The lure of multi-level marketing

I constantly marvel at how multi-level marketing (MLM) can continue to lure in millions of people a year, who collectively pump billions of dollars into these losers. Time and again, industry experts calculate a failure rate of 99% (failure = losing money on the deal) … And still consumers line up to sign up for [...]

The UFF Money Merge Account money shuffle explained

Guest post by Joe Taxpayer
As I looked at multiple United First Financial agents’ sites, I found the common thread was the claim that one simply can’t do this on their own, that the shifting of funds from a checking account, to a HELOC, and then to a primary mortgage somehow needed such a [...]

Carnival of Fraud – September 29, 2008

Welcome to the September 29, 2008 edition of carnival of fraud. We’re a little skinny on submissions this week, as I messed up the posting dates…

Allen in Fort Worth presents Have you paid off your Subprime Mortgages? posted at The Whited Sepulchre, saying, “why are taxpayers having to co-sign for fraudulent mortgages?”

Sara Goldstein presents Bargain [...]

Cookies and coffee now mean “Come join our church.”

From the “how many ways can we waste taxpayer dollars” file…
Daniel B. Kapustin has filed a complaint with the state’s Government Accountability board about the September 9 elections held at Christ the King Lutheran Church in Delafield. City buildings are under construction, so the church is the temporary polling location.
The impetus for the complaint? Church [...]

Mark Cuban’s idea on a private bailout of the financial sector

Mark Cuban has an idea: Let’s scrap this government bailout of the financial sector and instead make it private. Create an Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) that buys the distressed securities these companies want to get rid of, as well as all warrants and shares of stock in the companies themselves. Investors choose whether or not [...]

The problem is not the funding formula!

Tonight the Milwaukee Public Schools board met to discuss the possibility of dissolving the district. The consensus is that they can’t do it.
But the sheer ignorance is stunning. The sound bytes from board members went like this: “The problem is the funding formula. We need to fix our funding.”
Wrong! The problem is the spending. The [...]

Somebody please check Henry Paulson

This whole “bailout” of the financial sector bothers me. It bothers me that as a taxpayer, I will be on the hook for a nice chunk of the $500 billion to $1 trillion that this will cost. (And the way things are looking, the cost may be closer to $2 trillion.)
It bothers me that executives [...]

Bailout to include consumer debt?

The Wall Street bailout, publicly estimated to cost taxpayers somewhere between $700 billion and $1 trillion or more, could end up to be bigger than we ever imagined. Now added to the bailout plan: student loans, auto loans, credit card debt, and other “troubled” debt.
The Washington Times reports:

Would you sleep on a wet mattress for 59 days for $295,000?

How much money would it take for you to agree to sleep on a wet matress for 59 days?  The mattress keeps getting wet over the 59 days, so it gets a little moldy and a little smelly. But would you do it for $295,000?
A Wisconsin prisoner was just awarded $295,000 by a jury for [...]

Carnival of Fraud – September 22, 2008

Welcome to the (late) Carnival of Fraud..

Wenchypoo presents Word of the Day: Decadence posted at Wisdom From Wenchypoo’s Mental Wastebasket.
Sam E. Antar (former Crazy Eddie CFO and a convicted felon) presents Overstock.com (NASDAQ: OSTK) CEO Patrick Byrne Pays Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff to Defame a Blogger posted at White Collar Fraud.

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