Simple Answers To Simple Questions Re: Cash Gifting Refunds

In scanning my hit counter, I noticed I got a hit on the following query:

"possible to get money back from cash gifting"

Which I interpret as the following question:

Q: Can I get my money back from a cash gifting pyramid?

and the simple answer:

A: I don't think so.

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, your mileage may vary. If you want to risk your nuts in a "cash gifting" scheme, by all means, go balls-to-the-wall.

But the reading I've done ... some of it documented in my earlier post on the subject ... suggest that the only players likely to get anything out of it are the ones who got on on the ground floor.

An easy way to find out if you've gotten in on the ground floor: if someone's inviting you on board the airplane, you ain't it, bunky.

And if the network collapses and you find yourself out in the cold, are you going to complain to someone that you got burned in a scheme designed to make you a bunch of money without paying taxes and without working for it? Pretty embarrassing. Would it get you some government attention? I don't know. Do you? Are you willing to take the risk?

And by now, the money is long gone anyway, spent by the people upline of you that got it already. It's gone.

Better you stay away from this stuff, and remember what Mom Always Said: if it sounds too good to be true, it is. This sort of carp is the reason why Mom came up with that saying.

Cash Gifting is Back. Don't Fall For It!

So, I'm getting ready to go to bed, getting one more check in on the email, stuff like that, and I'm listening to The POJ, and I hear a report on an old scheme designed to separate the desperate from their money.

It's "cash gifting". The report mentioned some staggering amonut of videos online, so I surfed on over to YouTube.com, and plugged in the words "Cash Gifting" – and the response said it was able to come up with just over twenty thousand videos about cash gifting.

And it's tempting to think that "well, yes, that's the sort of thing you expect to see in hard times", and write it off. As liberals and Official Smart People™, I'd like to point out that we can do better.

I've never been in a pyramid or cash gifting program. I don't know anyone who ever was, and I don't want to know anyone who ever does. So I speak as I find here. Here's what it's all about.

"Cash Gifting" is yet another case of old wine in new skins. Ever since the original chain letters (you know, the one where you send $5 to each of five names on a list and add your name to the bottom of a list and mail that off to five or so friends) and Make.Money.Fast, the chain letter-pyramid scheme has morphed just enough to seem legal and stay ahead of people who find out about it.

The current idea is a variation on an old theme. The way the schemes make the dodge look legit is to use the concept of a gift or a game to establish consent amongst participants and evade taxes (you can't tax a gift, after all, right?).

In the 70s and 80s, something called the "Airplane Game" was popular. This was a four-level tree, the top being the "Captain", the second level (2 participants) being the "co-pilots", the third level (4 participants) being the "Crew", and the fourth level (8 participants) were known as "passengers". When the passenger level filled out, each paying typically $1000 to get on board (that was usually it, but there were probably as many different costs-of-admission as there were schemes out there), all the money gets passed up the tree to the Captain, who "pilots off" and goes away with his gifted loot. The tree splits in two, the two "Co Pilots" become "Pilots", and each tree works to fill its passenger level.

It seems a reasonable plan. Since the money is gifts, they can't be taxed; since you only have to get 8 suckers on the bottom to complete the tree, it seems to be immune to that geometric progression that makes pyramid structures untenable because by the thirteenth generation you need over 13 Billion members to keep the pyramid going.

But when you think about it, the limited nature of the gifting tree doesn't prevent saturation, just forestalls it a bit. Because when that pilot flies off with his cash, the two airplanes now have to find sixteen people to let the new pilots take wing. And sixteen more for each if that pilot can take off. And so on.

It's not too long before enough burned people exist to bring the whole airline down.

Now, I told you all that to tell you this. Based on my hearing about the new programs on The POJ and my search on YouTube, it would seem gifting programs are back. These days, they're called The People's Program, and they call them a a gifting program. Video after video with similar claims, loaded with similarly-worded positive reviews, and links to similar websites, many of whom use identical graphics! Images of happy smug people fanning Benajmins in front of yo face and having their pictures on DVD cases promoting the program abound.

The catch these days to try to make it legal is that they try to leverage the searching power and self-selecting nature of internet users to promise you that only people looking to get into and profit from gifitng programs will see your appeal. This is supposed to keep it legit by not attracting people who don't know what it is you're talking about.

It will still get you in trouble. I've read a lot about these programs, and it seems that the "tax free gift" claim and the targeted interest concept has been used so much that the IRS sees it for what it is; an attempt to get money and evade paying taxes for it.

And even if you are daring and bold and desperate enough to give it a shot, consider that at least one estimate I've seen suggest that no matter how large the model becomes, 88% of participants will likely lose money.

The only way to be sure you're going to make money in a gifting scheme, really, is to start one. And then you're (sorry for the bluntness) just hoodwinking money away from other people who are just as desperate as you. Can you look yourself in the mirror and live with yourself? I know I couldn't.

Once again, I've never been in such a scheme (nothing magical about that, just my morbid interest in toxic social structures leading to voluminious reading, so I was luckily forewarned) and I never will be because it's logically and ethically suspect. And I've never known a person to be suckered by a Gifting Club, and I never want to know one.

But when I hear that there are tens of thousands of videos on YouTube with a high-tech version of the same old pyramid plan, I have to speak up.

And that's what I'm doing.

If you're tempted, don't do it. Please.

You only think you're badly off now. If you're lucky, you'll just lose your money.

Don't do it.

Free Stuff: Worth What You Pay For It

Screenclipped from one of the far-too-many aggregate sites that I waste my life at each and every day:

Well, Mom Always Said that free stuff is worth what you paid for it, but in this case I'd say it's a bit overpriced.

No, silly ... don't click on the ad. While I acknowlege that there are douchbags in the world that get way too much importance, I don't actually link to them. Jeeze.

Broadway, 39th, Grand: Not Only No, But Hell No

The buzz: The city of Portland has just released results of a postcard survey poll on the possibility of the three target streets – Grand Avenue, Broadway, or E. 39th Av – would wear the moniker Cesar Chavez. And the results are ... urgh.

• Broadway: support, 73; opposed, 1,276
• Grand Avenue: support, 69; opposed, 372
• 39th Avenue: support, 91; opposed, 694.

The idea is to now go back to Council with recommendations based on this. Since stop the insanity has been deemed an unacceptable result, the one with the weakest opposition will probably get the nod.

That means you, Grand Avenue.

That'd by my prediction, anyway.

You know, the memory of Cesar Chavez deserved better than this. Read Sean Cruz' blog here, and here, to find out why that is. The quote to me that illustrates exactly the shallownness and arrogance of the advocates that needs repeating is this one:

The Committee-Once-Bent-on-Renaming-Interstate-Avenue has never asked the City or the County or the State to put other possible public property naming options on the table, and Portland remains stuck in the mire largely because the White Folks in Charge at all levels of
Oregon government have been so fearful of alienating a potential voting bloc.

The street-focused effort will win no awards for creativity or imagination, in part because there is no major street in Portland that is a natural fit for a Mexican American hero.

Nothing underscores this point more than the fact that the Committee is equally
good with Broadway, 39th, Grand or Interstate Avenue, so far….

The process has been hopelessly ruined by power center after power center bypassing through-going rules put in place by people concerned that just the sort of thing would happen that, in fact, has happened, because they are justified enough.

We now face the ironic proposition that, in Portland, a city justifiably reputed for a progressive outlook, we are having an ugly argument over whether to name a street after someone who embodies a great many qualities that we all hold quite dear.

Bizarre.

Mom Always Said it's fun and games until someone loses a limb.

And to add an observation of my own, from Cervantes:

Hay más mal en aldea que se sueña.

My translation may be a bit off. Apologies if so.

Who says NOLA's dying?

Population back up over 300,000 in the city, 1.3 megapersons in the New Orleans metro area.

Mom Always Said you can't keep a good city down.

That sound you hear is Republicans softly crying because a Democratic stronghold is rebuilding itself. I don't imaging NOLA will forget how the Republicans let them down either.

They still got about 150,000 to get past us, though.

Hey, hometown pride, you guise. Deal with it.

The Reasons I'm Still Not 100% Thrilled About MLS In Portland

1. They're not all that honest about abosolutely, positively having to ZOMG remodel Piggy Park.
2. I know they're saying that this is all guaranteed 'n' stuff and that the taxpayer exposure on this is at a minimum, but people on that stratum of society have been lying to me for so long they've forgotten how to tell the truth. It's probably gone so far that when they lie to us that actually think they are telling the truth. So they say there's going to be a deal in place that'll prevent taxpayers from being harmed. Well, maybe. I'll believe it when it doesn't happen.
3. New sports stadia don't really help the local economy. It's always used as a reason and it's been debunked time and again (and it the situation I've linked it was disproved by actual smart people with actual degrees and stuff) but this zombie bullet point just Will. Not. Die.
   
4. One less just-affordable entertainment opportunity for me and mine. Major league sports = major league ticket prices, it doesn't matter what sport it is (fortunately, we've recently reconnected with the Winter Hawks, which is a hell of a team). We're poor. In 2011 we'll probably have no chance to see a Timbers game live, because we're no longer able to afford it
   
5. No more Beavers at the Piggy? I suppose I can accept this in concept but on a gut level, it just doesn't make sense.
6. The NASL Timbers drew 20,000 fans a game. The NASL folded anyway.
7. The whole quest for some sort of triumph on this issue distracted the mayors office and the Student Council from taking care of essential things. Now the city's going to be spending an extra megabuck a month while they work out some issue they should have already taken care of.

I'm sure Mom Always Said something about this, but I can't quite figure out what it might have been.

Peter B. Collins: What A Difference A Week Makes

Caught this in passing on Malloy last night: Peter B. Collins, one of the most underrated liberal talkers on the air, just one week after winning La Rhodes' slot in Seattle, has reached the end of his rope:

Since we started on KRXA in 2005, I’ve been covering the costs of
producing the show and delivering it to our affiliate stations by
satellite.  With phone bills and the other expenses, it adds up to more
than $5,000 a month. We get a little advertising revenue and some
generous listeners contribute, but most of it is absorbed by my small
business, Collins Media Services.  Until last summer, I was able to
cover the costs from my work as a radio producer and consultant.  Like
everyone else, the Bush recession has hit me hard.

...

Over the past 3.75 years, I’ve tried it all.  I pitched all of the Air
America programmers except the current one, who never returned my calls
or emails.  I was offered a deal by Nova M, but they reneged in a
bizarre story I’m saving for my talk-n-tell book. Air America just
announced that Montel Williams will be their new offering in the Thom
Hartmann time slot, which tells us that Jerry Springer’s flameout was
just their first attempt to retread a tabloid TV host as a
“progressive” radio host.

I wish he did'nt have to take himself off the air. Peter B had a unique, measured way of looking at the world and his voice is made for radio.

We here in PDX never heard him except tape-delayed and late, but he was worth staying up for. And he had just got the early-evening slot in Seattle that Randi Rhodes had before she disappeared.

It's an inexplicable shame that liberal radio can't have the same rich angels that conservative talk radio gets. Rush Limbaugh gets tens of millions of dollars a year, Hannity gets millions to arrogantly slant the truth, and they all get to complain about how the Democrats are trying to Fairness-doctrine them off the air (even though Democrats aren't). In the meantime, Mike Malloy has to self-syndicate and Peter B gets to go off the air, even when what we hear suggests that people like liberal radio. A lot. When Randi went up against Lars here in PDX, Lars lost that daypart.

Mom always said life wasn't fair.

Oh, Go Galt Yourself

Just caught whiff of this. Us Orygonian bumpkins and bumpkinettes may not have heard of this, but this sounds like the silliest, selfishest, most self-indugingest thing since the other week when that risible "teabagging" party trend (link rated R for adult situation) that happened because Santelli belched something resembling a thought (It would be helpful to note that CNBC's Rick Santellin not only Hates You (tm) but is a buffoon as well, though unlike Jim Cramer, he's not even funny).

It's called going Galt.

As someone once said, assume I'm an Objectivist, and assume I'm a dunce ... but I repeat myself. Now, we all know (even if we don't Rand around) that John Galt is the pivotal character in Atlas Shrugged. He is the ubermensch upon whom withdrawing the creative contribution causes the entire Earth to spin into the sun (or cause another Thin Man movie to be made, or something like that). If you buy into Objectivism, the "men of ability" (not you) are the people who actually make the world go round, and if they decide to stop contributing, then the whole fabric of society unravels and the whole place starts to look like sections of Detroit we've heard about recently.

Now that the rabble (if you're reading this and you wonder who the rabble might be, it's you, Sparky) have begun to actually demand that government work for them instead of on them, the Masters of the Universe (if you wonder if you are one, then it's a dead sure thing you aren't) have decided that they're just going to take their ball and go home.

Balloon Juice has a pretty good summary here:

Much html code has been spilled about the wingnut obsession with “going Galt” in order to avoid paying a 39% marginal rate on income over 250K a year. Matt Yglesias points out that we’d probably be better off if a lot of wealthy Americans went Galt, the Washington Independent has a nice run-down of the whole movement (oh, it resembles a certain sort of movement, if you follow me–ed), if it can be called that, and commenters all over point out that John Galt would never have worked as a dentist, represented people from Bakersfield, or slept with Glenn Reynolds.

Take that lese majeste, you little people. Once you all pipe down, we're getting you a shorter chain.

Problem is, those self-styled Galters don't really resemble John Galt much at all. Once again, if you buy into such Random philosophy and you think that the world won't go unless a creative elite does anything, most of the those who want to go Galting around don't really produce anything that society can't do with out. Conservative bloggers? Investment managers? Commentators? Michelle freaking Malkin?

We'll, they'll show us, you see. They'll go off to the gulch and hope we all Galt ourselves off a cliff.

I hope their little feelings won't get too hurt when they find out the world kind of works better without them.

I kind of hope they Galt off along with the horse they rode in on. We'll all be better off.

Mom always said there'd be people like that there, too, also.

You See? I Told You Twitter Makes You Stupid.

"It Books"? Publishing a dead-tree collection of tweets, fahgawdsake?

Put a fork in us. We're done.

Doesn't seem a fair exchange for losing a respectable non-fiction imprint, but what do I know? Mom always said there'd be days like this.

So Long, (G.I.) Joe's?

This is the worst news I've heard since they lopped off the "G.I." part.

Joe's Sports & Outdoor filed for Chapter 11 reorganization Wednesday, seeking to keep its stores and Wilsonville-based headquarters open until it's sold -- possibly within 30 days.

The Oregon retailing icon, bought by the equity firm Gryphon Investors of San Francisco in 2007, has no immediate plans for layoffs and will cover its 1,600 employees' salaries and benefits through a potential sale, said John Mangan, a Joe's spokesman.

And here's a cogent POV:

"Joe's forgot about the common guy who went in to buy a decent pair of work gloves," said Gary Livingston, a construction company owner and longtime customer. "Since it was bought, the store changed the product line, and now, everything is high end."

Livingston and others said the company -- previously known as G.I. Joe's -- has moved too far from its retailing roots. And they hate the new name.

Well, the idea was maybe to improve GIJoes right out of business anyway. Mom always said there's trouble in town when the equity firms show up.

Looking Into The Abyss: The President-Obama-As-Crazed-Monkey Edition

Just when you thought conservative opinion couldn't get any more low-rent and tasteless, comes this cartoon:

Artist Sean Delonas's cartoon for today is highly, highly distasteful, bordering on the absolutely horrid. I link it here not because I like it (the combination of Obama-avatarage as crazed-chimpanzee can have no defense ... who is being given credit for the stimulus bill?). It makes me want to vomit. I provide it at this time not because it's pretty, not because it's insightful, but because it gives us a look into the conservative mind, and neatly explains why we must never let conservatives have the controls of anything, ever again.

The aspersions it casts on our legitimately-elected President who, unlike his disloyal opposition, is actually trying to do something about the sad economic state of our nation are, in my opinion, inexcusable.

And, unless the artist lives in a cave, it has probably occurred to him that this may indeed incite someone to violence against the President.

African-Americans have been pejoratively called "monkeys" in our culture ever since Southerners instituted thier own "guest-worker" program for African immigrants in the antebellum times. What conclusion did the artist wish us to draw?

The New York Post, of course, should be ashamed to run such trash. But they aren't (and we shouldn't be surprised, because this is a Murdoch rag). As a matter of fact, the paper's statement about the cartoon essentially gave everyone who didn't care for it the middle finger:

The cartoon is a clear parody of a current news event, to wit the
shooting of a violent chimpanzee in Connecticut. It broadly mocks
Washington's efforts to revive the economy. Again, Al Sharpton reveals
himself as nothing more than a publicity opportunist.

(note: the defense was in direct response to Rev Sharpton's reactions to it). It's highly ironic that the Post, which apparently took this low-rent approach to get people talking about it, accuses someone else for grandstanding.

If this weren't bizarro world, The Post would be out of business tomorrow over this. But some people are sure to day "yep, they gotta point there!".

If this were the Bush administration, the Secret Service would be on Delonas's doorstep so fast it'd make his head swim.

Well, Mom always said the world wasn't fair.

However, at least we know there's a more idiotic conservative editorial cartoonist out there than Glenn McCoy.

I close this with this letter written by a contributor at Skippy the Bush Kangaroo, which distills down my prolix wonderings very nicely (emphasis added by us):

ok, the cartoon with the dead chimp and the policeman saying that
someone else would have to write the stimulus bill is shameful.
if you're saying the president is a chimp, because people compared a*wol to a chimp, you're not figuring in the race card, which always counts. i don't want it to count, but it does.
if you're being that racist, you should hang your head in sadness over your own ignorance.
if
you're saying that other people are racist, then you're missing your
mark, because my first thought was that *you* should be ashamed for
putting this out there.

please think long and hard about how this insults so many people, at so many levels.

Blackwater is now "Xe"; There, That's all Fixed Then!

(the AP, via various sources), Blackwater, the great private army, is now ... "Xe":

Blackwater Worldwide is abandoning the
tarnished brand name that has defined the beleaguered company since its
founding more than a decade ago.

Blackwater officials said
Friday its family of two dozen business will now operate under the name
Xe, pronounced like the letter "z."

The decision comes as part
of an ongoing rebranding effort that grew more urgent following a
September 2007 shooting in Iraq that left at least a dozen civilians
dead.

Well, Mom always said if anything'll tarnish a brand name, it's the wanton killing of people.

Oh, the training centers haven't gone away though. They're now called the U.S. Training Centers. And the logo hasn't changed. So, hey, good times.