A.L.E.R.T.
(America Law Education Rights & Taxation)
01-03-2002
News You May Have
Missed
As compiled and reported by your faithful correspondent
· Cook Those Chips!
· Insider Stock Selling: Bombs Away!
· Rewards Surge For Turning In Tax Cheats To The IRS
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COOK THOSE CHIPS!
The EE Times reported on December 19th, 2001 (excerpted from the full article at http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20011219S0016):
"The European Central Bank is working ... to embed radio frequency identification tags into the very fibers of euro bank notes by 2005 ... Intended to foil counterfeiters ... The euro will become "the most common currency in the world" at midnight on Jan. 1, when 12 nations embrace it ... criminal investigators in Europe are ... worried not only about counterfeiting ... but also of a possible increase in money laundering ... Although euro bank notes already include such security features as holograms, foil stripes, special threads, microprinting, special inks and watermarks, the ECB believes it must add further protection to keep the euro from becoming the currency of choice in the criminal underworld, where the U.S. dollar is now the world's most counterfeited currency ... In theory, an RFID tag's ability to read and write information to a bank note could make it very difficult, for example, for kidnappers to ask for "unmarked" bills ... a tag would give governments and law enforcement agencies a means to literally "follow the money" in illegal transactions ... The RFID allows money to carry its own history ..."
In keeping with the rapid march towards a cashless world economy, one in which all transactions will be known immediately to global overseers in real time, ALL of the world's fiat paper currencies -- the beloved Federal Reserve Note (FRN) included -- will no doubt adopt RFID technology in years to come.
I therefore took interest in a particularly humorous monkeywrenching tip that one wag recently e-mailed me, in which he suggested:
"Toss em [cash embedded with the RFID chip] into the microwave oven for 15 seconds. The chip cooks itself to oblivion - or someplace well below that. They can't ban microwave ovens ... Ain't technology grand?"
Indeed it is. A few years ago, taxi drivers and other conspiracy theorists were using tweezers to remove the strips embedded in the new FRN's. When the Fed retaliated by installing them in three segments so that only the pieces closest to the edge could be removed, monkeywrenchers everywhere united in running Radio Shack demagnifiers over the strips in a coordinated plot to foil Big Brother one again (sorry).
Turns out those strips are actually mylar and manufactured by a small firm in Milford, New Hampshire where an amused employee informed this author that data could not possibly be recorded on them because "they're plastic".
So now we'll soon be "nuking" platters full of FRN's in our microwave ovens. Will one of those little rotating, wind-up Lazy Susans be necessary to ensure total chip death? And at what power setting, Defrost or Bake? Dunno. Stay tuned!
FAST FORWARD -- Not too many years from now, long after the National ID Card has been made mandatory, you'll make a routine retail purchase of your government mandated medication (rent the video "THX 1138" sometime) only to have your precise biometrically authenticated ID, physical location, time of day right to the second and form of payment tendered all instantaneously recorded. Where? Why, right on the FRN itself, of course. "... The RFID allows money to carry its own history ..."
But it gets worse! The instant the transaction is processed, a retail transaction tax will instantly be debited from your legally required bank account (mandated in 2010 under the Rodham Financial Freedom Banking Enforcement Act) and transferred automatically to the National Retail Transaction Tax Voluntary Enforcement Center where your current debit/credit relationship vis-a-vis the Central Computer will be carefully tabulated.
Get too far behind on your Personal Productivity Ratio and ... well ... I can't go any further. Young children may be reading this. But the movie "Soylent Green" comes to mind. This is the future that, if not stopped, the advent of a National Sales Tax will only hasten.
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INSIDER STOCK SELLING: BOMBS AWAY!
In an e-mail dated December 28, 2001, highly acclaimed technical market analyst, Dr. Martin Weiss of "The Weiss Safe Money Report", wrote the following dire warning. Seems like the boardroom rats are quickly abandoning ship.
"... company executives and insiders ... are selling their shares ... like crazy. Insider sales by company execs shot up 50% from October to November ... Bill Gates sold 7.5 million shares of Microsoft ... Thomas Murphy, a director of the Walt Disney Co., sold 2 million shares of his company's stock ... Two executives of drug development company Imclone Systems ... sold over 1.5 million shares ... Wayne Huizenga, chairman of AutoNation, sold a stunning 15 million shares ... Other stocks that saw execs dump shares in November include Cendant, American Home Products, Oracle, Lowe's, and Coca-Cola, according to Bloomberg ... Perhaps they see the same horrific underlying fundamentals that we do? ... Layoffs hit 9-year record ... US companies chopped 1.8 million jobs in 2001 ... Consumer debt has swelled to a mindboggling $1.6 trillion ... Credit card company charge-offs ... are set to hit a record 8% of credit card loans in 2002 ... New bankruptcy filings were up 14% in the third quarter compared to a year earlier ... Wall Street has talked itself into believing a recovery is right around the corner ... that isn't going to happen ... As wave after wave of bad economic news continues to hit Wall Street in January ... you'll see insiders flood the market with "sell" orders ... And ordinary investors will be bailing out behind them."
Our friends at the Fully Diversified Investors Club (http://www.fullydiversified.com) wrote to ask: "Finding your wallet a little squeezed after all that holiday shopping? FDIC members are full of holiday cheer due to 4 of the club's recent options picks hitting new highs on December 12th. There's nothing like finding some hefty profits under the tree to make the season bright ;-)
· The Jefferson-Pilot January $45 put option hit $210 -- up 17%!
· The Target December $35 call option hit $480 -- up 210%!
· The Sun Microsystems January $10 call option hit $490 -- up 172%!
· The Titan January $25 call option hit $460 -- up 156%!"
Learning how to bag steady profits like these may prove a useful survival skill over the next few months if, as predicted by Dr. Weiss and others whose uncanny track records are cause for sobriety, the market implodes like the twin towers, catching flag-waving Americans in an economic deja vu.
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REWARDS SURGE FOR TURNING IN TAX CHEATS TO THE IRS
Verily, America is turning into a nation of finks. On the home front, it's the nosy, doe-eyed-soccer-mom-neighbor across the street who sees your home-schooled children spending (in her opinion) just a little too much time playing outdoors every day and "rats you out" to Social Services ... who quickly invade the home and haul the little scholars off for proper institutionalized educational supervision.
While inside the Government Dewey Camps, the little darlings -- fast on their way to becoming today's equivalents of Nazi Brown Shirts -- are dutifully answering such Department of Education mandated questions as: "Has your daddy pushed or hit your mommy recently?". No doubt all affirmative answers are instantly modemed to the Imperial City for affirmative action: "CHILDREN TO BE WITHDRAWN FROM HOME AND PLACED WITH GOVERNMENT-APPROVED PARENTS. PLEASE AFFIRM ACTION."
Meanwhile, millions of business owners will be finking on millions of independent contractors again this year on IRS Form 1099, which (surprise, surprise) has no lawful bearing on domestic source income. More on this in an upcoming A.L.E.R.T.
And, finally, this just in from taxdude12@aol.com:
"The IRS handed out a record $10.8 Million Dollars to INFORMANTS during the year ended Sept 30, 2000, That easily exceeded the previous record of nearly $8 Million the year before. There were 382 rewards in the last year. The IRS says that the rewards program enabled it to collect an additional $266.6 Million in fiscal 2000 up from $167.5 million the previous year. Most tipsters come away empty handed. Since the late 1980's the IRS has paid only about 19,000 rewards, or around 8.2% of the total claims received. Naturally, all rewards are taxable. Ex-wives, girlfriends, children, former friends, or ex co workers, and lawyers, tax preparers, and C.P.A.'s are the ones that refer tax cheats along with the new group of undercover IRS employees. Once the IRS finds their bank account, they have a 97% rate of convictions. Many tipsters do not get paid, because they cannot give enough information, but the IRS does take the information given and assigns it to an agent that usually collects and prosecutes. "Loose lips sink ships". Many say that they deserve to get caught for being so dumb."
It's getting rougher out there all the time for the Cheerful Donor. Perhaps the legislature should pass a "Stupidity Tax". Come to think of it, one already exists. It's paid every time someone somewhere purchases a Lottery Ticket.