A Fool & His Money Are Soon Parted

As hard as I try, I just can’t work up any sympathy for the idiots who lose money in the Nigerian bank scheme. This scam has been around for well over at least 15 years because I can remember receiving it in the mail back in my Fremont, CA office. It pops up in my email at least once a week nowadays and looks exactly the same.

There have been countless news stories, including a 60 Minutes piece, on this fraud over the past dozen plus years; so nobody can claim they weren’t warned about it. People stupid enough to fall for this just shouldn’t be trusted with money or with sharp objects.

KMK

Who Are the Evil Rich?

Larry Elder has a good commentary about the recent articles detailing how much of the tax burden is paid by the evil rich portion of the USA populace. He does a good job contrasting this recent disclosure with the normally anti-taxpayer pro-big government media.

As he mentions, it always fries me when I hear or read a news story that implies that something is free because the Federal government is paying for it. That’s very common with local road work. In my mind, I can’t help translating that to mean, “the IRS will be taking more money form the achievers and redistributing it.”

Elder also makes a good point of how out of touch people are with the economics of our society. When asked how much income it takes to be among the top one percent in this country, most people guess in the million dollar range, missing the actual figure of $293,415 by a long ways.

The commonly held stereotype of the evil rich being those like Donald Trump needs to be debunked. Those in the cross-hairs of the spendaholic rulers in DC are more average than the high profile rich folk. An annual income of $120,846 puts you in the top five percent, and $74,981 ranks a person in the top ten percent. I’d bet that Trump’s maid earns more than that.

KMK