Money Laundering: A Quick How-To-Get-Away-With-It

On Wednesday, May 29, 2013, the Washington Post called the Liberty Reserve "one of the biggest laundering operations in history."  Liberty Reserve stands accused with laundering six billion dollars.  For certain definitions of big, this statement could be considered accurate.  In the real world, this is like called a house sparrow one of the biggest birds in history.  HSBC was accused with laundering an estimated two hundred fifty billion dollars for Iran, as well as failing to properly monitor another six hundred seventy billion dollars of wire transfers and almost another ten billion in purchased US Dollars.

Let's put those amounts in numbers:
Liberty Reserve: 6,000,000,000
HSBC:              930,000,000,000

Hey, that's a lot of zeros.  Let's strip these down and ask an eight year old which is bigger.
Genius Nephew, which of these two numbers are bigger: 6 or 930?
* Not pictured, my nephew laughing at me, calling me silly, and pointing at 930.

Seven people have been arrested in the Liberty Reserve case.  Not one person has been arrested relating to the HSBC laundering case.  Let's go back to my Financial Investigator, my eight year old nephew:
Genius Nephew, which of these two numbers are bigger: 7 or 0?
* Not pictured, my nephew laughing at me, calling me silly, and pointing at 7.

The lesson is quite clear.  If you're going to launder funds, go big or go to the big house.  Laundering money is fine as long as the amounts involved are staggering, and you use the profits to expand your business into credit cards and other types of loans.

You might think that I am an anarchist advocating that the government shouldn't bother prosecuting cases like this in the new age of the internet, the greatest social experiment yet, but I'm not.  I am a progressive with some mild anarchist tendencies, usually only expressed while inebriated, advocating the radical idea that governments apply their laws to everyone, not just the conveniently prosecuted.

I'm also disappointed with the Post for the lazy reporting.  Calling Liberty Reserve "one of the biggest" when HSBC was two* orders of magnitude larger is ludicrous.  $6 billion is chump change compared to $980 billion.  Even the Republicans wouldn't argue too much over six billion in a budget debate, but nine-hundred eighty billion gives anyone pause.  To put that in recent news perspective, that is more than 2,940 massive Powerball jackpots.  Imagine if three people won 300+ million dollar jackpots every day for the next two and a half years.  Just ludicrous.

* Thanks, Pinko

Varying Degrees of Awful

Last Saturday, I was walking into my local Metro station when I was asked for spare change by an allegedly homeless person.  The exchange damn near broke my spirit because it happened like this:

"Hey, man, spare some cha-oh, sorry, bro."

I was wearing some green, heavy-duty carpenter's pants that I use as hiking pants.  They are durable, but have wide enough legs that the thick denim isn't stifling, even in a DC summer.  These pants are pretty faded, worn around the hem, and have some permanent grass stains at the knees.  I was also wearing a green, long sleeve shirt that I always think makes me look like a revolutionary.  Apparently, I looked so pathetic that even a homeless man didn't want any change I might have had.

Thanks, Universe.  I needed this.  Everything is now cobagulating.

I try to remind myself that my life could be so much worse, but this doesn't feel helpful.  Everything can always be worse.  There can always be some other, larger, more hideous monster around the corner.  As much as I sympathize with the plights of so many people in the world, reminding myself that other people live in utter terror for their lives doesn't make me want to thank the Good Lord Pasta for my life.  I am torn between feeling guilt for being lucky enough to be born who I was born, and for trying to assuage that guilt by remembering that I didn't have any choice in the matter, so far as I know.

At least I can go to sleep, reminding myself that life isn't fair, there is no plan.  This comforts me more than any other platitude.

Strolling in the Gloaming

We've been having hurricane affect weather in the District this weekend. This put a bit of a crimp in my plans to help my church's annual yard sale, but we forged ahead and did well enough in spite of some deity's decision to drench us in a downpour.

After spending both Saturday and Sunday in various stages of damp exhaustion, I finally made it home around 6 pm on Sunday. The sun was poking out between some rather impressively threatening clouds which were stalled in the precipitation negotiations, and I could see mist rising out of the trees near the river. I decided to take a brief jog to a favorite vista that is hidden by the crowding foliage along the bluffs above the Potomac River. I didn't mind the drops, the burrs, or the mud. As I reached the gap in the trees, I saw a lovely cascade of pastel colors, most of which I remain unable to identify. The clouds were a mix of dark grey and pink, the sky faded from blue to afternoon yellow. The tops of the clouds shined bright gold, and the mist oozed up from the river gorge enviously.

Tonight, I took a walk to clear my head and curl my hair in another foggy evening. I walked down to Canal Road, and the world might as well have ended at the river bank. Walking back up the bluff, the mist over the reservoir was banded. A dark lower layer brooded over the floating mats of gooseshit, and flocks of gooseshitting geese. There was an oddly light swath of fog above the dark that caught my interest. Perhaps it was an artifact of the streetlights and stoplights behind me but the fog seemed to have a dim inner glow from about twenty feet to thirty feet in the air. Alien exhaust fumes, or just some pedestrian reflection of the white-green glow of the streetlights. Above this, a few stars glinted through the thin clouds expressing absolute apathy to me, my job search, my love search, or John McCain's plans to ruin America.

Heaping Loads

So, I think I am being audited.

Fuck.

Shouldn't be too hard, since I don't have any money. And never have had any money. The IRS probably just wants to tell me that I shouldn't have filed late for the years that I filed, but they owed me money in those years anyway. There are days, and then there are days.

UPDATE: Turns out they want more money for self employment taxes and fees for 2005. HAHA! The jokes on them! I'm broke, bitches! HAHAHAHAHAHA!