This has been a bad week for the self-proclaimed smart guys. First we were introduced to soon-to-be-ex-Governor Blago. Do yourself a favor and read through the 76 page complaint filed against him. Selling Obama's Senate seat was just the tip of the iceberg. This joker and his main bagman, Tony Resko, shook down everyone who tried to do business with the state of Illinois. Blago demanded donations to Friends of Blago, an organization apparently set up to launder his ill-gotten gain, or donations to his campaign. $50,000 was his favorite number. The scope of the complaint is amazing and the smart people are betting that the we haven't heard the half of it. Yesterday, I learned about a guy named Bernard Madoff. Lots of people will be having a really, really bad rest of their lives because Mr. Madoff, a seeming upstanding financier and money manager swindled his investors out of about 50 billion. Apparently, he was running a giant Ponzi scheme and managed to keep it afloat for decades. The recent credit crisis and market turmoil caused investors to demand their money, which he unfortunately didn't have. I always wonder why people don't understand that things that seem too good to be true are. Speak of too good to be true... I went to work at noon today. Shortly after clocking in, I was summoned to the electrical aisle to help a customer. The customer looked like anyone of a hundred slightly down on their luck guys who come into the store. He wanted a doorbell, which was a fairly easy request to satisfy. Then he starting telling me this convoluted story about how his mobile home had been struck by a speeding car, driven by someone fleeing the cops. He added that he lives two mobiles away from his elderly mother. He also told me that until he got a really good deal on a fixer-upper mobile home, he lived with her. After listening to 15 minutes of his struggles with the insurance company, his struggles with the cable company and his general theories on the unfairness of life, his attention turned to me. We had a conversation that went something like this; Him: Are you really happy working in this hardware store? Me: Yep. Him: What would you REALLY like to do? Me: I'm retired and I always wanted to work here after I retired. I like this job a lot, so I guess I would really like to be doing this. Him: But everyone needs a plan B. (My bullshit detector kicked on) Me: There are tons of things I could do, but I'm basically too lazy to do anything but this. Besides, I don't have much ambition. Him: Would you like to make royalties for life? Me: Huh? Him: I have a plan B, if you are interested. (The bullshit alarm is now clanging so loud I can barely hear myself think.) Me: Nope, I'm too lazy for all that. Him: Can I show you a plan to make money for life? Me: Nope. Him: Can I give you my card? Me: Sure. The card is for some bullshit multilevel marketing scheme for water softeners or something. I pretend I'm being called over the radio and beat feet. I guarantee you that this jackaloon is up to his ass in water softeners and is desperate to find five new suckers quick. Here's a tip for better living. When someone tells you how to get rich, they probably ought not to be living two mobiles away from mom, in a twenty year-old trailer with a Nova sticking out of one end. Just saying. Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky