#427 Buy This

As we near the end of the year it behooves many of us to find a time for quiet contemplation where we can review the events of the last twelve months and reflect on all we have to be thankful for. And then there’s me. I have to say, as we turn the corner of the first decade of the 21st century, things are as weird as ever. Like we have more spam than you can shake a stick at. Too bad. Spam, a once honorable mélange of discarded pork parts, has degenerated into my most persistent morning annoyance. Yesterday I got 20 emails. 19 of them were spam. I’m a little ahead of the curve. Those in the know now estimate that 9 out of 10 emails are spam. And they seem to be two kinds. Picture image spam, which slips through spam filters by fooling them into thinking it’s an image without writing, and text spam, which comes from high-jacked mailing lists from other computer users. In order to block this spam I would have to block all my mail from friends and relatives. My picture spams usually are for Viagra and suchlike. Prescription drugs from less from reputable sources. Always a good risk. Let’s see, I think I’ll swallow a completely unregulated, untaxed, unlicensed, and untraceable-as-to-its-origin pill. I’m sure there won’t be any ill effects. It’s not like just cause I can’t sue them I shouldn’t trust in the basic honesty I expect from someone who solicits me in illicit ways on the internet. That’s a lot to swallow. But boy, that differently spelled Viagra sure looks cheap. Hate to pass up a too-good-to-be-true bargain from a complete stranger. The other spam, the highjacked mailing list spam, comes from people posing as investment opportunity purveyors. These guys start the spam with Hi I’m so and so, then hype a specific penny stock that you just can’t miss on. When I first started to get these, I wondered who would be dumb enough to buy something suggested by an advisor you don’t know, who pretends that you do know them, and then uses that pretense to ask you to lay down money for stock in a company you know absolutely nothing about. And you can’t reply to the email to order this stock. You have to actually buy it yourself on the stock market. So you have to at least be savvy enough to have a broker or an e-trade account. And dumb enough to do the deal. The spammer makes his money by sending out all these free suggestions to buy stock to jillions of complete strangers. Enough gullible strangers respond to drive up the price of the penny stock. The spammer then sells the illusionary investment and makes up to a 5 to 6 percent return in a two-day period. All for starting a rumor. With the engine of spam commerce that costs him nothing. It’s nice to know in this culturally sensitive 21st century, PT Barnum’s “There’s a sucker born every minute” is still true. So is it kosher to fleece sheep with pork products?
America, ya gotta love it.