{"id":10985,"date":"2012-01-06T09:07:56","date_gmt":"2012-01-06T14:07:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/?p=10985"},"modified":"2012-01-06T09:25:45","modified_gmt":"2012-01-06T14:25:45","slug":"our-new-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/?p=10985","title":{"rendered":"Our new world."},"content":{"rendered":"

The rookery and crookery of certain markets. My top three:<\/p>\n

1. Glasses. Frames range from $6 at Zenni Optical <\/strong><\/a>to $300+ at your local retail optometrist. The quality is identical.<\/p>\n

2. Printer cartridges. There’s the junk for $30 and the real OEM stuff for $200. But the real stuff is usually discounted online. And the junk is often not junk. Yesterday a reader wrote<\/p>\n

Harry I’ve been using ColorTonerExpert.com<\/strong><\/a> for the last couple of years for my laser color HP CM2320, works fine. Amazon HP OEM is $417 for a set HP OEM 3 color & 1 Black toner or triple the $139.50 from ColorTonerExpert. They also have sales that discount toner for less. The rare times I print photo’s I go to CVS since they look like crap on my HP printer – not sure if its the toner or the printer but outside of photo’s the toner works fine. Not worth paying triple for the rare times I need some photo’s.<\/p>\n

3. Hearing aids. At a weekend party, two friends proudly showed off their $6,000 hearing aids. My $300 iPhone contains more electronics. What do I know? Hearing aids must really be ovepriced. My local hearing center just offered me a $1,000 discount on the purchase of a pair.<\/p>\n

Then there are bank fees, telecom cable and phone company fees, inactivity fees…. the world has gone nuts on “fees.” Not to mention flat out wrong bills. My cable company promised an item for free. Then charged for it. Why? Because they know most of their customers can’t stand speaking to their “customer service departments.”<\/p>\n

Jon Corzine’s MF Global highlights Wall Street basic dishonesty. <\/strong>Items:<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

+ A fellow who runs a brokerage\/clearing house flat out lied to me two days ago. He said he would return my share certificates by\u00a0 Fedex that day. When I didn’t get them, he said he hadn’t promised to send them.<\/p>\n

+ A fellow called Yves Smith wrote a a piece on Naked Capitalism<\/strong><\/a> “Yes, Virginia, Brokerage Firms Keeping Client Ripoff Provisions in Customer Agreements in the Wake of MF Global<\/strong>” He reports that reader Don H has sent evidence that the banks are keeping their rights to misuse customers firmly in place in the wake of MF Global:<\/p>\n

Just got a 20 page `client agreement’ from from Wells Fargo <\/strong>for a security account which contains some amazing (to me) stuff.<\/p>\n

It starts:
\n“This is your Client Agreement. It includes the terms and conditions and is the contract that controls your securities accounts.”<\/p>\n

Later:
\n“Each account opened by you is a margin brokerage securities account, unless otherwise prohibited by applicable law or.” (so one can opt out but has to make a special request to set up a cash account. I wonder how many people who never deal in futures or short selling will realize they have a margin account?)<\/p>\n

Later:
\n“We may, at our sole discretion and without prior notice to you, prohibit or restrict your ability to trade securities and\/or other property.” (They can shut you out of the market at their whim)<\/p>\n

Later:
\n“We may at any time and without giving you prior notice, use and\/or transfer any or all securities and\/or other property in any Account in which you have an interest, without regard to us having made any advances in connection with such securities and\/or other property” (They can “MF Global” account holders without any further ado.)<\/p>\n

You can see the relevant sections for yourself: <\/a>Wells Fargo Client Agreement<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Moves:<\/p>\n

1. If you don’t borrow or sell short, change your brokerage account to a cash account.<\/p>\n

2. Don’t leave much money in any one brokerage account. You and I have no way of predicting the next MF Global. But we do know there will be one. And it will hurt innocent clients — just as MF Global has done. I asked my friend this morning if he had gotten all his money back from MF Global (he had a trading account)?\u00a0 He replied, “no.\u00a0 It looks like I have about 70% returned to me and I am in the process of filling out claim forms for the balance.”<\/p>\n

It’s a new world. You have to file claims to get your very own money back.<\/p>\n

I used to believe that everyone was honest and I acted on that belief. It worked for me for years. But no longer. I now work on the theory that most people are dishonest.\u00a0 haven’t been surprised.<\/p>\n

Am I wrong?<\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

I love my iPhone 4.<\/strong><\/span> But I keep forgetting to turn the speaker on after the theater.Then I miss calls the next day.\u00a0 Dumb me.<\/p>\n

The new Apple software (available free to all of us) lets you use the + volume button <\/strong>to take a picture.\u00a0 It’s the new shutter button. Neat.<\/p>\n

Cheap, but good earphones. <\/strong>Nice comfortable, cool looking headphones. Are they better than ones costing $300? Probably not. But can I hear the difference? Probably not. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

At$37.50, they seem to be a bargain of sorts. Click<\/span> here.<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

If you’d like something smaller. These are called Duck Ear Buds. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

They cost $11.50 and are\u00a0 remarkably comfortable, stay in your ears and deliver actually great sound. They’re much better than the ones that comes with Apple products. Duck Ear Buds are a fun gift. Click<\/span> <\/span>here.<\/a>
\n<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Rick Santorum has some seriously strange views. <\/strong>The Economist writes about them:<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

+ To Mr Santorum the Supreme Court’s ruling in 2003 that anti-sodomy laws were unconstitutional was a bad mistake: this was a slippery slope that would establish a right to bigamy, polygamy, incest, adultery-“anything”.<\/p>\n

+ As president, he said more recently, he would at last address \u201cthe dangers of contraception in this country\u201d, because contraception is a \u201clicence to do things in a sexual realm that are counter to how things are supposed to be\u201d.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Fortunately he has no chance of being elected president. I found it mindblowing that that someone allegedly intelligent would hold these views in 2011. There’s more.\u00a0 Read the fascinating piece here.<\/strong><\/a><\/span>
\n<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Fun stylish movie. <\/strong>Worth seeing. <\/span>
\n<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Hans, the gold German tourist visits Paris
\n<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Hans, a middle-aged German tourist on his first visit to Paris, France finds the red light district and enters a large brothel. The madam asks him to be seated and sends over a young lady to entertain him.<\/p>\n

They sit and talk, frolic a little, giggle a bit, drink a bit, and she sits on his lap. He whispers in her ear and she gasps and runs away! Seeing this, the madam sends over a more experienced lady to entertain the gentleman.<\/p>\n

They sit and talk, frolic a little, giggle a bit, drink a bit, and she sits on his lap. He whispers in her ear, and she too screams, “No!” and walks quickly away.<\/p>\n

The madam is surprised that this ordinary looking man has asked for something so outrageous that her two girls will have nothing to do with him. She decides that only her most experienced lady, Lola, will do. Lola has never said no, and it’s not likely anything would surprise her. So the madam sends her over to Hans. The sit and talk, frolic a little, giggle a bit, drink a bit, and she sits on his lap. He whispers in her ear and she screams, “NO WAY, BUDDY!” and smacks him as hard as she can and leaves.<\/p>\n

Madam is by now absolutely intrigued, having seen nothing like this in all her years of operating a brothel. She hasn’t done the bedroom work herself for a long time, but she’s sure she has said yes to everything a man could possibly ask for. She just has to find out what this man wants that has made her girls so angry. Besides she sees a chance to teach her employees a lesson.<\/p>\n

So she goes over to Hans and says that she’s the best in the house and is available. She sits and talks with him. They frolic, giggle, drink and then she sits in his lap.<\/p>\n

Hans leans forwards and whispers in her ear, “Can I pay in Euros?”<\/p>\n

Sex in Afghanistan<\/strong><\/span>
\nA new RAF Wingco was assigned to an outfit in a remote post in the Afghan Desert.<\/p>\n

During his first inspection of the outfit, he noticed a camel hitched up behind the mess tent.<\/p>\n

He asked the Sergeant why the camel was kept there.<\/p>\n

The nervous sergeant said, ‘Sir, as you know, there are 250 men here on the post and no women. Sometimes the men have urges. That’s why we have Molly The Camel”.<\/p>\n

The Wingco said, ‘I can’t say that I condone this, but I can understand about the ‘urges’, so the camel can stay.’<\/p>\n

About a month later, the Wingco starts having his own ‘urges’. Crazed with passion, he asked the Sergeant to bring the camel to his tent.<\/p>\n

Putting a ladder behind the camel, the Wingco stands on the ladder, pulls his pants down and has wild and insane sex with the camel.<\/p>\n

When he’s done, he asked the Sergeant, ‘Is that how the men do it?’<\/p>\n

‘No sir. They usually just ride the camel into town. That’s where the girls are.”<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\n<\/strong><\/div>\n

Harry Newton who just read that “the political candidate who raises the most money wins an astonishing 94% of the time in America.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The rookery and crookery of certain markets. My top three: 1. Glasses. Frames range from $6 at Zenni Optical to $300+ at your local retail optometrist. The quality is identical. 2. Printer cartridges. There’s the junk for $30 and the real OEM stuff for $200. But the real stuff is usually discounted online. And the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10985"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10985\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}