We got this email and immediately started making plans to spend our USD $2.25 million.

Attn; Request.

Sometimes the urgency of a letter could determine the channel in which it is sent, this letter is very urgent and important and the fastest channel to reach you is via your email address.

Can you receive 7.5M usd on behalf of my company and be compensated with 30% of it?

Send your names, phone, fax number, occupation and age then you will be fully briefed on the nature of the transaction.

Yours truly,

Mr. Carl Wilson

Until recently, Earl Jones seemed like the kind of guy one would like as a friend, or at least invite to a party. Those closest to him describe the financial planner as charming and fun, adored by children, devoted father to two daughters. He was generous, quick to pay for drinks, and could be counted on to show up at weddings, funerals and hospital bedsides. “You felt that he really felt your pain when a tragedy struck, and went out of his way to be sympathetic and supportive,” his sister-in-law Frances Gordon said.

Then in June, the monthly checks he issued to his clients for decades stopped coming or bounced, and Mr. Jones, 67, stopped taking calls. Investors got a sick feeling in their stomach. They began to fear the generosity of a man known to many as Uncle Earl had been coming directly out of their life savings, and his appearance at funerals and weddings might not have been so selfless after all.

Read Uncle Earl

If you are a venture capitalist looking to invest in the next Google when it is still no more than a couple of kids in their mother’s kitchen, this article is for you.

To 4G or not to 4G? That is the question the large wireless operators are asking themselves. It is yet unclear what fourth generation wireless technology will look like. However, there seems to be agreement that it will be capable of reaching speeds of 1 gigabyte per second. That would be fast enough to download a feature film in about six seconds. You would still need 90 minutes to view the film and you can’t watch it while you drive, leaving plenty of opportunities for music and voice content.
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Little Green Footballs has a post about the paper submitted to the American Physical Society by Christopher Monckton, debunking many of the arguments advanced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Fearful of losing political and financial support, the APS hurriedly inserted this statement on the front page of its website. Read more >

Rush Limbaugh, portrayed by New York Times Magazine as a sinister godfather of Talk Radio, extended his contract to 2016 for a reported $400 million. Rush is heard weekly by more than 20 million listeners on 600 radio stations. He is by far the most influential conservative in media and politics today. His portrayal of John McCain as a waffling Rockefeller liberal determined to wrestle the Republican party from the grip of the conservative movement, gives the Presidential candidate headaches.

CNBC held a round table discussion in the 2:00 – 3:00 pm slot, asking “is he worth it?” Martin Wolf thinks it is a “monster error.” Not only that, but “conservatism in America is dead and in a few years Rush will be a worthless oddity.” Of course, liberals have been saying that for the last twenty years. On his own show, Rush responded with a threat to buy CNBC and straighten it out or shut it down. That should give the libs at the NYT something to talk about.
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There are two types of entrepreneurs. For sharper focus, lets call them entrepreneurs by choice and entrepreneurs by necessity.

Entrepreneurs by choice deploy skills and money to experiment with new ideas. They choose to be entrepreneurs and focus on developing and executing a plan. They may risk everything they have, but don’t expect to starve. They start with computer programming skills and an idea for a search engine. Next thing you know, Google is a household name.

Entrepreneurs by necessity have no money or particular business skills. They act anyway. Why? Fear! They haggle over price, buy a carton of strawberries with their last $20, sell individual fruits on a street corner and make $10 profit so they can feed the kids. Next thing you know, they own a chain of grocery stores. They grow their business in an eternal struggle to survive.
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Back in the early 1990s, if your business was global, you had to hedge against a declining Canadian dollar. We always kept a reserve of US dollars to protect the bottom line. Today, currency hedging is a more complex exercise, involving China, the Middle East and, of course, Europe.

Apparently, GM miscalculated.

General Motors Corp.’ s chief financial officer said yesterday he was surprised by the quick rise of the Canadian dollar, calling it “a drag on profitability” that the carmaker did not foresee when 2007 began.

The comment by Fritz Henderson, coming as GM reported a US$247-million net loss from its core automotive business in North America in the third quarter, underscores the extent to which Canada’s auto sector is losing its traditional cost advantage in manufacturing.

And it shows just how much the loonie’s climb has taken corporate leaders by surprise.

The Canadian dollar’s 24% gain against the greenback since January is unprecedented. The currency rose higher yesterday, punching past US$1.10 as China moved to diversify its swollen foreign currency reserves away from the U.S. dollar.

“The things that have surprised me this year in North America, that have been a drag on profitability – one is the strength of the Canadian dollar,” Mr. Henderson said on a conference call. “[It] is not something that we saw certainly coming into the year and the speed with which it appreciated.”

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