Uh-oh! Your credit card bill just arrived, and a familiar dread builds up as you open up the statement. Just before you look to judge the damage, a deep regret swells up as you recollect the purchases of the past month. On reflection, buying those ‘must have’ snakeskin leather shoes probably wasn’t completely justified, and somewhere, in the hazy depths of your mind, you remember stumbling home from the bar a few weeks previously, after leaving your credit card behind. Ouch!
It’s true, we all pay for things we later regret, but it seems that some people get more than they bargained for!

1. The 23 Quadrillion Visa Charge

Josh Muszynski from New Hampshire said he swiped his card at a gas station to buy cigarettes. When he later checked his account online, it showed he had been charged: $23,148,855,308,184,500. Insane, but true – a 17 digit charge, which visa cited as a ‘temporary programming error’.

2. Thirteen Year-Old Boy Pays for Escorts

A 13 year-old boy from Texas was charged with fraud after he used his father’s credit card to have a $30,000 spending spree, including paying for escorts.
He ordered an extra credit card from his father’s credit card company and with his friends in tow, went shopping! They were found with numerous electronic gadgets, playing ‘Halo’ on their new Xbox console with two $1000/night hookers. Later on (after a media storm) it came to light that the whole story was fictitious.

3. Husband Racks Up $60,000 on Wife’s Cards

Vige Barrie’s husband spent $60,000 on more than ten credit cards under his wife’s name. Her husband over the years had made and lost millions of dollars, but yet she allowed him to have access to her cards after he was declared bankrupt. She has negotiated a deal with her credit card companies to pay the loan off herself.

[Read the full article]

Taxes are complicated, so, tell them in terms they might understand, like beer drinking.

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that’s what they decided to do. The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the
arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. ’Since you are all such good customers, he said, ‘I’m going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20.

Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men – the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his ‘fair share?’ They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody’s share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man’s bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so:

The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% savings).
The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28% savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.

‘I only got a dollar out of the $20,’declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man,’ but he got $10!’
‘Yeah, that’s right,’ exclaimed the fifth man. ‘I only saved a dollar, too. It’s unfair that he got ten times more than I!’
‘That’s true!!’ shouted the seventh man. ‘Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!’
‘Wait a minute,’ yelled the first four men in unison. ‘We didn’t get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!’

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up. The next night the tenth man didn’t show up for drinks, so the nine
sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn’t have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may
not show up anymore.

In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

This little monkey can ride a mini bike like the best ! He even stops for traffic!