at least some of it on $400,000 vacations and "executive retreats."

P.P.S. If any of my math - especially the percentages - are wrong, please let me know. Dealing with millions, billions and trillions has always been a bit confusing for me.

P.P.P.S. Did you know that the list price of a nice six-piece set of Sorby lathe chisels is just over $300 which is about .00005% of Obama's war chest?

Labels: government, scams, tools

$700B$812B

This post is being written off and on all day as the thoughts come to me.

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Remember Miss Addie Polk

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I am quite pissed at the moment with our politicians. Think about just what happened this week. Obviously, I don't know all the facts, but here is what I see. The people told their representatives they didn't want this bill passed. Web sites and phone lines all were down as a majority of folks told their representatives they didn't think the $700B plan was a good idea. And at first, the representatives agreed. But then they decided to put an extra $112B in their special interest's pockets and pass it anyway. Basically these bastards decided to screw the taxpayer with an extra $112B on top of the $700B we're already going to pay. This is just plain wrong.

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I'm going to leave the stuff I wrote earlier today about not understanding what is going on. The bill has passed - all now $800 plus billion of it. Basically Congress bribed itself with $112 billion in extra pork.

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$812 billion to pay off banks that don't know how to handle money. At least I can put my extra $150,000 cash into my bank account and not worry about FDIC covering it. I'll have that much extra now, since I'm making a film about rum-drinking Samoan racing drivers.

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First, I do get the idea that the bailout is supposed to give financial institutions more chances to lend money and that lent money is the money we use for day-to-day business. However, I don't see where this bill will help any of us peons.

If I'm losing my house now, this won't help me pay for it. Sure, the company I work for will get some credit to pay me, but if I couldn't pay my bills last month, I'm still not going to be able to pay them this month.

From what I understand the whole underlying reason for the financial mess we are now in is because it was too easy to get credit. People were taking out loans to buy stuff they couldn't really afford. I also don't understand how an expectation of rising house values affects the mortgage you can't afford.

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Talk about pandering and pigs with lipstick, I ran across the following somewhere online from ABCNews: "Some of the goodies intended to attract the votes of individual members of Congress include $192 million for the rum producers of Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands, $128 million for car racing tracks, $33 million for corporations operating in American Samoa, and $10 million for small film and television productions. " There's also a provision in there about repealing a $0.39 tax on arrows for kids - which just goes to prove that no payoff is too small for Congress to be involved with.

Labels: government, scams

Bailout Blues

I'm still not entirely sure I'm for this or against this. At first, and for that matter second glance, it seems something to benefit only the well-to-do. Even the addition of the savings insurance upgrade seems of minimal benefit to most. I can't say I have many friends who are too concerned that the insured savings limit is only $100,000. To be honest, I'm not sure too many of my friends would be overly put out with a $10,000 bank savings limit.

I work in a pretty well-paying job and there's folks I work with who have serious difficulties coming up with $500 for emergencies. So the bank saving insurance increase to $200,000 isn't too impressive. While I understand (sort of) that credit is the lifeblood of our economy, I also thought that credit is the root of the problem of our economy. Just how long do people figure they can keep buying stuff without the money to pay for it. And yes, I am a financial idiot so this bailout probably makes sense to someone who has the big bucks.

I'm also a little curious as to what happens to all these foreclosed properties from these busted mortgages the government will be buying. I did hear the government will be selling them off to recover the money. Why do I feel they'll be selling them off in big chunks. Say, tens of millions of dollars worth at a time. And guess who won't be able to get in on any of that. If you take the $700 trillion and divide it by $10 million (I pulled this value out of thin air - like the government did with $700 trillion), you end up with 70,000 chunks. What I can see is someone like Buffet or Icahn coming up with a financial offer wrapped all in legalese that gives them the $700 trillion of foreclosed properties for about one hundred-fourteen dollars and eighty-nine cents in cash. Which they will then sell off with easy-to-pay financing through themselves to those of us who lost the properties in the first place - making even more money for themselves.

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And on a note that may or may not be related to this mess, the Chinese just successfully landed a manned space mission that included a space walk. We, the USofA, has just delayed its almost defunct space shuttle mission to rehab the Hubble Telescope before we discontinue the shuttle - after which we will be beholding to the Russians to get our folks up and also back from the International Space Station.

And did you know that 46% of Sanlu (the Chinese company poisoning milk products) is owned by a New Zealand company?

Labels: government, scams

Sold Out

Yep - what can I say. I sold out to the evil empire and added ads to my blog. They're pretty unobtrusive, so you can easily ignore them if you want. However, if you do click them you reinforce the commercialism of the Internet and maybe make me a few pennies as well. And I won't complain about that.

Labels: computers, scams

$7692.31

Ah, that sound of relief as the government bails out all those banks and insurance companies. Good news - huh? As near as I can figure it, if you take the $1 trillion in bailout money and divide it by 130 million taxpayers, it means your chunk of the bill is $7692.31, actually it's 1/3 of cent lower than that, but what's a fraction of a penny among fellow citizens?

And if you're wondering, I really don't have any idea if those numbers are correct. I have problems with grasping thousands of dollars; millions, billions and trillions aren't even imaginable. I could pay for my house 6 million times over with a trillion bucks - how can anyone imagine numbers like that. I wonder how much Bush will be kicking in?

Labels: government, scams

Why!

It remains to be seen what sort of compensation package Robert Willumstad, CEO of AIG, the world's largest insurance company, will get now. On Tuesday, the Fed promised to back loans to the teetering company to the tune of $85 billion, in exchange for 80 percent of its stock. Willumstad owns homes on Park Ave in Manhattan; on Long Island, N.Y.; and in Vermont. According to BusinessWeek, in July his minimum cash bonus for 2008 was set at $4 million and his target bonus was set at $8 million. In 2006, Freddie Mac's CFO, Anthony Piszel, bought a reported $3.6 million, five-bedroom, 8-bath Colonial in Great Falls, Va., that is situated on five acres "with a lake, a floating staircase and two kitchens." Despite steering their companies into financial disaster, the CEOs of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac stand to make even more money up to a reported $25 million in so-called golden parachute packages John Thain has been CEO of Merrill Lynch for less than a year. He received a $15 million cash bonus when he signed on with the struggling company.

And there isn't a damn thing we can do about it. The CEOs bleat platitudes about ethics and honor within their companies and then when it goes bust, they take their money and run, while the peons who made them the money get nothing but a letter telling them their stocks are now worth less than the paper they weren't printed on.

And now the government is into it. If you lose your house, oh well. If a CEO loses his company, the government will step in with billions to bail them out. How about getting some of CEOs, CFOs and C-whatever-Os to cough up some millions to help their own companies out - the same companies they ran into the ground.

Labels: government, gripes, scams

Idiots - again

Hurricane Ike ... forced the U.S. Coast Guard to launch helicopter evacuations of local residents. At least 50 people on the Bolivar Peninsula became stranded by high winds and rain and are being rescued, according to the U.S. Coast Guard. This drama is unfolding despite a blunt warning from the National Weather Service to residents of Galveston in advance of the storm. "Persons not heeding evacuation orders in single-family, one- or two-story homes, will face certain death," the warning said.

What part of certain death don't these idiots understand? And it's not just them. I've read other articles about folks in Texas who are living practically on the beach and have no intention to evacuate. That means that more Coast Guard, and other emergency response, folks are going to have put their lives on the line to save some idiots who don't deserve saving.

It probably makes me sub-human, but I think there are types of behavior that just aren't acceptable and that society shouldn't have to put itself in danger to rescue those people. There's a site/book/phrase The Darwin Awards that document, and in fact award, certain destructive types of stupid behavior. Their logic is that humanity is served when the genes of people too stupid to live are removed from humanity. To me daring a hurricane is one those behaviors we can do without. Not to mention those folks, unfortunately not idiots, who continually rebuild their homes and businesses on sites that past hurricanes/forest fires/floods/etc. have wiped clean. I'm tired of paying for them to continue their idiotic lifestyle. You don't thing their insurance companies are going to repay them out of the goodness of their hearts do you? Nope, the payoff comes from increased premiums to the rest of us.

Labels: gripes, scams

Sears

At one time I had the highest respect for Sears and its products. Craftsman was my tool of choice and Diehard batteries couldn't be beat. Now Craftsman tools are found in K-mart and their quality is something that I would expect to find in K-mart. And their salespeople are climbing out from under rocks.

I made the mistake the other day of signing up for a Sears free home estimate for some doors. I was told that they wouldn't call until Monday (this being a Weds) to confirm the appointment. About two hours after talking to Sears in Saginaw, my cell phone gets a no name call (407-551-6000) from Florida. When I answer there's someone just talking on it. I wait for a pause, but it doesn't happen, so I hang up.

There's a pretty cool Web site (http://800notes.com/) you can search for telemarketing and other annoying calls. I checked the 407 number there's a long list of complaints about Sears. I called an 800 number to Sears and canceled the appointment. Since then, even after canceling within three hours, I got at least on other call at home, and have received snail mail ads from them. I'm glad I canceled since this seems more and more like a scam as the harassment goes on.

Labels: gripes, scams

spam - revisited

I've been getting my usual several hundred spams a day across various accounts. Some of the stuff I wonder about is why some email accounts I have get hundreds of spams a day and others get 1 or 2 a month. I have one rather odd domain that I don't use at all that gets several hundred spams a day. That account deletes them at once.

Another thing I wonder about is why some spammers don't even take the effort to correctly configure their spam machines. I get many emails with something like $NAME or $$MAIL_ADDRESS in the subject which obviously is a missnamed variable.

And then there's the ones that are spelled with all the correctness of a high school shop class dropout. I'm guessing a lot of the misspellings are an effort to circumvent the spam filters, but I think those kinds of things play right into a filter. Not to mention the numbers as letters versions, as in s33 the m4n 1n th3 m00n. I am somewhat intrigued by a batch this month that have a subject similar to You're pretty stupid . At least they're a bit more honest than most.

Please people, quit responding to these idiots. If people would just quit sending in money to Indian drug stores, Nigerian banks and Hong Kong software stores, they'd eventually quit sending out the email.

Labels: computers, gripes, scams

Surveys

Here's another subject that really bothers me. How can people make conclusions based on survey answers? One today read, "One in six drivers drink sometimes: report." This was reporting about how many people drive drunk. This reminds me of the police scam where they send letters to people with warrants and let them know they've won a free TV or car or some such stuff. When the bad guys shows up, the cops toss them in the slammer.

The cops should try a survey scam. Ask people on the street if they've indulged in some kind of illegal action like using illegal drugs, shoplifting or even, say, driving while impaired. Then when the moron says, "Yes, yes I did drive drunk," they can toss him in the can.

I've taken surveys about stuff. Do I like Coke or Pepsi (Coke) or how often do I shop at Lowes (too often). Stuff like this I don't mind talking about. Even politics is OK. You know the kind, "If the election were held today, who would you vote for? Candidate A, B or C."

I don't do the stupid ones however. You know the kind, the kind with two or three questions that are written with one answer in mind, like, "I oppose letting vicious murders out early so they can terrorize my neighborhood and stomp on my pets? Do you strongly agree, agree or disagree?" I've noticed that those types of surveys usually also ask for a donation of some kind.

So, the next time a survey asks you "Do you cheat on your taxes? Yes or No," will you disagree, strongly disagree or follow your questioner to court?

Labels: government, gripes, scams

Foreclosures

Big, big news lately. And today, yet another government program to save those in foreclosure has been announced. Now I don't mean to sound cold-hearted, but some of those folks shouldn't get saved. They were greedy and stupid. We recently went through a bout of home looking. It's amazing the kind of house we could've bought. And I don't mean because we could've gotten a much higher mortgage - although we could have. And I also think that getting a mortgage too big is what put a lot of these folks in the hole in the first place.

Because the housing market is so bad in this area, there are a lot of low-cost (relatively) and foreclosed houses on the market. We looked at a couple over 3000 square feet that probably could have been bought for under $200,000. We also looked at some real nice homes near $200,000 that we could have easily purchased.

It's not all price and square feet (or meters) that should be included in the purchase plan. One of the things I thought of when looking at the +3,000 sq. ft. of empty rooms was what I'd have to pay to heat and maintain it. The realtor said $140 a month for utilities - right. My wife thought about how much we'd have to pay to furnish that castle. Let's face it; a 3000 sq. ft. house is going to take about twice as much furnishings as a 1600 sq. ft. house (which is what we ended up with). Cathedral ceilings are nice but why pay to heat those upper ten feet or so where no one is.

So I wonder just what kind of ideas were going on in the minds of the folks who are looking at mortgage payments they can no longer afford. Do that many people get into a mortgage not knowing what they will have to pay in three, or five, or seven years? Or did they just figure, since I can get the mortgage, I must be able to afford the mortgage. To be honest, the house we are now in, a nice 1600 sq. ft. normal house, is definitely cheaper than we could have ultimately bought. But it is also definitely one that we can afford.

Labels: government, gripes, michigan, scams

Lucky Me! #2

Sorry, Dr Frank PHILIP, but I need to betray your trust. I'm forwarding this email to my cousin who, since he must also be related to your long deceased customer will be sure to take advantage of your generosity. On another matter; Since you're reading this, I'd like to let you know that I have recently come into possession of the Mackinac Bridge here in Michigan following one of the many foreclosures I'm sure you've read about. Since you have been so generous in offering me your funds, I thought you might be interested investing some of the $7-odd million left in your bank after my cousin gets his 30% of our inheritance. Please send me your bank account details so that I can quickly get to work on stealing, er investing your money into our bridge. Did I mention that every car going over the bridge has to pay a $2.50 toll, and that as co-owners, we can increase that toll quite a bit?

From/Dr Frank PHILIP
Dear Friend,

I know that this mail will come to you as a surprise. I am the bill and exchange manager in Bank of African Development Bank. I Hoped that you will not expose or betray this trust and confident that I am about to repose on you for the mutual benefit of our both families. We need your urgent assistance in transferring the sum of $10.5 million immediately to your account. The money has been dormant for years in our Bank here without any body coming for it.

We want to release the money to you as the nearest person to our deceased customer (the owner of the account) who died a long with his supposed next of kin in an air crash since November 1999. We don't want the money to go into our Bank treasury as an abandoned fund. So this is the reason why I contacted you, so that the bank can release the money to you as the nearest person to the deceased customer.

Please I would like you to keep this proposal as a top secret and delete if you are not interested. Upon receipt of your reply, I will send you full details on how the business will be executed and also note that you will have 30% of the above mentioned sum if you agree to transact the business with me, 10% will be set aside for expenses Incurred during the business, I will not fail to bring to your notice that this transaction is hitch free and that you should not entertain any atom of fear. I expect that your reply for more details immediately you receive this letter.

Yours Faithfully
Dr Frank PHILIP

Labels: computers, scams

Lucky Me! #1

And to the .001% of guillible souls who respond to these kinds of things, please stop. To save yourself time and effort, just take a blank check, sign it and tape it to the window of a 7/11 downtown someplace. At least you'll save the international postage and phone charges. Yes, it is fake, trust me.

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VITTORIO FONDAZIONE.
Corso Ercole I d'Este 44,
Ferrara 44100 - Italy.

IMPORTANT NOTICE

Foundation's Officer,
Fondazion Di Vittorio, ITALY
http://www.fondazionedivittorio.it

CONCERN

The Foundazion di Vittorio, would like to notify you that you have been chosen by the board of trustees as one of the final recipients of a cash Grant/Donation for your personal, educational, and business development. The Fondazione Di Vittorio, established 1977 by the Multi-Million groups and now supported by the Economic Community for West African States (ECOWAS), United Nations Organization (UNO) and the European Union (EU) was conceived with the objective of human growth, educational, and community development.

To celebrate the 30th anniversary program, The Vittorio Foundation in conjunction with the ECOWAS, (UNO) and the (EU) is giving out a yearly donation of US $100,000,000.00 (One Hundred Million United States Dollars)to 100 lucky recipients.

Based on the random selection exercise of internet websites and millions of supermarket cash invoices worldwide, you were selected among the lucky recipients to receive the award sum of US$1,000,000.00 (One Million United States Dollars) as charity donations/aid from the Vittorio Foundation, ECOWAS, EU and the UNO in accordance with the enabling act of Parliament.

You are required to fill the form below and email it to our Executive Secretary below for qualification, documentation and processing of your claims. After contacting our office with the requested data, you will be given your identification pin number, which you will use in collecting the funds. Please endeavor to quote your Qualification numbers (N-222-6747,E-900-56) in all discussions.

FULL NAMES:__________________________________
ADDRESS: ____________________________________
CITY:_________________________
STATE:_______________________ZIP: ___________
COUNTRY_______________________
SEX:______________
AGE:__________________
MARITAL STATUS:_________________
OCCUPATION:________________________
E-MAIL ADDRESS:_______________________
TELEPHONE NUMBER:_____________________

SEND ALL YOUR CLAIMS AND INQUIRIES TO THE
Executive Secretary - Claudio Giovanni
Email:foundationsecoffice01@yahoo.it
foundationclaim_dept@hotmail.com

All information is strictly confidential and will only be used for the purpose to which it is been requested. Please note that these donations/Grants are strictly administered by (ECOWAS), and (EU), under delegated powers from the United Nations Organization (UNO). This means that your qualification number will be raffled to know the organisation (ECOWAS or EU) that will handle your payment.

Finally, all funds should be claimed by their respective beneficiaries, no later than 14 days after notification. Failure to do so will mean cancellation of that beneficiary and its donation will then be reserved for next year's recipients.

On behalf of the Board, kindly accept our warmest congratulations.

SEND ALL YOUR CLAIMS AND INQUIRIES TO THE
Executive Secretary - Claudio Giovanni
Email:foundationsecoffice01@yahoo.it
foundationclaim_dept@hotmail.com


Regards.
Mr. Sparo Malcom
(Foundation officer)

Labels: crime, scams

Cost of Stuff

I recently had to buy a new battery for one of our car remotes. It's a pretty typical battery, a 2016 button cell. I can't quite figure out why there's such a range of prices for the exact same item.

Radio Shack $4.99 ea.

Sears $3.99 ea.

Staples $2.99 ea.

Target $4.39 pair.
Except for the privately labeled Radio Shack battery, they are all the same brand. I wouldn't be surprised if under the Radio Shack label, the battery is the same either. I ended up buying them at Target along with a bottle of Target branded aspirin - which was cheaper than the national brand version unlike the battery prices at Radio Shack.

Which also brings to mind gas price changes. This seems to be the only commodity sold to the general public where the price changes almost hourly. I can't figure out why the gas I bought yesterday at $2.899 suddenly goes up to $.3069 today. And why the 9/10 of a cent that gasoline is sold by? Back when it was $0.329 a gallon, the sneaky 9/10 of a cent was a fairly significant "hidden" addition to the total cost of a gallon of gas. Now when it's $3.299 a gallon, the 9/10 of a cent is just annoying.

I can't but wonder how long before everything else changes price like gasoline does. You could buy a Big Mac yesterday at $2.10 but tomorrow, it will cost you $2.25, and two days later be back down to $2.07 and 9/10 of a cent.

Labels: gripes, scams

// posted by Jim-of-oz @ 8/28/2007 05:42:00 PM

Cheap Stuff

Unless you've been hiding in a cave recently you've probably read a lot about product recalls, primarily, but not only, from China. (For example, Nokia has been stuck with 46 million bum batteries from Japan's Matsushita.)

The problem for the most part is us. If we weren't so willing (and desperate) to buy cheap the manufacturers wouldn't be so inclined to cut corners. Why do you think places like Wal Mart have such low prices. It certainly isn't because they put quality on a pedestal. And in fact you can't really blame them. Given the choice between a $10 toy truck and a $2 toy truck most people are going to spend the 2 bucks.

You can't really blame China completely either. Wal Mart puts the squeeze on the manufacture to cut cost as much as possible. That half-cent difference between lead based paint and non-toxic latex doesn't sound like much, but over the run of a few million bilious green plastic frogs, it adds up.

So if you want safer/better stuff think about what you're buying. A couple of years ago, I spent around $15 for a 7 piece drill set (from China) which I thought at the time wasn't too bad a price. They worked adequately. A little rough, but they made holes. Over the next couple of years I learned a bit more about wood and then spent $45 for the exact same size set of drills. Made in USA and modified in Canada and they are so much better than the $15 set. Bottom line is that you get what you pay for, whether it's a $15 set of drills or a $2 blue bunny bus. There's a reason it's cheap.

Labels: gripes, scams

Ads

Here's something that's pretty weird. And I'm guilty of it myself. Think about the t-shirt or shoes you wore last - or maybe are wearing now. One of those probably has a logo on it. The logo identifies the company who sold it. Now think about logos for awhile.

Tiger Wood gets paid millions to wear a logo in the hopes that you or I will figure that wearing that logo will make us a better golfer. Michael Jordan would get paid millions so that a company could use his name and face to sell basketball shoes. The idea being that if you bought those shoes (you being 5 foot 8 and 220 pounds) you could approach the easy grace in playing basketball that Jordan did. Sure it does.

However knowing that doesn't seem to make much difference. Why do people pay companies who pay stars to wear their clothes to wear their clothes. (oddly that sentence seems correctly, if awkwardly written). Why after paying $15,000 for a VW Beetle do I pay an additional $15 for a VW Beetle t-shirt and not $6 for a no-brand JCPenny t-shirt (which of course has a JCPenny logo on it someplace).

I guess in some cases, like the Beetle t-shirt, we buy stuff to show support for the stuff we buy, or maybe in more logical cases for stuff we can't buy. I once looked high and low for a Caterpillar hat (back in the days when logoed accessories weren't quite so common). I knew I'd never buy a Caterpillar bulldozer or front-end loader, but I really liked the idea of Caterpillar. Who knows why. I don't really think they're any better or worse than dozens of other brands of heavy equipment. Why not an International Harvester cap - since I drove those as well.

What it boils down to is that somehow the gnomes at Caterpillar's marketing agency did good. They managed to make me believe that Caterpillar is cooler than Komatsu (not that I'd ever heard of Komatsu in the 70s). The same kind of folks using the same kind of psychology have also managed to convince many of us that wearing a Michael Jordan branded shoe is so much better (by $100s) than a generic New Balance sneaker. Kind of scary isn't it?

Labels: celebs, gripes, scams

Computer Scams

The radio has lately been playing some commercials for a teaching outfit called Video Professor. Honestly, I have no idea about the quality, or lack of, of this place. They purport to offer a way to learn about some computer subject, in this case they seem to be pushing e-bay, in an hour. They say the offer is risk free.

The part that bugs me is that say this offer is free. And if you're not satisfied with it, your money will be returned. OK, how can you return money that I haven't sent? I haven't sent any, because your claim is that it's free.

Obviously, no matter how up-and-up this offer is, someone is lying somewhere. If it's really free, then there shouldn't be any money they have to return to me. And if they are returning my money, that implies that I sent them some. Something I have no intention of doing unless I have to pay for something - something that is free. Is it just me, or does a company who wants to return the money that you didn't have to send them seem either at best odd, or more likely dishonest?

Labels: computers, scams