Steve’s failure in the world of merchant banking, his complete inability to make the grade in the world of stockbroking and his dismissal from a wealth management enterprise for gross incompetence did not dissuade him from pursuing a career in finance. By the time this picture was taken he was reduced to hawking his questionable talents around the more dubious neighbourhoods of the web.
A 24-year-old man who is color blind has been sent to prison for making counterfeit cash that was so badly forged he apparently never even attempted to use it.
The man surnamed Zhao, from Suining, Southwest China’s Sichuan Province, researched how to make counterfeit money online and bought some required necessities including printers, ink cartridges and special paper used to make fake money, according to a local domestic news outlet, which didn’t explain how police nabbed him.
Zhao was so inept at counterfeiting that he had to ask his girlfriend to check the color of the fake money he made.
Zhao told local police that he didn’t have an income and had inadvertently found an online group that provides instructions on how to make counterfeit money.
Police recovered about 2,000 yuan in fake notes, far less than what Zhao spent making them. Some Net users sarcastically hailed Zhao as a “business genius,” while others lamented his inability to understand the limits of his skillset.
“He is really not suited for the job,” said a Weibo user.
Zhao was sentenced to three years and six months in prison, while his girlfriend is going to jail for 18 months, reported local news outlets.
A brave effort in the face of certain failure!
In spite of the US government going for a nap this week a man who pieced together the remnants of five $100 bills eaten last winter by his one-eyed dog, has received a $500 cheque from the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
Wayne Klinkel, a graphic designer from Helena, Montana, who works for a local newspaper, said he found Sundance (presumably the dog) had eaten the notes, left in his car while he & his wife were away having lunch, leaving one intact dollar bill & a small piece of a single $100 note.
For the next few days Klinkel followed the dog around in the snow, collecting his droppings in a plastic bag, keeping it frozen in the cold outside his house, & after a couple of weeks he thawed the dog shit in a bucket of soapy water (everyone needs a hobby).
He separated the $100 bill pieces then washed & began to assemble the tiny paper fragments.
He took the taped-together bills to a local bank & the Federal Reserve in Helena where he was directed to the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Mutilated Currency Division, where he mailed the digested bills with a notarized letter on 15th April.
The Treasury Department offers reimbursement in some proven cases of damaged currency, & a standard claim takes up to 2 years to be resolved, according to the department’s (currently furloughed) website.
“When mutilated currency is submitted, a letter should be included stating the estimated value of the currency & an explanation of how the currency became mutilated,” the website says.
On Monday he received a $500 cheque in the post from the Mutilated Currency Division to replace Sundance’s dinner.
A telephone operator with the U.S. Department of Treasury on Thursday said department representatives were furloughed & unavailable for comment on Klinkel’s reimbursement.
It’s a dog’s life (if you’re lucky).
Small gods for smaller people, but always the outcome is the same.
http://vimeo.com/cabal/seedstory
There will be an updated version of this video in the near future including previously excluded “Berlin wall” scenes. When it is available I will update this post.
A Polish firm that makes coffins has apparently pissed-off the Catholic church by soliciting for business with a calendar showing “almost naked” female models posing with its caskets.
One image from next years calendar includes a blonde model, wearing only a skimpy thong, with a snake draped around her neck, reclining on top of a coffin. In another, a woman wearing a red basque is tastefully shown pulling out the heart of a man lying on a casket.
Apart from winning publicity for the company, the calendar is intended as a source of revenue. It is on sale on the firm’s website & anyone who places an order receives a complementary key ring in the shape of a coffin. How could anyone hesitate you may ask?
The Catholic church has condemned the calendar as “inappropriate”. A church spokesman has said that human death should be treated with solemnity & not mixed up with sex.
So are they saying that Jesus doesn’t love necrophiles too?
A Greek magazine editor has been arrested for publishing a list of Greek citizens with deposits in Swiss bank accounts that the Greek government has been sitting on for 2 years. The names were originally sent to the Greek government by the current head of the IMF, Christine Lagarde while she was the French finance minister, back in 2010.
Kostas Vaxevanis announced on his twitter account on Sunday morning that he was being arrested after publishing the list containing 2,000 names. It took 15 armed policeman to make sure he did not “try to escape” (they must have been sooooo disappointed when he didn’t). His court hearing has been scheduled for the 1st November.
The list is reported to have originally come from an employee at HSBC in Switzerland & revealed details of around €2Bn worth of deposits at the HSBC branch in Geneva.
Papakonstantinou, the former minister & recipient of the “French gift”, told the Greek parliament on Wednesday that he “did not know what had happened to the original list”, which was reportedly contained on a USB key. The current finance minister, Yannis Sournaras, confirmed on the same day that he had asked France to “urgently” resend a copy, only 2 years after the Greek establishment had rushed to ignore the original.
The list, from the “I-do-not-know-what-happened-to-it” USB key went viral on the internet & included three former ministers, several politicians, & Stavros Papastavros, a senior advisor to the Greek Prime Minister. It also named a significant number of civil servants working at the Finance Ministry, as well as several well-known business & media figures, as well as other members of “the great & the good”.
It is not illegal for Greeks to hold a bank account outside of the country but the possibility of wealthy Greeks using offshore accounts to avoid taxes has created “some tensions” during the current unrest over the Government’s austerity plans.
Greek officials claim that the information was illegally obtained and cannot be used as evidence in any legal proceedings against those failing to meet their tax obligations.
ThursdayAgain 
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