American Greed - Scams. Scoundrels. Suckers.

There's a show I watch weekly on CNBC. Its called "American Greed. Scams. Scoundrels. Suckers". I find it fascinating. The scams that are successfully perpetuated. The methods used. And the sheer brilliance of the scam on many occasions. The show revolves around highlighting the scam and the victims, especially how much impact it has on their lives.

What I find most interesting is the similarities and common elements of almost each of the scams. Here's what almost all of them have in common.
a. The scam artist who is extremely confident and has charisma that has people believe in him or her, mostly him.
b. They require an investment from the sucker.
c. There is a promised return which is much much higher than anything that regular investments offer.
d. Initially the promised returns happen to attract new investments.
e. When the incoming investments reduce to less than the payable returns, the scam ends and the scamster is either caught or vanishes.

The logo "American Greed - Some people will do anything for money", all refer to and judgement is passed on the low morality of the perpetrators of the crime. In my opinion this describes as much if not more aptly, the victims. That's because the victims are aware that what they are being offered is unreal and not possible, but its greed that blinds them to believe what they hear, no matter how unreal it is.

You can see the episodes at CNBC's website
http://www.cnbc.com/id/18057119
or on Hulu
http://www.hulu.com/american-greed

or you go through the list of episodes and pick the ones you want to watch. My 2 favorites are Bernie Madoff and Raj Raj Rajaratnam.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_Greed_episodes

And finally, this is not about American Greed at all. Its about Human Greed. As a wise acquaintance recently remarked, "All of us want lots of money to do very little, and preferably nothing at all."

Summer Vacation are finally here

The day Reia waited for ever since she came here finally arrived yesterday. School was over for the year and the summer holidays began.

Reia is all set to leave for India tomorrow and will be spending her summer holidays, that is the next 2 months in India. A holiday she's looking forward to.

This does not mean that she didn't enjoy her time at school here. In fact the opposite is true. She enjoyed her school here. The school system is geared to cater to the needs of every child. No matter how different. And that is exactly what allowed Reia to have a good time. All the time learning new things that were not only geared towards the exam at the end of term, but to things that could be applied and be helpful in real life.

The assessment system was also very helpful. It was on going and weightage was given to various parameters such as assignments, projects, classwork, ...

The two biggest difference between the Indian and the US education system was the examination system and the extra school coaching. Most of the homework given was easily completed by spending an hour or so daily at home and there was no requirement to go for tutoring to be able to do relatively well in school.

For bright students it really does not matter which system is used. They'll always perform well. Its the majority of students who are average or having learning difficulty where systems make a huge difference. And for a child like Reia, this was perfect. Allowed her to perform to expectations without being stressed.

And that's why as Reia heads back for a well deserved holiday, she's looking forward to coming back for her next year at school.

Fathers Day

Today is Father's Day. And in the US its a big deal. People start shopping gifts for their Dad and as on every occasion there are huge Father's Day Sales.

This year I received a gift and a card for Father's Day from my daughters.

The card said
"To one of the coolest Dad's in the world" and that itself made my day. If my daughters thought that, it was really cool.

And there was a gift. As they say, "A picture speaks a thousand words", and I'll let a picture of the gift do all the speaking.

And here's wishing my Dad a very Happy Father's Day. We are who we are because of you. Thank You Dad.

Learn driving at 16. Learn to fly at ...

It was a Saturday afternoon and Reia and I were just finishing up our weekend chores when Reia had one of her moments. And said, "Can we go flying ?". And I responded, "Sure, find a flight school nearby.". Within minutes, she had done a net search and found a school in Danbury, about 30 minutes away.

We called them and checked if we could go flying today. And surprisingly, they said, "Yes. When would you like to fly ?". And we found ourselves in their office in under an hour.

They had a deal where one could get an Introductory 30 minute flight for $105. Reia was keen on taking the flight. And so was I. But today was her day, and I made a mistake. Gave her the option of me joining her. And having an option she took a decision that only Reia could. Decided that I wasn't to join her.

http://www.arrowaviationllc.com/

The flying instructor was a nice gentleman who made sure she had her phone camera and other stuff all set. And off they went. I had told the flight instructor that if Reia enjoyed herself they could extend the flight to up to 2 hours. Yet another mistake. They finally came back 2 hours later. And I was poorer by twice as much as I had planned to.

And while she was flying I was finding out what it took to get a private pilots license. And what I found out was quite interesting. Interesting enough for me to get mine. And guess what. You just have to be 17. A drivers license at 16. And a pilots license at 17. This can only happen in the US.

Amazing Amazon

I've always had someone else do all the buying for the home. First my parents and then my wife. And so had no clue as to how many items are needed in a home. Initially in setting it up. And then on an on-going basis. To add to my troubles there was the setting up of a office and the on-going requirements. Yet another something I had never done. There always was someone else to do it. And the fact that I hated shopping didn't help.

So when we needed something, Reia and I would go shopping over the weekends and get thoroughly confused. And we would finally buy some stuff and find that it was available at a significantly lower price elsewhere.

The first time I realized the difference in cost was when we needed a whiteboard for our office. We has seen it in Staples for over $100. And saw it was available online for around $60. Interesting and just about to purchase until Al, who I work with heard about it and said we were stupid. He was getting one and it cost him $23 including shipping. And in all cases it was the same size. There may have been some difference in quality, but its just a whiteboard. How different can they be. Lesson one. Buy online. But do compare shopping even online.

And that was the beginning of the Amazon experience. I started with a Kindle, which was awesome. And then registered for Amazon Prime, which provided free shipping for a zillion products. And strangely enough whatever I needed was available and in most cases the effective cost, which is cost plus shipping turned out to be the most cost effective on Amazon.

In the last 3 months I've already gotten several products and Yes, the first purchase ironically was a book, Amazon's original business model, a Kindle, and varied items from a laptop case to a graphing calculator to an ironing board to a light bulb change kit to a office table and chair, to simulator equipment, to luggage to a Gatts jar.

And Amazon is now getting into the digital movie business, I guess their next step after digital books. The Amazon Prime membership which costs $79 and includes ability to borrow digital books, although they have limited it to one a month and provides a variety of TV shows as well as movies. At last count they had over 40,000 titles and were signing up for original content creation. All in all, the Amazon Prime, seems to be a good deal and I guess Amazon's ability to continuously add services and products is what drives their phenomenal growth.

Their next step would be delivery of fresh groceries. And guess what. I'm not kidding. They are currently doing test runs in a few selected areas. Seems like Amazon wants to do in the real world what Google wants to do in the digital world. Monopolize.