Balancing the bad actors (was Re: Health Care (the same topic all week!~))
Ronn! Blankenship said the following on 11/1/2008 12:24 AM: At 11:05 AM Friday 10/31/2008, John Williams wrote: Lance A. Brown [EMAIL PROTECTED] Instead, we are faced with actors who will collude with each other to manipulate markets, subvert systems, and for the short term gain without regard to long-term consequences. Definitely. Such actors exist in government, as well. In fact, they dominate government. Which is a big reason why some (including some who do not get health insurance through their employers and cannot afford to purchase it themselves) are so leery of putting the government in charge (either directly or indirectly by holding the purse strings) of anything as important as medical care. If not government, then what can be brought to bear to counteract the tendency of human beings to be bad actors? The health system we have today is broken in many ways. I don't see how removing more regulations from it will make it better. That only gives the existing bad actors more leeway to continue their activities. If not the government, who upholds the social contract? I believe everyone deserves healthcare, education, and other basic services needed to live a productive, healthy life. I don't believe free markets will choose to provide those services to all people willingly. If less government regulation is better, why do are national health systems prevalent in many parts of the world? --[Lance] -- GPG Fingerprint: 409B A409 A38D 92BF 15D9 6EEE 9A82 F2AC 69AC 07B9 CACert.org Assurer ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Obama and the 'Drug Killer'
On 31 Oct 2008 at 12:48, John Williams wrote: http://www.forbes.com/opinions/2008/10/30/obama-drug-medicine-oped-cx_ch_1031hooper.html Obama And The 'Drug Killer' Charles Hooper 10.31.08, 12:00 AM ET No, that's just a good argument for compulsory publishing of all drug studies (a very good idea being pushed on lots of other grounds as well), and a strict develop it or lose it policy on the IP of drugs. AndrewC Dawn Falcon ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Balancing the bad actors (was Re: Health Care (the same topic all week!~))
Lance A. Brown [EMAIL PROTECTED] If not government, then what can be brought to bear to counteract the tendency of human beings to be bad actors? I think there is a greater chance that God will make us better people than that the government will. The health system we have today is broken in many ways. I don't see how removing more regulations from it will make it better. That only gives the existing bad actors more leeway to continue their activities. The existing bad actors dominate government. I don't see how their regulations are going to make the health system better. If not the government, who upholds the social contract? What social contract? Who signed this contract? What state is it legal in? I believe everyone deserves healthcare, education, and other basic services needed to live a productive, healthy life. That's interesting. What does it mean to deserve healthcare to live a productive, healthy life? How will you make sure that someone with, say, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) can live a productive, healthy life? If less government regulation is better, why do are national health systems prevalent in many parts of the world? Why are wars prevalent in many parts of the world? ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Mission to fix Hubble Telescope postponed
http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/space/10/31/hubble.delayed/index.html ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
'King of the Hill' cancelled
http://www.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/TV/11/01/king.hill.ap/index.html?iref=mpstoryview ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Balancing the bad actors (was Re: Health Care (the same topic all week!~))
At 08:55 AM Saturday 11/1/2008, John Williams wrote: Lance A. Brown [EMAIL PROTECTED] If not government, then what can be brought to bear to counteract the tendency of human beings to be bad actors? I think there is a greater chance that God will make us better people than that the government will. Government doesn't even have a prayer! . . . ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
How's Obama Going to Raise $4.3 Trillion?
How's Obama Going to Raise $4.3 Trillion? http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122480790550265061.html?mod=article-outset-box The most troublesome tax increases in Barack Obama's plan are not those we can already see but those sure to be announced later, after the election is over and budget realities rear their ugly head. The new president, whoever he is, will start out facing a budget deficit of at least $1 trillion, possibly much more. Sen. Obama has nonetheless promised to devote another $1.32 trillion over the next 10 years to several new or expanded refundable tax credits and a special exemption for seniors, according to the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution's Tax Policy Center (TPC). He calls this a middle-class tax cut, while suggesting the middle class includes 95% of those who work. Mr. Obama's proposed income-based health-insurance subsidies, tax credits for tiny businesses, and expanded Medicaid eligibility would cost another $1.63 trillion, according to the TPC. Thus his tax rebates and health insurance subsidies alone would lift the undisclosed bill to future taxpayers by $2.95 trillion -- roughly $295 billion a year by 2012. But that's not all. Mr. Obama has also promised to spend more on 176 other programs, according to an 85-page list of campaign promises (actual quotations) compiled by the National Taxpayers Union Foundation. The NTUF was able to produce cost estimates for only 77 of the 176, so its estimate is low. Excluding the Obama health plan, the NTUF estimates that Mr. Obama would raise spending by $611.5 billion over the next five years; the 10-year total (aside from health) would surely exceed $1.4 trillion, because spending typically grows at least as quickly as nominal GDP. A trillion here, a trillion there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money. Altogether, Mr. Obama is promising at least $4.3 trillion of increased spending and reduced tax revenue from 2009 to 2018 -- roughly an extra $430 billion a year by 2012-2013. How is he going to pay for it? . In his acceptance speech at the Democratic convention on Aug. 28, Mr. Obama said, I've laid out how I'll pay for every dime -- by closing corporate loopholes and tax havens. That comment refers to $924.1 billion over 10 years from what the TPC wisely labels unverifiable revenue raisers. To put that huge figure in perspective, the Congressional Budget Office optimistically expects a total of $3.7 trillion from corporate taxes over that period. In other words, Mr. Obama is counting on increasing corporate tax collections by more than 25% simply by closing loopholes and complaining about foreign tax havens. Nobody, including the Tax Policy Center, believes that is remotely feasible. And Mr. Obama's dream of squeezing more revenue out of corporate profits, dividends and capital gains looks increasingly unbelievable now that profits are falling, banks have cut or eliminated dividends, and only a few short-sellers have any capital gains left to tax. . Mr. Obama has offered no clue as to how he intends to pay for his health-insurance plans, or doubling foreign aid, or any of the other 175 programs he's promised to expand. Although he may hope to collect an even larger share of loot from the top of the heap, the harsh reality is that this Democrat's quest for hundreds of billions more revenue each year would have to reach deep into the pockets of the people much lower on the economic ladder. Even then he'd come up short. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: How's Obama Going to Raise $4.3 Trillion?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122541237504586451.html Only Economic Growth Can Provide Positive Change I think the answer to Alan Reynolds's excellent question and article (How's Obama Going to Raise $4.3 Trillion?, op-ed, Oct. 24) is that Barack Obama is not going to raise $4.3 trillion, and he is not going to perform on his rhetoric. He excels as a rhetorician -- common to both the great and the least of past presidents -- but performance cannot run on that fuel. Inevitably, I think his luster will fade even with his most ardent supporters as that reality sets in. We also have seen luster fade time after time with Republican presidents. The rhetoric of a smaller and less invasive government always leads to king-size performance disappointments. This weakness is as central to the reality of our political economy as are its strengths. With all its foibles, its strengths become transparent when you compare it, not with our various idealizations, but with the litter of human experiments in political economy that have delivered far more suffering and murder than human betterment to the citizens of those economies. Of course it is entirely likely that Mr. Obama will succeed in going for higher business, capital gains and income taxes, but it is an economic illusion to think for a minute that this will benefit the poor. All our wars on poverty have been lost by failing to help the poor help themselves. Higher business taxes, which ultimately can only be paid by individuals anyway, will simply export more economic activity to the world economy. Higher capital gains and income taxes will primarily reduce savings and investment at the expense of greater future productivity, which is at the heart of cross-generational reductions in poverty. A dozen countries, including the third largest economy, already have zero taxes on capital gains, and eight of them score high on the Economic Freedom Index and high in gross domestic product per capita. I favor making all individual savings and direct investments deductible from income for tax purposes. In that world there would be no need to make any distinction between ordinary income and capital gains. By adding a negative feature to such a net consumption tax, the poor would not only receive redistribution benefit, but have an incentive to save and accumulate capital. Some poor will see this as an opportunity to help themselves. Vernon L. Smith Chapman University Orange, Calif. Dr. Smith was awarded the Nobel Prize in economic sciences in 2002. ~ ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Health Care (the same topic all week!~)
On Fri, Oct 31, 2008 at 9:24 PM, Ronn! Blankenship [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Which is a big reason why some (including some who do not get health insurance through their employers and cannot afford to purchase it themselves) are so leery of putting the government in charge (either directly or indirectly by holding the purse strings) of anything as important as medical care. First, that's not what is on the table. Obama hasn't proposed using tax dollars to pay for medical care. That would be socialized medicine. That's not his proposal, despite his opponent's success at convincing some people that he is some sort of socialist. Second, a lot of us are pretty darn unhappy with the current system, in which insurers consistently misbehave. Insurers routinely deny claims for no good reason except that they know a certain percentage of people won't fight them. This has happened to us twice in the last year. I had surgery that my insurer said did not need pre-approval. Then they denied it. My wife's insurer denied payment for an ambulance trip despite the fact that on their very own web pages, they describe exactly her symptoms and instruct to call 911 immediately. What, we were supposed to call 911 and then refuse medical care??? I'm a former paramedic -- I knew, absolutely, that the ambulance trip was appropriate. So all the talk about the government screws everything up, is inefficient, etc., holds no water for me. Supposedly the argument is that big is bad or civil service leads to laziness, etc. But I don't see human nature being any different in the insurance industry. I'm quite happy to see government out of any affairs that can be run more efficiently without it. That's common sense. But I'd also be happy to see an end to the knee-jerk reaction that says government is bad and private industry is good. Private industry commits plenty of sins, too and government does well when it is held accountable. Come to think of it, perhaps the knee-jerk reaction is little more that laziness on the part of people who are unwilling to do their jobs as citizens and voters to hold government accountable. They seem to be a lot of the same people who are unwilling to hold the GOP accountable for what their party has led us into over the last eight years. Nick ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: How's Obama Going to Raise $4.3 Trillion?
How's Obama Going to Raise $4.3 Trillion? Who fscking cares? AFAIK, in the past 100 years, only _two_ elected politicians proceeded according to what they promised. The other one is bolivian Evo Morales. Alberto Monteiro ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Health Care (the same topic all week!~)
Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] Insurers routinely deny claims for no good reason except that they know a certain percentage of people won't fight them. Sounds like you need to switch to another provider with better service. Although that might be difficult, since all the government restrictions hinder a competitive market to meet consumers' needs. Let's increase the government interference so that there is only one alternative for everyone! ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Obama and the 'Drug Killer'
On Fri, Oct 31, 2008 at 3:48 PM, John Williams [EMAIL PROTECTED]wrote: http://www.forbes.com/opinions/2008/10/30/obama-drug-medicine-oped-cx_ch_1031hooper.html As I wrote in the Concise Encyclopedia of Economics: What complicates the picture is socialized medicine, which exists in almost every country outside the United States and even, with Medicare and Medicaid, in the United States. Because governments in countries with socialized medicine tend to be the sole bargaining agent in dealing with drug companies, these governments often set prices that are low by U.S. standards. This comes about because these governments have monopsony power--that is, monopoly power on the buyer's side--and they use this power to get good deals. These governments are, in effect, saying that if they can't buy it cheaply, their citizens can't get it. So the claim here is that Americans are almost solely subsidizing the drug development costs for the entire rest of the world? And by posting this, I assume you think this should remain status quo? Wow, you must really enjoy spreading our wealth around! Welcome to the liberal democratic elite! :-) Drugs are not too expensive in the U.S.; they're artificially cheap elsewhere. It's also not much of an exaggeration to say that new drugs are developed for, and as a result of, the American market because of its pricing flexibility. And yet the drug companies still sell those under priced drugs in those countries? Can't they just not sell them there if a fair price isn't met? ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Obama and the 'Drug Killer'
Bryon Daly [EMAIL PROTECTED] So the claim here is that Americans are almost solely subsidizing the drug development costs for the entire rest of the world? That is an odd way to phrase it. I would have paraphrased part of the article as, Americans are subsidizing drug development costs for other countries. With subsidize being used in the sense of to aid or promote. And by posting this, I assume you think this should remain status quo? No, in an ideal world I would like to see everyone move towards a more free system. And yet the drug companies still sell those under priced drugs in those countries? Can't they just not sell them there if a fair price isn't met? Drug development is an industry with high fixed costs. Once those fixed, or sunk, costs have been committed, the drugs are sold for the price that the market will bear. According to the expert who wrote the article, the more socialized markets settle on a lower price than the less socialized markets. If all markets were socialized, then all the prices would be lower. Then companies would not be able to justify committing the fixed costs on future development of some drugs, and some drugs would not be developed. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Happy Halloween
On Oct 31, 2008, at 8:22 PM, Nick Arnett wrote: As the trick-or-treater came by tonight, I found myself tonight remembering going to the Isaly's house on Halloween and getting Klondike bars with pumpkin pie flavored centers... Mmmm. The Isaly's company invented the Klondike bar... and at Christmas, we'd go caroling and they'd give us Klondikes with mint, tree-shaped centers. Nobody in my neighborhood invented nothin'. Joes the Plumbers, mostly Maru Dave ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Happy Halloween
On Sat, 1 Nov 2008, Dave Land wrote: On Oct 31, 2008, at 8:22 PM, Nick Arnett wrote: As the trick-or-treater came by tonight, I found myself tonight remembering going to the Isaly's house on Halloween and getting Klondike bars with pumpkin pie flavored centers... Mmmm. The Isaly's company invented the Klondike bar... and at Christmas, we'd go caroling and they'd give us Klondikes with mint, tree-shaped centers. Nobody in my neighborhood invented nothin'. Joes the Plumbers, mostly Maru The only invention in either of the neighborhoods I grew up in that I was aware of was the man down the street who had invented the machine that stamped Necco onto Necco wafers. (He'd also blown up an abandoned brick structure with his brothers. About a month later, the absentee owner of the land on which said brick structure had stood wrote their father asking him to take it down, and offering payment for him to do so.) Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Happy Halloween
On Nov 1, 2008, at 1:41 PM, Julia Thompson wrote: On Sat, 1 Nov 2008, Dave Land wrote: On Oct 31, 2008, at 8:22 PM, Nick Arnett wrote: As the trick-or-treater came by tonight, I found myself tonight remembering going to the Isaly's house on Halloween and getting Klondike bars with pumpkin pie flavored centers... Mmmm. The Isaly's company invented the Klondike bar... and at Christmas, we'd go caroling and they'd give us Klondikes with mint, tree-shaped centers. Nobody in my neighborhood invented nothin'. Joes the Plumbers, mostly Maru The only invention in either of the neighborhoods I grew up in that I was aware of was the man down the street who had invented the machine that stamped Necco onto Necco wafers. (He'd also blown up an abandoned brick structure with his brothers. About a month later, the absentee owner of the land on which said brick structure had stood wrote their father asking him to take it down, and offering payment for him to do so.) Julia Did their father respond with an invoice for services rendered? :D ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Happy Halloween
Given that the first time I heard of Necco wafers was as competition . 22 rifle targets and only much later that they were in fact edible, I've always wondered if more of them have been shot or eaten .. :) On Nov 1, 2008, at 1:41 PM, Julia Thompson wrote: The only invention in either of the neighborhoods I grew up in that I was aware of was the man down the street who had invented the machine that stamped Necco onto Necco wafers. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Happy Halloween
On Sat, 1 Nov 2008, Bruce Bostwick wrote: On Nov 1, 2008, at 1:41 PM, Julia Thompson wrote: On Sat, 1 Nov 2008, Dave Land wrote: On Oct 31, 2008, at 8:22 PM, Nick Arnett wrote: As the trick-or-treater came by tonight, I found myself tonight remembering going to the Isaly's house on Halloween and getting Klondike bars with pumpkin pie flavored centers... Mmmm. The Isaly's company invented the Klondike bar... and at Christmas, we'd go caroling and they'd give us Klondikes with mint, tree-shaped centers. Nobody in my neighborhood invented nothin'. Joes the Plumbers, mostly Maru The only invention in either of the neighborhoods I grew up in that I was aware of was the man down the street who had invented the machine that stamped Necco onto Necco wafers. (He'd also blown up an abandoned brick structure with his brothers. About a month later, the absentee owner of the land on which said brick structure had stood wrote their father asking him to take it down, and offering payment for him to do so.) Julia Did their father respond with an invoice for services rendered? :D I think their father had them clean up what was left and collected the offered amount from the owner when he showed up later to see if it had been taken care of. :) Easiest howevermany dollars he'd ever made, probably. Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Happy Halloween
On Sat, 1 Nov 2008, Bruce Bostwick wrote: Given that the first time I heard of Necco wafers was as competition . 22 rifle targets and only much later that they were in fact edible, I've always wondered if more of them have been shot or eaten .. :) On Nov 1, 2008, at 1:41 PM, Julia Thompson wrote: The only invention in either of the neighborhoods I grew up in that I was aware of was the man down the street who had invented the machine that stamped Necco onto Necco wafers. You know, shooting them sounds like a better idea to me. :) I came to the conclusion as a pre-teen that the only decent ones were the chocolate ones, and I'd buy 1 or 2 rolls of those a year. Gave that up about 10 years ago. (They have the advantage of being at least vaguely chocolate, but not melting easily.) Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Happy Halloween
On Nov 1, 2008, at 2:05 PM, Julia Thompson wrote: Given that the first time I heard of Necco wafers was as competition . 22 rifle targets and only much later that they were in fact edible, I've always wondered if more of them have been shot or eaten .. :) On Nov 1, 2008, at 1:41 PM, Julia Thompson wrote: The only invention in either of the neighborhoods I grew up in that I was aware of was the man down the street who had invented the machine that stamped Necco onto Necco wafers. You know, shooting them sounds like a better idea to me. :) I came to the conclusion as a pre-teen that the only decent ones were the chocolate ones, and I'd buy 1 or 2 rolls of those a year. Gave that up about 10 years ago. (They have the advantage of being at least vaguely chocolate, but not melting easily.) Julia I sometimes wonder who first got the idea to use them as targets, although having gone through the typical .22 rifle shooting age myself, I'm guessing there were youthful male adventures involved in the early experiments. :D They do work rather well for reactive targets of a sort, being about as fragile as the clay pigeons used for trap shooting, and back in the days when people used to do exhibition shooting, they'd often use Necco wafers because the audience could see easily when they were hit. I know of one exhibition shooter who set up a stunt shot using Necco wafers and a heavy steel backplate, knowing that as long as he hit the backplate, the fragments would almost certainly shatter both wafers quite nicely. The gag was splitting the bullet on a knife blade, which impressed the audience quite nicely. (Although he later examined the setup and found that he had, in fact, split the bullet cleanly in half on the knife blade, so it wasn't really a gag after all, only amusingly ironic. :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Government regulation
I'm done with this conversation since you ducked my question about what should replace government regulation. our resident troll does that a lot. i suspect he is an ayn rand libertarian wannabe, or he just likes to agitate. one would think that the current collapse would wake these people up. jon ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Government regulation
tired of the repetition of one answer to every problem, because some things are just not nails. Government regulations are definitely not nails. Ticking time bombs would be a better metaphor. the economic boom due to unregulated greed has turned into an exploded bomb - no longer ticking... jon ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Government regulation
On Nov 1, 2008, at 2:19 PM, Jon Louis Mann wrote: I'm done with this conversation since you ducked my question about what should replace government regulation. our resident troll does that a lot. i suspect he is an ayn rand libertarian wannabe, or he just likes to agitate. one would think that the current collapse would wake these people up. It depends on what they think is the cause of the current collapse. If you're crazy enough, I am pretty sure you can blame it on what little regulation remained, getting in the way of good, honest business people trying to do good, honest business. I'm so tired of that old song. They've been singing it since FDR, and it's still not true, although they've sung it so long and so loud that it has actually bent many millions of minds into thinking that it is common sense. It never was, it is not now, it never will be. Dave Government is what we let it be. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Government regulation
On Sat, Nov 1, 2008 at 2:22 PM, Jon Louis Mann [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: the economic boom due to unregulated greed has turned into an exploded bomb - no longer ticking... I like what Tom Evslin had to say about this at http://budurl.com/ejfz: This correction from excess has been violent and in many ways harmful but it HAS cured many of the excesses; the goal shouldn't be to reestablish them. We don't want housing prices to boom out of reach again; we don't want oil prices to go up or credit to be extended promiscuously; we don't want a banking economy based on the third derivative of valueless debt. We need to be wary of those crying crisis because they have a solution to sell. We've already gone too far in pouring aid in at the top of the financial system hoping (to put a good light on it) that it'll trickle down. We will need to cushion some of the pain at the bottom of the economic heap; there'll be more need for unemployment insurance before there's less. We can't afford to let starved states cut back on infrastructure projects both for the sake of the infrastructure and for the sake of the economy. But we also want the excesses that have been corrected stay corrected – at least until the next bubble. We also want the excesses that have been corrected to stay corrected. A nice dream. Dave ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Government regulation
To give credit where it is due: Tim O'Reilly posted a reply on Twitter (@timoreilly) to Tom Evslin's (@tevslin) piece. On Sat, Nov 1, 2008 at 3:52 PM, David Land [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Sat, Nov 1, 2008 at 2:22 PM, Jon Louis Mann [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: the economic boom due to unregulated greed has turned into an exploded bomb - no longer ticking... I like what Tom Evslin had to say about this at http://budurl.com/ejfz: This correction from excess has been violent and in many ways harmful but it HAS cured many of the excesses; the goal shouldn't be to reestablish them. We don't want housing prices to boom out of reach again; we don't want oil prices to go up or credit to be extended promiscuously; we don't want a banking economy based on the third derivative of valueless debt. We need to be wary of those crying crisis because they have a solution to sell. We've already gone too far in pouring aid in at the top of the financial system hoping (to put a good light on it) that it'll trickle down. We will need to cushion some of the pain at the bottom of the economic heap; there'll be more need for unemployment insurance before there's less. We can't afford to let starved states cut back on infrastructure projects both for the sake of the infrastructure and for the sake of the economy. But we also want the excesses that have been corrected stay corrected – at least until the next bubble. We also want the excesses that have been corrected to stay corrected. A nice dream. Dave ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Humor: Wall Street Bailout 409-Scam eMail
Subject: Please to Help To; John Q. Public Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2008 22:22:22 Dear American: I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude. I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of 700 billion dollars US. If you would assist me in this matter, it would be most profitable to you. I am working with Mr. Phil Gramm, lobbyist for UBS, who will be my replacement as Ministry of the Treasury in January. As a Senator, you may know him as the leader of the American banking deregulation movement in the 1990s. This transaction is 100% safe. This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check. We need the funds as quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer these funds in the names of our close friends because we are constantly under surveillance. My family lawyer advised me that I should look for a reliable and trustworthy person who will act as next of kin so the funds can be transferred. Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund account numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to [EMAIL PROTECTED] so that we may transfer your ocmmission for this transaction. After I receive that information, I will respond with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect the funds. Yours Faithfully, Minister of Treasury Paulson (Any typos are mine -- this was transcribed from uncredited graphics in the November issue of Funny Times http://funnytimes.com/) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
