Some things are just too far out to be believed. Yet always someone believes them..... Here is a link to a story on a National Public Radio blog, about the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) going after a self-declared "psychic" investment advisor for fraud.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2010/03/sec_sues_psychic_for_securitie.html
Showing posts with label Fakers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fakers. Show all posts
Friday, March 5, 2010
Friday, January 15, 2010
Could psychic powers could help find the injured in Haiti? (if psychicpowers existed)
Ben Radford - a paranormal investigator who says he has yet to find a "real" psychic, has issued a plea for psychics to step forward and help find the injured in earthquak-stricken Haiti.
You would think some would have made news already doing this. After all, we see psychics and mediums constantly both on talk shows and TV dramas. This would be show so much "love" to the world and they seem to talk about this a lot. What better way to help the helpless, prove your claims are true and save lives in the process.
So, if you are a "real" psychic, please read this article. Ben's story is at:
Perhaps a financial contribution to Doctors without Borders would be a bit more realistic....
You would think some would have made news already doing this. After all, we see psychics and mediums constantly both on talk shows and TV dramas. This would be show so much "love" to the world and they seem to talk about this a lot. What better way to help the helpless, prove your claims are true and save lives in the process.
So, if you are a "real" psychic, please read this article. Ben's story is at:
Perhaps a financial contribution to Doctors without Borders would be a bit more realistic....
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Mail Snoopers, Identity Theft, A Locking Mail Box
Monday, I answered the doorbell to discover a visitor with my family’s U.S. Mail cradled in one hand while the other hand flipped slowly through the first class envelopes. This is the second time I have found this nosy individual going through the mail. Getting caught garnered neither an apology or an explanation, not a blush or a fumble on either occasion.
I have done my share of house and pet sitting, and done numerous stints taking in mail. I have retrieved mail for friends and neighbors. I just don’t look at it letter by letter – it’s not my business even when I have been asked to retrieve the mail – unless i have been asked to watch for something in particular.
But this person has not been asked to bring in the mail and it is none of her business. I am very offended by it. And TAMPERING WITH THE MAIL IS ILLEGAL!
And I thought, if this woman is reading the envelopes, what is she looking for? Is she planning on Identity theft? I didn’t think so BUT it did raise the question – who else might be pawing through the mail without ringing the bell?
So I went to Lowes the same day and spent $27 on a locking mail box. You can’t tell it locks until after you lift the lid. Would love to see her face when she realizes….
I have done my share of house and pet sitting, and done numerous stints taking in mail. I have retrieved mail for friends and neighbors. I just don’t look at it letter by letter – it’s not my business even when I have been asked to retrieve the mail – unless i have been asked to watch for something in particular.
But this person has not been asked to bring in the mail and it is none of her business. I am very offended by it. And TAMPERING WITH THE MAIL IS ILLEGAL!
And I thought, if this woman is reading the envelopes, what is she looking for? Is she planning on Identity theft? I didn’t think so BUT it did raise the question – who else might be pawing through the mail without ringing the bell?
So I went to Lowes the same day and spent $27 on a locking mail box. You can’t tell it locks until after you lift the lid. Would love to see her face when she realizes….
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
So-called medium reveals her intentions
“I’d love to go to a Red Hat meeting with you,” a so called "psychic" & "medium" declared to my 80-year-old Mom who had not invited her to go. She inquired about details, while Mom remained vague, and pointedly did not mention any. ”I LOVE hats! I have a whole collection of hats! We’ll go, just you and I,” she continued with considerable enthusiasm .
Poor Mom didn’t invite her, barely knows her, has been something of a captive audience until this point. This person failed to notice her silence, or the grimly bemused smile on her face. After several more comments along this line, she announced “It’s a date then,” as she heads toward the door without once noticing the older woman’s reaction. So much for her claim to be psychic…. or even sensitive to others….
After the woman left, my mother turns to me and I know I am in trouble… “If she shows up there I am going to stop going to meetings,” she said glaring at me. (And, in fact, she did stop going!) This woman was not listening to her, and Mom hates that. She didn't care what Mom wanted, she wanted what SHE wanted - which was to invite herself along to her group meeting.
It was me who brought this person, who is a self-declared psychic, self-declared spiritual “guide” into the house. The so-called psychic and I serve in a volunteer organization I am fond of, and I have been trying to figure out how to handle our philosophical differences for over a year now. (I am a secular humanist, a non-theist, a naturalist. etc) She has aggressively befriended me, calling repeatedly with invitations - which makes me a bit nervous - and we always avoid talking about our core beliefs.
Now my Mom has been a realist all her life, worked for 25 years for a police group, has seen all manner of hucksters, deceit and fraud. Because of her police background, Mom thinks such people are purposefully manipulative con-artists looking for bereaved emotional marks to swindle. And she might be right.. Mom noted many of the red hats are widows, vulnerable to someone who might "guide" them to dead loved ones for a fee, or to curry favor, or find a place to live for a while...
And, though I worry about the sanity of this tale-spinner who says she talks to the dead, guides people to recall their past lives and has “remembered” over 100 of her own (story telling of a different magnitude indeed….) – Mom might have the clearer view. And I am sure this so called "psychic" woman is “telling stories” – but to us or to herself? I wonder if her "stories" have become such an integral part of her persona, that she can no longer separate her self from her inventions.
The other alternative is the possibility that she is a charming manipulator. She is a careful listener, an astute observer of body language, a clever story-teller, seemingly a very caring sort. Surely she is self-deceived, not inwardly cold and calculating. Maybe. But this bid to get Mom alone has given me doubts. What could make it easier for a faker to channel the dead to the living - then talking to them when they are still ALIVE, and asking just the right questions about their relations to younger relatives and friends? She has confided about other elderly folks who she'd "befriended, who had "passed over," mentioning furniture and even a car "gifted" to her by grateful relatives." Once she asked a grieving relative if she could live in the departed's home until it was sold. That request was not granted. Who know's what "psychic" revealations might have resulted from unfettered access to the deceased's belongings.....
This culture wants to believe so badly it tosses science and logic aside, gives credence to folk who need to feel "special" by inventing supernatural powers for themselves, and who are accepted because of their very real and often quite subtle, talents of listening carefully, observing carefully, recalling details, having a good sympathetic "graveside" manner. Yet often these same folks blatantly manipulate others for emotional or financial gain, for services, support, living quarters, or items tossed out when the estate is dissolved, stored and later sold on ebay or the like. (This particular woman did maintain a storage locker crammed with stuff and an active ebay account.) Today we have psychics featured on tv shows, we have fraudulent ghost hunters – ( and these folks really ought to be ashamed because deception is involved in each filming….
But what can be expected in culture where a large segment of the populace can no longer make a cogent argument, separate opinion from fact, tell fakery from science, where warm fuzzy but false feelings are valued over what is real….
Poor Mom didn’t invite her, barely knows her, has been something of a captive audience until this point. This person failed to notice her silence, or the grimly bemused smile on her face. After several more comments along this line, she announced “It’s a date then,” as she heads toward the door without once noticing the older woman’s reaction. So much for her claim to be psychic…. or even sensitive to others….
After the woman left, my mother turns to me and I know I am in trouble… “If she shows up there I am going to stop going to meetings,” she said glaring at me. (And, in fact, she did stop going!) This woman was not listening to her, and Mom hates that. She didn't care what Mom wanted, she wanted what SHE wanted - which was to invite herself along to her group meeting.
It was me who brought this person, who is a self-declared psychic, self-declared spiritual “guide” into the house. The so-called psychic and I serve in a volunteer organization I am fond of, and I have been trying to figure out how to handle our philosophical differences for over a year now. (I am a secular humanist, a non-theist, a naturalist. etc) She has aggressively befriended me, calling repeatedly with invitations - which makes me a bit nervous - and we always avoid talking about our core beliefs.
Now my Mom has been a realist all her life, worked for 25 years for a police group, has seen all manner of hucksters, deceit and fraud. Because of her police background, Mom thinks such people are purposefully manipulative con-artists looking for bereaved emotional marks to swindle. And she might be right.. Mom noted many of the red hats are widows, vulnerable to someone who might "guide" them to dead loved ones for a fee, or to curry favor, or find a place to live for a while...
And, though I worry about the sanity of this tale-spinner who says she talks to the dead, guides people to recall their past lives and has “remembered” over 100 of her own (story telling of a different magnitude indeed….) – Mom might have the clearer view. And I am sure this so called "psychic" woman is “telling stories” – but to us or to herself? I wonder if her "stories" have become such an integral part of her persona, that she can no longer separate her self from her inventions.
The other alternative is the possibility that she is a charming manipulator. She is a careful listener, an astute observer of body language, a clever story-teller, seemingly a very caring sort. Surely she is self-deceived, not inwardly cold and calculating. Maybe. But this bid to get Mom alone has given me doubts. What could make it easier for a faker to channel the dead to the living - then talking to them when they are still ALIVE, and asking just the right questions about their relations to younger relatives and friends? She has confided about other elderly folks who she'd "befriended, who had "passed over," mentioning furniture and even a car "gifted" to her by grateful relatives." Once she asked a grieving relative if she could live in the departed's home until it was sold. That request was not granted. Who know's what "psychic" revealations might have resulted from unfettered access to the deceased's belongings.....
This culture wants to believe so badly it tosses science and logic aside, gives credence to folk who need to feel "special" by inventing supernatural powers for themselves, and who are accepted because of their very real and often quite subtle, talents of listening carefully, observing carefully, recalling details, having a good sympathetic "graveside" manner. Yet often these same folks blatantly manipulate others for emotional or financial gain, for services, support, living quarters, or items tossed out when the estate is dissolved, stored and later sold on ebay or the like. (This particular woman did maintain a storage locker crammed with stuff and an active ebay account.) Today we have psychics featured on tv shows, we have fraudulent ghost hunters – ( and these folks really ought to be ashamed because deception is involved in each filming….
But what can be expected in culture where a large segment of the populace can no longer make a cogent argument, separate opinion from fact, tell fakery from science, where warm fuzzy but false feelings are valued over what is real….
Thursday, October 16, 2008
GET MAD! AIG's ENORMOUS insurance payouts on Lehman bonds will come dueTuesday!
OK Cramer is a wild sounding guy - but he is so often right.
OCT 21 - next Tuesday is the day "insurance" ie credit default swap payouts on defunct Lehman Brother's bonds are due, according to Mr. Cramerica (Mad Money on CNBC.) He said AIG is most likely the major underwriter and will have to pony up such enormous amounts of money that it will take what little value is left in the stock. Once that is gone, the government - ie taxpayers - us, will be writing big fat checks for AIG to very same hedgefund fat cats that acted together to "short" Lehman into oblivion.
(Shorting is a bet that a stock will go down - and apparently you don't even need to own or even borrow shares of it - to short them. This is called naked short-selling. Though illegal, this rule was almost never enforced under the corrupt Bush SEC and its fellow travelers in both houses and both parties in congress...)
According to a piece broadcast on NPR a few weeks ago - the thing that makes no sense and is apparently a fact of business is that "insuring" bonds with credit default swaps is like fire insurance on STEROIDS. Say you own a barn. You are the one who can insure it. Not so with bonds. If a barn were a bond you could "insure" it for its full value and so could an UNLIMITED NUMBER of your closest neighbors. Naturally they have torches and your barn burns while they stand by fanning the flames. That's what happened to Lehman Brothers, according to Cramer. And he has the contacts to know....
What kind of idiot insurance company would insure the same thing for full value over and over? An un-regulated one. They didn't call it insurance, either because insurance IS regulated. Oh AIG!! WHY would they do it? Simple -the cost of credit default swaps for a bond in the billions, is in the millions! And they could collect those millions over and over again. And there was no requirement for them to have billions in cash on hand to pay up later. As long as the barn didn't burn - the ponzi scheme continued. Just Thank your congress. Thank Henry Paulson. And remember - thanks to Paulson's AIG bailout - WE get the bill. Not only for the $150 billion in bonds, but that times however many times the insurance was sold to whoever bought it. It's nuts. REGULATE THESE GUYS... and It wasn't just AIG selling this crap or buying - almost every major financial firm had a credit default swap desk with a dozen or more personnel manning it.
Somebody needs to be indicted on this one. There should be a conspiracy investigation of the multple hedgefunds who drove Lehman down while buying "insurance" ie credit default swaps on the bonds that they didn't even own! What a racket! AL CAPONE MOVE OVER~
The trouble is, you can't even root for the hedge funds to fail. If they all fail at once the DOW will be at ZERO. There would be so much stock for sale nobody could by it all....
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