Monday, December 6, 2010

Money Making Schemes



This year, more than 600 taxi drivers were implicated in a giant taxi scam in which drivers overcharged passengers more than $1.1 million by flipping switches on their meters that kicked in higher rates. In the wake of the scandal, the Taxi and Limousine Company scrambled to portray the incident as a series of isolated incidents and mistakes by a select number of drivers. But according to one of those taxi scammers, these were no Lee Harvey Oswalds: it really was all a giant evil conspiracy!



According to driver Joseph Kastner, a group of drivers would meet together at cabby conferences in garages around the city and plot their nefarious schemes. "I met a series of drivers who decided to rob the public. They were actually having meetings at my old garage," Kastner, 49, told the TLC during a Sept. 30 administrative court hearing. Kastner is one of those accused drivers; he is charged with allegedly cheated 3,925 passengers out of $7,756, the sixth highest amount for an individual driver. Kastner claims that he wanted to become a whistleblower, alleging that the scams were much bigger than let on previously, and that he had stuff on the TLC as well, but no one took his offer: "I tried to tell them over and over again at the hearing. They didn't listen to a word I said. They just don't want to hear it," he told the Post.



So is Kastner trying to escape his fate by alleging a citywide conspiracy, making up stories to look better, or is there really an underground network of thieving taxi drivers plotting to steal unwitting customer's money? TLC obviously didn't take his claims seriously, but the Post sides with Kastner, saying that other cabbies and industry insiders confirm his story, and bad hacks pull other stunts such as charging drivers to put on the heat, pressing the "extra" button on tolls and bridges, and posing as livery drivers at airports and charging more than double the flat fee of $45 to Manhattan. Whether or not the conspiracy is as widespread as Kastner would have you believe, the best thing you can do is consult the Passenger Bill of Rights, and always be vigilant of extra charges of any kind.




In a letter to the New York Times, CPA John Carrick succinctly summarizes a governmental scheme that would send private citizens to jail if they did the same thing:


Social Security is in effect a giant Ponzi scheme. Today’s contributions are used to pay beneficiaries who contributed yesterday, and the surplus of current contributions is “lent” to the federal government and used for general spending.


The Ponzi scheme underlying the Medicare system is even more blatant. Consider the new “Medicare Contribution,” enacted as part of ObamaCare in the name of “fairness,” which extended the 3.8 percent Medicare tax to the investment income of those making more than $200,000 ($250,000 in the case of a couple). The legislation dispensed with the interim step of sending the money to the Medicare Trust Fund, to then be “lent” to the general fund and spent on non-Medicare programs. Instead, the money from the new “contribution” will go straight to the general fund; Medicare will not even get a government IOU to hold in “trust.” Privately run Ponzi schemes are generally less brazen.


Later this month, Democrats will attempt to increase the “fairness” of the most progressive income-tax system in the world (under which about half of American households pay no tax at all and the top 1 percent pay of earners pay about 40 percent of the total) by increasing taxes on the “rich” to help finance the trillion-dollar deficits Obama has made the new norm. The plan is to withdraw hundreds of billions more dollars from the private economy while assuring citizens that the economic consequences will be felt only by the targeted few. The public seems to understand that the economic effect will be somewhat broader.


It is a shame that there isn’t more money in the Social Security and Medicare trust funds to “borrow.” That is such a simpler system — and there is no pesky criminal law to prevent it, since only private Ponzi schemes are banned. But the federal government has exhausted its current Ponzi possibilities and now seems more like Adam Sandler in a tax-fairness costume.




bench craft company rip off

Soap <b>News</b>: &#39;Days of Our Lives&#39; Lands Big Fish and More

The holidays are hopping in soap opera world, with new characters moving in and familiar faces returning. Last week, we reported that CBS gave 'The.

Sea Ice <b>News</b> #31 | Watts Up With That?

38 Responses to Sea Ice News #31. beesaman says: December 5, 2010 at 6:38 pm. I commented on this a bit a while back too! Odd how the NSIDC graph has caught up since some folk started talking about it, or rather, odd how the ice has ...

<b>News</b> - Justin Bieber Cancels German TV Gig After Stunt Goes Awry <b>...</b>

The teen singer scraps his performance after a man is severely injured on the popular series Wetten Dass.


bench craft company rip off

Soap <b>News</b>: &#39;Days of Our Lives&#39; Lands Big Fish and More

The holidays are hopping in soap opera world, with new characters moving in and familiar faces returning. Last week, we reported that CBS gave 'The.

Sea Ice <b>News</b> #31 | Watts Up With That?

38 Responses to Sea Ice News #31. beesaman says: December 5, 2010 at 6:38 pm. I commented on this a bit a while back too! Odd how the NSIDC graph has caught up since some folk started talking about it, or rather, odd how the ice has ...

<b>News</b> - Justin Bieber Cancels German TV Gig After Stunt Goes Awry <b>...</b>

The teen singer scraps his performance after a man is severely injured on the popular series Wetten Dass.


bench craft company rip off

Soap <b>News</b>: &#39;Days of Our Lives&#39; Lands Big Fish and More

The holidays are hopping in soap opera world, with new characters moving in and familiar faces returning. Last week, we reported that CBS gave 'The.

Sea Ice <b>News</b> #31 | Watts Up With That?

38 Responses to Sea Ice News #31. beesaman says: December 5, 2010 at 6:38 pm. I commented on this a bit a while back too! Odd how the NSIDC graph has caught up since some folk started talking about it, or rather, odd how the ice has ...

<b>News</b> - Justin Bieber Cancels German TV Gig After Stunt Goes Awry <b>...</b>

The teen singer scraps his performance after a man is severely injured on the popular series Wetten Dass.


bench craft company rip off
Jabón <b> Noticias </ b>: Días festivos &#39; &#39; de nuestras vidas "Tierras de Big Fish y másLa están saltando en el mundo de las telenovelas, con nuevos personajes que entran y caras familiares que regresan. La semana pasada, se informó que la CBS le dio 'La.

El hielo del Mar Noticias <b> </ b> # 31 | Watts Up With That 38 Respuestas a las noticias del hielo marino # 31?. beesaman dice: 5 de diciembre de 2010 a las 18:38. Hice un comentario sobre esto un poco hace un tiempo también! Extraño que ha cogido el gráfico de arriba, ya que algunos NSIDC gente empezó a hablar de ella, o más bien, extraño que el hielo se ha ...

<b> Noticias </ b> - Justin Bieber Cancela televisión alemana concierto tras Stunt sale mal <b> ...</ b> La cantante adolescente restos de su actuación después de que un hombre está gravemente herido en la popular serie Wetten Dass.


bench craft company rip off

Soap <b>News</b>: &#39;Days of Our Lives&#39; Lands Big Fish and More

The holidays are hopping in soap opera world, with new characters moving in and familiar faces returning. Last week, we reported that CBS gave 'The.

Sea Ice <b>News</b> #31 | Watts Up With That?

38 Responses to Sea Ice News #31. beesaman says: December 5, 2010 at 6:38 pm. I commented on this a bit a while back too! Odd how the NSIDC graph has caught up since some folk started talking about it, or rather, odd how the ice has ...

<b>News</b> - Justin Bieber Cancels German TV Gig After Stunt Goes Awry <b>...</b>

The teen singer scraps his performance after a man is severely injured on the popular series Wetten Dass.


bench craft company rip off



This year, more than 600 taxi drivers were implicated in a giant taxi scam in which drivers overcharged passengers more than $1.1 million by flipping switches on their meters that kicked in higher rates. In the wake of the scandal, the Taxi and Limousine Company scrambled to portray the incident as a series of isolated incidents and mistakes by a select number of drivers. But according to one of those taxi scammers, these were no Lee Harvey Oswalds: it really was all a giant evil conspiracy!



According to driver Joseph Kastner, a group of drivers would meet together at cabby conferences in garages around the city and plot their nefarious schemes. "I met a series of drivers who decided to rob the public. They were actually having meetings at my old garage," Kastner, 49, told the TLC during a Sept. 30 administrative court hearing. Kastner is one of those accused drivers; he is charged with allegedly cheated 3,925 passengers out of $7,756, the sixth highest amount for an individual driver. Kastner claims that he wanted to become a whistleblower, alleging that the scams were much bigger than let on previously, and that he had stuff on the TLC as well, but no one took his offer: "I tried to tell them over and over again at the hearing. They didn't listen to a word I said. They just don't want to hear it," he told the Post.



So is Kastner trying to escape his fate by alleging a citywide conspiracy, making up stories to look better, or is there really an underground network of thieving taxi drivers plotting to steal unwitting customer's money? TLC obviously didn't take his claims seriously, but the Post sides with Kastner, saying that other cabbies and industry insiders confirm his story, and bad hacks pull other stunts such as charging drivers to put on the heat, pressing the "extra" button on tolls and bridges, and posing as livery drivers at airports and charging more than double the flat fee of $45 to Manhattan. Whether or not the conspiracy is as widespread as Kastner would have you believe, the best thing you can do is consult the Passenger Bill of Rights, and always be vigilant of extra charges of any kind.




In a letter to the New York Times, CPA John Carrick succinctly summarizes a governmental scheme that would send private citizens to jail if they did the same thing:


Social Security is in effect a giant Ponzi scheme. Today’s contributions are used to pay beneficiaries who contributed yesterday, and the surplus of current contributions is “lent” to the federal government and used for general spending.


The Ponzi scheme underlying the Medicare system is even more blatant. Consider the new “Medicare Contribution,” enacted as part of ObamaCare in the name of “fairness,” which extended the 3.8 percent Medicare tax to the investment income of those making more than $200,000 ($250,000 in the case of a couple). The legislation dispensed with the interim step of sending the money to the Medicare Trust Fund, to then be “lent” to the general fund and spent on non-Medicare programs. Instead, the money from the new “contribution” will go straight to the general fund; Medicare will not even get a government IOU to hold in “trust.” Privately run Ponzi schemes are generally less brazen.


Later this month, Democrats will attempt to increase the “fairness” of the most progressive income-tax system in the world (under which about half of American households pay no tax at all and the top 1 percent pay of earners pay about 40 percent of the total) by increasing taxes on the “rich” to help finance the trillion-dollar deficits Obama has made the new norm. The plan is to withdraw hundreds of billions more dollars from the private economy while assuring citizens that the economic consequences will be felt only by the targeted few. The public seems to understand that the economic effect will be somewhat broader.


It is a shame that there isn’t more money in the Social Security and Medicare trust funds to “borrow.” That is such a simpler system — and there is no pesky criminal law to prevent it, since only private Ponzi schemes are banned. But the federal government has exhausted its current Ponzi possibilities and now seems more like Adam Sandler in a tax-fairness costume.




bench craft company rip off

Soap <b>News</b>: &#39;Days of Our Lives&#39; Lands Big Fish and More

The holidays are hopping in soap opera world, with new characters moving in and familiar faces returning. Last week, we reported that CBS gave 'The.

Sea Ice <b>News</b> #31 | Watts Up With That?

38 Responses to Sea Ice News #31. beesaman says: December 5, 2010 at 6:38 pm. I commented on this a bit a while back too! Odd how the NSIDC graph has caught up since some folk started talking about it, or rather, odd how the ice has ...

<b>News</b> - Justin Bieber Cancels German TV Gig After Stunt Goes Awry <b>...</b>

The teen singer scraps his performance after a man is severely injured on the popular series Wetten Dass.


bench craft company rip off

Soap <b>News</b>: &#39;Days of Our Lives&#39; Lands Big Fish and More

The holidays are hopping in soap opera world, with new characters moving in and familiar faces returning. Last week, we reported that CBS gave 'The.

Sea Ice <b>News</b> #31 | Watts Up With That?

38 Responses to Sea Ice News #31. beesaman says: December 5, 2010 at 6:38 pm. I commented on this a bit a while back too! Odd how the NSIDC graph has caught up since some folk started talking about it, or rather, odd how the ice has ...

<b>News</b> - Justin Bieber Cancels German TV Gig After Stunt Goes Awry <b>...</b>

The teen singer scraps his performance after a man is severely injured on the popular series Wetten Dass.


bench craft company rip off

Soap <b>News</b>: &#39;Days of Our Lives&#39; Lands Big Fish and More

The holidays are hopping in soap opera world, with new characters moving in and familiar faces returning. Last week, we reported that CBS gave 'The.

Sea Ice <b>News</b> #31 | Watts Up With That?

38 Responses to Sea Ice News #31. beesaman says: December 5, 2010 at 6:38 pm. I commented on this a bit a while back too! Odd how the NSIDC graph has caught up since some folk started talking about it, or rather, odd how the ice has ...

<b>News</b> - Justin Bieber Cancels German TV Gig After Stunt Goes Awry <b>...</b>

The teen singer scraps his performance after a man is severely injured on the popular series Wetten Dass.


bench craft company rip off

Soap <b>News</b>: &#39;Days of Our Lives&#39; Lands Big Fish and More

The holidays are hopping in soap opera world, with new characters moving in and familiar faces returning. Last week, we reported that CBS gave 'The.

Sea Ice <b>News</b> #31 | Watts Up With That?

38 Responses to Sea Ice News #31. beesaman says: December 5, 2010 at 6:38 pm. I commented on this a bit a while back too! Odd how the NSIDC graph has caught up since some folk started talking about it, or rather, odd how the ice has ...

<b>News</b> - Justin Bieber Cancels German TV Gig After Stunt Goes Awry <b>...</b>

The teen singer scraps his performance after a man is severely injured on the popular series Wetten Dass.


bench craft company rip off

Soap <b>News</b>: &#39;Days of Our Lives&#39; Lands Big Fish and More

The holidays are hopping in soap opera world, with new characters moving in and familiar faces returning. Last week, we reported that CBS gave 'The.

Sea Ice <b>News</b> #31 | Watts Up With That?

38 Responses to Sea Ice News #31. beesaman says: December 5, 2010 at 6:38 pm. I commented on this a bit a while back too! Odd how the NSIDC graph has caught up since some folk started talking about it, or rather, odd how the ice has ...

<b>News</b> - Justin Bieber Cancels German TV Gig After Stunt Goes Awry <b>...</b>

The teen singer scraps his performance after a man is severely injured on the popular series Wetten Dass.


bench craft company rip off

Soap <b>News</b>: &#39;Days of Our Lives&#39; Lands Big Fish and More

The holidays are hopping in soap opera world, with new characters moving in and familiar faces returning. Last week, we reported that CBS gave 'The.

Sea Ice <b>News</b> #31 | Watts Up With That?

38 Responses to Sea Ice News #31. beesaman says: December 5, 2010 at 6:38 pm. I commented on this a bit a while back too! Odd how the NSIDC graph has caught up since some folk started talking about it, or rather, odd how the ice has ...

<b>News</b> - Justin Bieber Cancels German TV Gig After Stunt Goes Awry <b>...</b>

The teen singer scraps his performance after a man is severely injured on the popular series Wetten Dass.


bench craft company rip off



This year, more than 600 taxi drivers were implicated in a giant taxi scam in which drivers overcharged passengers more than $1.1 million by flipping switches on their meters that kicked in higher rates. In the wake of the scandal, the Taxi and Limousine Company scrambled to portray the incident as a series of isolated incidents and mistakes by a select number of drivers. But according to one of those taxi scammers, these were no Lee Harvey Oswalds: it really was all a giant evil conspiracy!



According to driver Joseph Kastner, a group of drivers would meet together at cabby conferences in garages around the city and plot their nefarious schemes. "I met a series of drivers who decided to rob the public. They were actually having meetings at my old garage," Kastner, 49, told the TLC during a Sept. 30 administrative court hearing. Kastner is one of those accused drivers; he is charged with allegedly cheated 3,925 passengers out of $7,756, the sixth highest amount for an individual driver. Kastner claims that he wanted to become a whistleblower, alleging that the scams were much bigger than let on previously, and that he had stuff on the TLC as well, but no one took his offer: "I tried to tell them over and over again at the hearing. They didn't listen to a word I said. They just don't want to hear it," he told the Post.



So is Kastner trying to escape his fate by alleging a citywide conspiracy, making up stories to look better, or is there really an underground network of thieving taxi drivers plotting to steal unwitting customer's money? TLC obviously didn't take his claims seriously, but the Post sides with Kastner, saying that other cabbies and industry insiders confirm his story, and bad hacks pull other stunts such as charging drivers to put on the heat, pressing the "extra" button on tolls and bridges, and posing as livery drivers at airports and charging more than double the flat fee of $45 to Manhattan. Whether or not the conspiracy is as widespread as Kastner would have you believe, the best thing you can do is consult the Passenger Bill of Rights, and always be vigilant of extra charges of any kind.




In a letter to the New York Times, CPA John Carrick succinctly summarizes a governmental scheme that would send private citizens to jail if they did the same thing:


Social Security is in effect a giant Ponzi scheme. Today’s contributions are used to pay beneficiaries who contributed yesterday, and the surplus of current contributions is “lent” to the federal government and used for general spending.


The Ponzi scheme underlying the Medicare system is even more blatant. Consider the new “Medicare Contribution,” enacted as part of ObamaCare in the name of “fairness,” which extended the 3.8 percent Medicare tax to the investment income of those making more than $200,000 ($250,000 in the case of a couple). The legislation dispensed with the interim step of sending the money to the Medicare Trust Fund, to then be “lent” to the general fund and spent on non-Medicare programs. Instead, the money from the new “contribution” will go straight to the general fund; Medicare will not even get a government IOU to hold in “trust.” Privately run Ponzi schemes are generally less brazen.


Later this month, Democrats will attempt to increase the “fairness” of the most progressive income-tax system in the world (under which about half of American households pay no tax at all and the top 1 percent pay of earners pay about 40 percent of the total) by increasing taxes on the “rich” to help finance the trillion-dollar deficits Obama has made the new norm. The plan is to withdraw hundreds of billions more dollars from the private economy while assuring citizens that the economic consequences will be felt only by the targeted few. The public seems to understand that the economic effect will be somewhat broader.


It is a shame that there isn’t more money in the Social Security and Medicare trust funds to “borrow.” That is such a simpler system — and there is no pesky criminal law to prevent it, since only private Ponzi schemes are banned. But the federal government has exhausted its current Ponzi possibilities and now seems more like Adam Sandler in a tax-fairness costume.




bench craft company rip off

Soap <b>News</b>: &#39;Days of Our Lives&#39; Lands Big Fish and More

The holidays are hopping in soap opera world, with new characters moving in and familiar faces returning. Last week, we reported that CBS gave 'The.

Sea Ice <b>News</b> #31 | Watts Up With That?

38 Responses to Sea Ice News #31. beesaman says: December 5, 2010 at 6:38 pm. I commented on this a bit a while back too! Odd how the NSIDC graph has caught up since some folk started talking about it, or rather, odd how the ice has ...

<b>News</b> - Justin Bieber Cancels German TV Gig After Stunt Goes Awry <b>...</b>

The teen singer scraps his performance after a man is severely injured on the popular series Wetten Dass.


bench craft company rip off

Soap <b>News</b>: &#39;Days of Our Lives&#39; Lands Big Fish and More

The holidays are hopping in soap opera world, with new characters moving in and familiar faces returning. Last week, we reported that CBS gave 'The.

Sea Ice <b>News</b> #31 | Watts Up With That?

38 Responses to Sea Ice News #31. beesaman says: December 5, 2010 at 6:38 pm. I commented on this a bit a while back too! Odd how the NSIDC graph has caught up since some folk started talking about it, or rather, odd how the ice has ...

<b>News</b> - Justin Bieber Cancels German TV Gig After Stunt Goes Awry <b>...</b>

The teen singer scraps his performance after a man is severely injured on the popular series Wetten Dass.


bench craft company rip off

Soap <b>News</b>: &#39;Days of Our Lives&#39; Lands Big Fish and More

The holidays are hopping in soap opera world, with new characters moving in and familiar faces returning. Last week, we reported that CBS gave 'The.

Sea Ice <b>News</b> #31 | Watts Up With That?

38 Responses to Sea Ice News #31. beesaman says: December 5, 2010 at 6:38 pm. I commented on this a bit a while back too! Odd how the NSIDC graph has caught up since some folk started talking about it, or rather, odd how the ice has ...

<b>News</b> - Justin Bieber Cancels German TV Gig After Stunt Goes Awry <b>...</b>

The teen singer scraps his performance after a man is severely injured on the popular series Wetten Dass.


bench craft company rip off

Soap <b>News</b>: &#39;Days of Our Lives&#39; Lands Big Fish and More

The holidays are hopping in soap opera world, with new characters moving in and familiar faces returning. Last week, we reported that CBS gave 'The.

Sea Ice <b>News</b> #31 | Watts Up With That?

38 Responses to Sea Ice News #31. beesaman says: December 5, 2010 at 6:38 pm. I commented on this a bit a while back too! Odd how the NSIDC graph has caught up since some folk started talking about it, or rather, odd how the ice has ...

<b>News</b> - Justin Bieber Cancels German TV Gig After Stunt Goes Awry <b>...</b>

The teen singer scraps his performance after a man is severely injured on the popular series Wetten Dass.



















No comments:

Post a Comment