For those just getting back from Mars, Michael Jackson died. It's been close to two weeks and its still a top story across all streams of media. The nice thing about being a sports fan is that I get to avoid much of the hoopla. While working around the house on Sunday, I was able catch a great Wimbledon final, a Tigers loss and a Tiger (Woods) win - and nobody mentioned Michael once! Yes, he was a great entertainer and yeah, he was probably a pedophile too. Neither of those are stories to me. Nor is the ensuing soap opera regarding his estate. What astounds me about Michael is how this guy completely lost touch with reality. Being that I was born in 1965, I've had the opportunity to follow his entire career. Love the old Jackson Five stuff when he sounded like a girl. Then he became an adult and sounded like a woman. I still think the "Off The Wall" album is second to "Thriller," but just doesn't get the press. He still looked like a regular guy on that album. Then "Thriller" came out and we all said, "Hmmm. Looks like Michael had some work done." Then he started to look like Diana Ross, then his sister LaToya. It was Letterman that said, "Only in American can a poor black boy grow up to be a rich white woman." Then by the 90's he looked like Diana Ross....... if she was abducted by aliens. What the hell was up with that nose anyway??? And some how he managed to have white children to match his ebony-to-ivory transformation. One thing that isn't under dispute - the dude was weird.
Bernie Madoff got sentenced to an unprecedented 150 years for his role as the "Fonzi of Ponzi." The press tells us he ran the greatest Ponzi scheme of all time by stealing billions from unsuspecting and trusting investors. For those that don't know, a Ponzi scheme is where you collect money and use it for other things. As investors want to get out, you just pay them from new money coming in. This continues as long as you have a much higher ratio of money coming in than going out. Madoff's scam fell apart when the market collapsed and too many people wanted to withdraw and nobody wanted to invest. The money wasn't there so the jig was up. Then I'm reading a story about the concerns of our Social Security system collapsing in the not-so-distant future. The problem? The money used to pay out Social Security to seniors comes from the people paying into it today. The trend shows that more people will be collecting than there will be people contributing. But what happened to all the money put in by those seniors? Uh, um....the money was used for other things. Is it me or does this all sound familiar? You see folks, the goal was not to pay out Social Security. When it was drawn up as part of the New Deal during the Depression, the pay-out age was 62 and the life expectancy was 58. Pretty sneaky, eh? The pay-out is still in the 60's, but we're living into our 80's. Oops. So who's gonna get 150 years in prison when this one blows up?
