Recently the employees of a chain of convenience stores called QC Mart got the following memo: [Read more…]
Mano Singham
Just another Freethought Blogs site
Recently the employees of a chain of convenience stores called QC Mart got the following memo: [Read more…]
Remember the infamous Nigerian 419 scam? I wrote three years ago about how annoying it was to get these bogus offers practically every other day and expressed surprise that anyone would still fall for it now that it was well known. Thankfully I seem to have been dropped from the mailing lists and have not received any such offers for well over a year now, but it turns out that a variation of the scam using cashier’s checks has been used to defraud even fancy law firms for hundreds of thousands of dollars. [Read more…]
You can’t say the one-percenters don’t care about the environment. Ferrari is releasing a hybrid version of their car for a mere $850,000. [Read more…]
Like many people, I watch the occasional TED talk, usually because someone else recommended it to me. From watching the talks, I had a vague idea that they were given at a conference of some kind but was not curious enough to try and find out what the conferences were about and who attended. [Read more…]
Cleveland has just opened its first casino with great fanfare after a great deal of debate on the morality of the gambling, and there have been long lines of people waiting to get in. I don’t really see gambling as a moral issue because there does not seem to be anything intrinsically wrong with people betting on random outcomes as a means of generating pleasure and excitement. [Read more…]
I am sick to death of hearing about the Facebook IPO. Although I was one of the earliest people to create a Facebook account (and it still exists) I abandoned it a long time ago and do not even respond to friend requests anymore. I have thought seriously about closing it altogether but refrained from doing so because on occasion it has enabled long-lost friends to find me. [Read more…]
TED talks are well known to policy wonks and geeks. I find many of them quite interesting and have linked to them. But while many people know of them, not so many know that the audience at TED conferences tend to be the well-heeled because it is for members only and the cost of attending can be quite high. [Read more…]
I do not directly trade in stocks although like anyone with a retirement account, someone is trading on the stock market with my savings. My lack of interest may be related to my lack of interest in gambling generally and to my lack of a desire to make more money. I have a job that pays me enough for my needs and that is enough. My main interest in the financial world is more on the macro side, to understand how it impacts the political and social worlds. But the recent global financial turmoil has resulted in me learning more about the world of high finance than I ever wanted. [Read more…]