--Sr. Trabajando, International Business Correspondent (Not CIA)

---con'td



MSN Money: Stock Market Sell Offs - Blame it on Greece
(Dubai, United Arab Emirates)  May 2010
Greece is the center of a vast and powerful empire...wait...stand by...here is an update, no that was 2500 years ago, so what in the hell is the possibility that anything as unimportant as the Greek credit rating can shake 200 points off the New York Stock Exchange?  MSN headlines said stocks "tumble" on "fears" of Greece.  First - "tumble?"  MSN said stocks "tumble," that was the term they used to describe today's 3% NYSE sell off; tumbling and tumbling like some preschooler flopping around on their play mat. Wheee!  Look at me mommy, I'm retarded and doing cartwheels with a scissors in my mouth!  Wheee, watch me "tumble" retarded mommy!  And second - What "fear?"  We "fear" what happens in Greece?  Oh my God liquidate my portfolio, Greece is in the news!  Get my broker on the phone!   Yes, hello, sell everything, someone said Greece is in the news!  You heard me good fellow, cash me all out, I fear Greece more than I fear my strange attraction to the Venus de Milo!  Please! For the love of Zeus man, get my money out right now!  

Let's face the facts, if a second world country like Greece can actually affect trading in New York so profoundly on such minor news, than the global economy is in worse trouble than previously imagined. Or could it be that MSN and the media are always searching for some logical conclusion to why stocks rise or drop on a particular day?  Did word of Greece crash our markets in March of 2009?  Where was Greece the market Boogyman then?  Or could it be that the absurd blaming of an almost hereto unheard of country in terms of international finance is just some desperate attempt to find cause and effect where none exist?  Does it arise from the media's transparent attempt to always explain away market drops as the result of everything and anything but the real lingering, unspoken cause, that the Dow Jones is a falsely and grossly inflated index? 

I seriously doubt that a country the size and stature of Greece really wields such absolute control over the US stock market and I am doubly in doubt that the American investor is really sophisticated enough or well informed enough to understand a link as complicated as Greek credit ratings to US equity markets, if it were even true; and that is giving way too much credit and power to both traders and to Greece.  Honestly, save your panic for this conclusion, if a country with an economy like Greece can actually control our stock market so dramatically on a single days volume then we need an immediate Congressional panel to study this mysterious and unstoppable Gypsy-like power over US investors before it is too late, before we all go for a "tumble."  It seems for now that the only thing we have to fear.. is fearing Greece itself.
--BW Schulz, Editor in Chief

TWSEN Rates Online Gaming Sites and Internet Casinos
(Probably Barbados)  July 2010
Do I get to travel the world checking out casinos?  Noooo.  Certainly not Monte Carlo, not Las Vegas, not even Atlantic City; not that I would eeever go to New Jersey anyway. Did you know drinks aren't comp'd for free to players like they do in Nevada?  No free booze, no money from Steffi.  Anyway, instead my assignment is to rate gaming sites on the Web, so I'll be working from my loft and providing my own ample supply of vodka.  The editor said I get no travel allowance, no money for drinks or food, and of course, no funds for gambling. Wagering on games of chance on the Internet for actual money, for US citizens at least, is not legal.  So while tens of billions and billions of dollars is wagered by Americans on-line anyway, our short-sighted prudish government doesn't get a penny of taxes out of it, much less any of the technology jobs that we need so badly right now. These operations need piles of routers, firewalls, servers and the nerds to work on them.  I have at least three areas I am going to rate sites on: security, friendliness, and fairness.  I'm going to make another martini and then Google "on-line gambling" to get started.
- more to follow-
Update: I first investigated  what I'll call "Blackjerk dot com."  You figure it out.  It was full of miserable gamblers and even had people asking if anyone else had ever got their wire transfer confirmation when they finally did try to cash out!  Not bad enough that a Player had to give them their credit card number to this off shore site, but then they had to give them their bank routing number to try and get their money back!  Wow, and Players were often hostile.  I have screen shots of users not only profanity, but actually making deadly threats like telling other players to leave the table and commit suicide!  A sick site.

Yahoo of course is free and does not want your Pay Pal, credit card, or bank account to play any games there. By in large, it is a site populated by people having fun playing all sorts of games, from 21, Video Poker, to Texas Hold Em. Most folks are friendly and engaging.  Still, there are some faults. Rogue players use cyber-threats and severe vulgarity and on July 9th, at about 10PM EST, I caught some screen shots of some of these players who violated just about every terms of agreement for decent behavior at Yahoo Games.  We'll be blanking out some of their users names and posting the dialogue here later. I turned it over to the nerds in the TWSEN IT Department to take care of that.  In the meantime...I am going back to Yahoo to play 21 and other card games because there are some really funny and interesting people to meet there.
- more to follow-  
  -Steffi Panzer, Hollywood News Correspondent

The American Legion Memberships Continue To Decline: Killed in InAction
(Washington DC, USA)  May 2010
The American Legion is a long-time advocate of Veterans rights and blah blah blah, our source at the VA has put her career on the line by revealing shocking statistics behind the impending collapse of this organization for this TWSEN story. Ironically she first noted that World War II veterans are dying at the rate of approximately 1000 a week, the same rate that they died at during the War ! Unfortunately today's veterans see the Legion for what it is, a groaning, moaning shell of it's former self.  And those stupid french fry cook hats!  We all hated our flat folded dress uniform hats while we were in the service, so why would we want to wear them now?  Try switching to baseball caps in order to give us some shred of self respect.  Today's veterans also rightly have a what have you done for me lately attitude about their memberships.  No one helps you get a job there, they don't help with finding affordable housing when you finally get discharged.  No, all the Legionnaires do is sit around chain smoking at those posts where the bar tender is like a hundred and everyone has assigned bar stools since the Inchon landing.  And talk about cliques.  They are worse than a bunch of teenage girls.  If you didn't kill any Germans they treat you like you haven't killed anyone!  Damn that's insulting.  So it's no surprise if you stop by a post to play bingo that you won't see any desert camouflage there, I don't think they even know which wars are going on anymore.
--CPL. Von Bock, War Correspondent


SeaWorld Orca: Third Homicide, No End in Sight - Whale is Still Hungry, Irritated
(Orlando, FL) February 2010
Where does public safety start and profits end?  This whale has already killed three people. One was a tourist who fell into the tank and two were highly skilled trainers, so this animal knows no distinction. SeaWorld was aware that when they bought this animal from a Canadian aquarium that it had already taken one human life. Was it priced to move? What dropped their guard?

Letting this happen over and over again has no reasonable explanation except as the by-product of corporate greed and deserves to be questioned - as everyone knows that in Florida if a far less valuable animal had did that once, much less three times, wait a minute, even if a human being did that one time - they would have been put to death by state law.   

SeaWorld can keep mixing people with killer whales for entertainment and profit and the state of Florida will turn a blind eye to these dangers because there are two rules that we play by in America, the ones that govern regular people and the ones that govern, or fail to govern, huge bankrolled corporations whose high-priced lawyers allow them to get away with anything.

If this had been a case of a small town Florida alligator farm for example, where reptile handlers wrestle with these beasts for the amusement of tourists, the operation would have been shut down a long, long time ago after the first death of a handler or visitor and the alligator that killed that person would also have been put down too. But small town alligator farms don't draw tens of millions of dollars in tourist revenue to the state of Florida or more importantly make big contributions to the state politicians. Sadly though, SeaWorld does, and it allows them to get away frankly, with murder.

The real tragedy goes far beyond the death of this trainer, who has died senselessly, the true tragedy is that no one has ever challenged SeaWorld's laissez faire safety polices or ever questioned the regulators in Florida responsible for the licensing of dangerous animals. So what is it that they say down South? Oh yeah, That's one big fish to fry. (We know it's a mammal, please don't email us..)
--BW Schulz, Editor in Chief

       


eBay Auction Shilling and Other Misconduct Under Investigation by The Wall Street Edge News
(Internet, no known Address) February 2010
TWSEN is not the first to investigate fraud and malfeasance on the Internet auction site eBay. From the Justice Department to on-line organizations committed to stopping fraud on the Internet, TWSEN is now joining in this effort to warn Buyers of possible signs of misconduct at eBay. While by far the vast majority of Sellers and Buyers at eBay are part of a great, honest community and the website itself is vigilant in keeping it that way, nevertheless, problems do occur there. This month we are conducting some test bidding at eBay in order to find patterns in the use of "auction shills" and other unethical selling practices at the on-line auction site. 

"Auction Shilling" takes place when a third party bidder, who appears totally unrelated to the Seller by either their eBay profile (a much lower eBay star rating for example) or by their geographic location, suddenly enters into the bidding for an item in order to drive up the auction price and thereby the Sellers profit from its sale. The shill's account is either directly controlled by the Seller as a covert account set up by him or her, or is controlled by a cohort of the Seller who acts in concert with the Seller during the auction to drive up the price of the item.

One indicator of a shill is when an item attracts no interest for 6 or 7 days with little or no bids, but once your bid is placed, suddenly a fierce opponent enters into the auction and begins outbidding you. The suddenness of an appearance of this last minute bidder after you placed your first offer is because the shill or the Seller or both are notified by an eBay alert triggered from your initial bid, so it will strike a Buyer as strange that an auction that attracted no interest for so many days mysteriously heats up within minutes from the placement of your first bid.

The use of auction shills by eBay Sellers is inarguably unethical, and worse, because the delivery of some of the items in these transactions uses the US Postal Service, it is possibly illegal and is punishable for the Seller by harsh penalties because the moment a stamp is applied to the delivery it could become a case of mail fraud. According to our confidential source at eBay the most auction scams on eBay involve foreign transactions, many from Africa or Asia, but most commonly from break away republics in the Balkans and from now independent Russian countries that were formerly members of the USSR.

Here's how it works and what to be on the look out for:

A.) An auction of 5 to 7 days in duration for an item has no bidders for almost the full length of time of the auction, but suddenly has higher counter bids that arrive shortly after your initial bid as the auction nears its end.  Another indicator, though not definite, is the use of Second Chance Offers after you lose an auction that fits the above pattern.  Why offer it to you now?  Is it because the shill accidentally outbid you and the Seller wants to make the actual sale?

B.) Beware of Sellers who do not offer Returns to Buyers who are not satisfied with the product that they receive, especially since eBay policies state that a Buyer has to pay for Return Shipping.  This does not burden the Seller with shipping fees to have a Buyer send back an unwanted product for a refund of only the auction price; the loss would be to the Buyer, who would have to pay the postage fees. There is not much risk to a Seller to offer this guarantee but should put a Buyer on guard if it is not offered. This is a common place and reasonable arrangement that is widely used by reputable eBay Sellers, mail order catalog companies, and late night infomercials to assure customer satisfaction.

C.) An item, seemingly very unique, is relisted for sale at eBay, with the exact same description shortly after you seemingly have bought it. We have seen items with unique flaws or identifiable damage listed immediately for sale after they had already been sold.  This "recycling" is a sign that the Seller may be taking money from Buyers over and over again for the same product.  The product that is sold and resold over and over again may not actually exist, or it is only shipped to winning Bidders who complain to the Seller or seek help from Ebay mediators. So as a precaution, a Buyer should search for the item that they won on eBay a day or two after winning it. If the exact item is listed again quickly, it could be an indicator of a Seller who is relisting the same item again and again.

D.) The total cost of an item that you won does not even equal or exceed the listing fees to eBay for the Seller, the value of the item you won, and the shipping costs to the Seller. It will have that hint of too good to be true in the back of your mind.

E.)  Be wary of of what you want to bid on. If the category of items that a Buyer shops and bids for in involves high-end electronics equipment, silver, gold, coins, or currency proceed with caution, stay objective, and don't bid purely based on emotion, which is what often drives auctions as opposed to simply purchasing items on-line from a retailer.  Despite up to two or more separate eBay warnings concerning fraudulent listings that are displayed to a Seller when they are listing an expensive item in one of these categories on eBay, we found that selling items in these categories deserves that many warnings to Sellers because these are the items that are rife with Seller's abuses.

F.)  Do not blindly trust that a "high star" rating of a Seller is a guarantee that you will receive a certain highly priced product as it is described in the auction, or receive it all.  Thousands of transactions by a Seller does not provide a certainty that you will get what you've paid for. However, eBay's star rating is really all we have to judge the legitimacy of a Buyer or Seller's reputation and for the most part, it has been designed well and works in millions of fair transactions every day. Just remember the Seller's rating, high or low, is only an indicator of their past transactions, not a guarantee on the completion of yours.

G.) The Seller does not pledge to send the item, especially something as expensive as coins and currency, using USPS Priority Mail with either Signature Confirmation or at least Delivery Confirmation.  We have sold currencies and precious metals and coins on eBay and for our own protection at minimum we make sure that we have Postal proof that something of such value was sent on a particular day and can be traced at the USPS and Ebay websites all the way to the Buyer. A Seller who disregards such a safeguard could be a red flag that you may never get your item, as the claim is often "we ship by First Class Mail" which offers no way of finding out if that was true, or if your roommate stole your mail, or the Post Office delivered it to your neighbor, or that they lost it in transit, or....that the Seller can use all those reasons as an excuse why your product never arrives. Seriously, when selling expensive electronics, coins, or money do you think a Seller would really send such an item anonymously through the mail just using stamps?  For their own protection at least, probably not.

H.) The Seller makes attempts to arrange contact with the Buyer for communications or payments outside the structure of the eBay website. This is the most blatant indicator that the transaction is not going to an honest one. Such a Seller in this scam may appeal to a Buyer with promises such as avoiding fees, taxes, will offer additional discounts, etc. to lure the Buyer into making a payment for an item they most certainly will never deliver or more importantly, to gain direct access to a Buyer's credit card number, which will then receive huge unauthorized charges. Truthfully, we are even wary of the so called Second Chance Offers, which we feel has not had all of it's terms fully worked out yet. For the best transaction, just stick to the regular auction process at eBay and only communicate with Sellers through eBay messaging and preferably only pay Sellers using a Pay Pal account to avoid revealing your credit card number.

In our January/February study and investigation at eBay we focused on the category of coins and paper currency. We placed bids for exotic money from around the world.  We placed winning Bids on coins and paper currency 23 separate times.  The results in most auctions lived up to eBay's standards and our expectations; we received fast deliveries, items that matched the auction descriptions, and even extra coins or currency from grateful Sellers!

The downside of the 23 coin and currency Winning Auctions, is that fully two weeks after all of these winning auctions ended, almost 1/3 of the items in our test had not yet arrived.  We met our obligation, by paying each time through Pay Pal within minutes of winning every bid. In these coin and currency auctions, as with most auctions on eBay almost all of the Sellers list a shipping date of around 3 days or so, yet 15 days later, we had to contact 7 sellers to ask where our purchases were. We asked what day they shipped it on. We asked what city and state, or country in a few cases, they had shipped the item from. 

The responses to our questions was met with mixed results. 3 of the Sellers that we contacted had still not replied within four days of us asking where our missing items were. 4 Sellers though provided us with remedies that we found were very satisfactory and the result of believable and acceptable mix-ups or delays. Just the fact that they responded showed that those Sellers wanted to straighten out their Buyer's issues quickly and struck us as being sincere, honest Sellers. 

Eventually, 2 of the unresponsive Sellers that we contacted finally sent our items, but nearly a full month after the winning auctions that promised shipping in 2 to 4 days!  1 item never arrived and the nature of the item nor the Seller did not surprise us in the least. Out of the 23 eBay auctions that we won for foreign currencies and coins, we never received our winning bid for a batch of Russian Rubles. While this is old advice from the market places in ancient Rome, it still holds true today for our modern day Internet purchases, Caveat Emptor.

--BW Schulz, Editor in Chief

Job Postings: Dell Computer Call Center Customer Service Representatives
Seeking Microsoft Certified Systems Engineers

Digital Television Instantly Confirms Ratings: Jay Leno is not Funny, Ruined the Tonight Show and he Sucks
(Dublin, Ireland) January 2010
Hello fans and readers, the Dan Ryan is back. Well, not totally back, not technically. I am not on site yet at our news office, I sent this article into the TWSEN using the Marriott Dublin's fax machine. You'll know that I am officially back from my bogus suspension when I kick the shit out of the editor in chief.  Yeah that's right, BW, watch out in the parking structure at night bloke.  But I digress, so now to the main story, which the Dan Ryan first wrote about during the script writers strike over a year and a half ago at The Wall Street Edge.

Avid readers will remember my article. I wrote that during the writer's guild strike how could late night "comedy" shows like Leno's in particular go off the air so quickly? Aren't the hosts of those shows supposed to be writers and comedians?  Apparently not. Clowns like Leno are not capable of producing enough humorous material that appeals to the late night audiences to keep them awake or tuned in to NBC past one single commercial break. 

As in my 2008 article where the Dan Ryan personally volunteered to scab write for Leno's show, and stomp the striking writer's heads in, for no cost, the Dan Ryan also pointed out that Jay Leno is a hack comedian; he's not even mildly original with his material, that he is in fact the embodiment of the Anticomic here on earth. Leno is an untalented version of an unfunny Henny Youngman; he reuses worn out one liners with a drum beat as his punch line, but can't progress much beyond that. 

The majority of Leno's routine for almost a decade went as followed: Leno walked on stage, said "How about that George Bush?" and then the hillbilly audience that was visiting Los Angeles and got suckered into free tickets to his Burbank studio would follow on que with whoops and clapping and monkeylike noises. When the fake laughing stopped, Leno would rephrase his tired routine with, "What about the President yesterday?" and it would be again followed with hillbilly whoops and more monkey noises.

The executives at NBC apparently never sat in the crowd or even bothered to tune in themselves so they never knew how bad Jay Leno sucked and the executive geniuses who chose Leno to replace Johnny Carson (..remember him? I met Johnny once in Palm Springs and he was both likeable and naturally spontaneously funny..) should be shit canned. Jay Leno is either unable or unwilling, likely both, to make any clever or witty political jokes about his beloved liberal Democrats in the current Administration so that he can entertain his retarded late night audience, and now that we All have digital television, they can tell exactly in real time what people are actually watching - and they're not watching Leno.  In fact he is scaring viewers away.

Viewers hear his tired opening monologue and go running to anything else for relief from the tension, even an infomercial or an A&E Biography on Yakov Smirnoff will do. So now without a Republican President to endlessly bash with recycled "take my wife please" styled jokes, and lacking any real comedic talent, digital television finally confirmed what audiences knew all along and the NBC executives were in denial of: that the leftist, pacifist, untalented carnival grade gag man, Jay Leno, is poor for their ratings. In my humble Irish opinion, which you can listen to or fuck off, is to promote Conan O'Brien to a better and more prominent position in NBC's struggling late night show line up before their whole late night television slot collapses into Oxyclean ads.
  --The Dan Ryan, News Correspondent

The Wall Street Edge Suspends The Wall Street Edge Reporter The Dan Ryan After Annual 2010 Employee Revues
(New York, New York) January 2010
The Editor in Chief, BW Schulz placed The Dan Ryan on paid suspension after an annual employee review.  The Dan Ryan, whose office infractions included spilling half a bottle of single malt scotch whiskey on his laptop computer and replacing all of the staff's energy drinks and sodas with self-carbonating pint cans of Guinness beers when it was his week to restock the employee lunchroom refrigerator, has been placed on a harsh administrative leave. 

The Wall Street Edge was unable to reach The Wall Street Edge reporter for comment.  BW Schulz, chief editor, has also launched a review of The Dan Ryan's articles for further fact checking and issued a retraction on some of the controversial reporter's rants. The Dan Ryan, whose unbreakable contract is signed for three years and until the Mayan calendar ends the current world civilization in a total global catastrophe, or which ever occurs first.

Tracing cashed payroll checks, sources indicate that the reporter is on a wild, brawling Bushmill's scotch bender in Ireland, which has no extradition treaty with the United States.  BW Schulz, in an official internal Wall Street Edge memo leaked to Wall Street Edge sources, reportedly wrote that  "The Wall Street Edge News owes apologies to 'just about every category' of our readers who found some of The Dan Ryan's articles possibly offensive, reckless, or both." 
Schulz, after tapping a cold pint of the black stuff, commented, "We run a tight ship around here and our journalistic standards needed to be clearly spelled out for this employee and reinforced with a strict three week paid holiday suspension."
--More to follow--  -Ed.

Christmas Day Airline Terrorism Strike Missed by DHS and TSA, Foiled by Flight Crew and Passengers
(Detroit, MI, USA) January 2010
The horror that the Islamic and Arab terrorists want to unleash upon us, on all Americans, is unimaginable. Agencies that we depend on for our safety are falling down on the job. Their focus is always a day late and a dollar short; for example, the authorities seize nail clippers, as sharp edged weapons, while liquid explosive schemes in the meantime are being concocted. Thanks only to aggressive flight crew members and courageous airline passengers, one of the latest attempts at mass murder was prevented through sheer acts of selflessness that kept a heavy jet in the air, intact, for a relatively safe, but very far from routine landing at Detroit's airport on one of the most important holidays on the Christian calendar. 

This story requires more research to be completed. It involves forward thinking and also brave civic duty by our source(s). This TWSEN news article will be continued in more detail later to inform an alert public to the dangers of more Arab bomb plots, but also balanced with the obligation to not reveal our sources or encourage copycat incidents. To also understand this article, please reference Time magazine's October 2009 article on the arrest of an alleged home-grown Al-Queda terrorist, Mohammed (that's a surprise) Wali Zazi.
--More to Follow---

--BW Schulz, Editor in Chief

No Probable Cause For Traffic Stops - Full Story at TWSEN Crimes and the Law

President BHO Announces United States Strategy Shift in Afghanistan War -Full Story at TWSEN War On Terrorism Section

Corporate Diagnosis: Does Your Company Suck?
(Las Vegas, NV, USA)   March 2010
Let's be brutally honest; you're not up for Employer of the Year here. Your corporate morale is equal to that of a platoon of Japanese soldiers sealed inside a cave on Iwo Jima waiting for the Marines to finally put a sweet end to their misery with a nine second blast from a flame thrower.  At least half of your staff downs a mix of powerful prescription antidepressants just so they can contort their faces into a death grimace and mutter 'morning' to one another while the other half pops handfuls of tranquilizers all day long just to keep from jumping out of their office windows or beginning their commute with the garage door closed, the car running. Your health care deductibles are through the roof.  Sick days are maxed out.  Fake working is rampant. 

The smell of cordite is practically already in the office air. Employees wish that someone would fly a plane into your building and hoping that it will be while you're all in it. The boss throws bipolar tantrums and threatens firings for the slightest infractions like being a minute late. Legal costs exceed bonuses. You've received bomb threats, death threats, and someone keyed all the company cars.

Employees drag themselves through the workday like their brains were shot full of Botox.  The conclusion is simple: Your Company Sucks. Your business model is totally dysfunctional. Everyone is in charge but no one is responsible.  You're surrounded and cajoled by sycophants. Employees scheme against one another. Your staff absolutely loathes your clients, and your clients hate you, your services, and your products.

Pause a moment, though, before you jerk the steering wheel of your Mercedes into a reinforced freeway cement pylon to induce a lethal, off center front-end impact (Princess Di style.) Repeat these words to clear your atrophied, or likely absent conscience: my company sucks, my company sucks... For the devote, lay prostrate on a carpet three times a day facing east and repeat those words: my company sucks, my company sucks... Realize that your employees on a simply base human level, completely hate you, and working for you. They go to sleep at night dreaming that your private jet will snap off its port wing and send you into a terror plunge; one only exceeded by the hellish free fall that follows as your loosed soul plummets into a boiling lake of eternal fire and damnation. So repeat often as needed, tapping your heels together: my company sucks, my company sucks...
Why does the American economy suck?  Because our companies suck.
A bottled water and 31 Valiums anyone?

--M.Moops, Corporate Therapist

Kevin Spacey Slated to Play The Dan Ryan in Upcoming TWSEN News Movie
(Hollywood,CA, USA)  October 2009
Entertainment attorneys and talent agents have been working around the clock to hammer out the final details in Spacey's contract to play the Dan Ryan in the upcoming TWSEN movie about an ex Chicago street thug who works to escape the mean streets by becoming a broadcast journalist. Actually none of that is true. You need to put on a pot of coffee and drink it. You're getting your news from a cat.
 --Mr. Moops, Esq., News Correspondent

The US is Fighting a Two-Front War and a World Wide Economic Depression : Our Advice - Enlist Now

Articles are for entertainment and information purposes only, before making any changes to your positions please consult with your financial genius/advisor/expert before considering any decision involving money -editor

Four Digit Dow Jones: Welcome Home
(Manhattan, New York)  June 2010
Sources at MSN.com reported by market's close on Thursday that the Dow had "shed" 376 points, and futures were down around another 80 points before markets opened on Friday. We have heard reports before from the NBC affiliates that the market has "stumbled", that it has "tumbled", but this is the first time that we can recall that the index crashing has been likened to a hairy and panting beast, casting off its spring time fur just in time for summer. 

So perhaps finally the Dow "shedding" so many points is a start to the index beginning to come back down to more practical and earthly levels. Maybe knowledgeable investors and traders are starting to be more realistic and pragmatic about what our investments on Wall Street are actually worth, and they sure aren't worth 10,600 points!  The five digit, 10,000+ Dow was artificially created for psychological purposes for the sake of debilitated investors, sort of like when you tell a retarded person that they are "giftedly exceptional."  While that makes everyone feel real nice, we all know that it's not true and not really even that convincing, just as we found out during the past few trading weeks, as the similarly cajoled, and so obsessively world-wide watched stock index reached levels around 11,000 points or more was also found to be not that credible either.

Crafting The Dow Jones into levels of over 10,000 points helped investors fluff their magical money stuffed pillows at night and sleep soundly with financial fairy tales dancing through their heads that all was well on Wall Street.  It is not.  First our sources reported, that the index was manipulated higher by removing three long time components from its measurement: American International Group (AIG), Citigroup (C) and General Motors (GM).  Once we stopped monitoring the performance of these three bafoon stocks alone it was guaranteed to boost the Dow Jones by at least 1000 some points. Its like when a bunch of losers all drop out of school at the same time and the test scores of the remaining students are then reported as suddenly and happily rising.  However, in both cases, the dirtballs are still hanging around in the parking lot stoned.

So similarly AIG, Citgroup and General Motors are still out there, lurking around like pan-handling bums that are still affecting the rest of the economy, regardless of whether or not the Dow Jones chooses to measure their stocks performances anymore. For example, GM and its twisted bastard GMAC is still scaringly and deeply involved in banking investments, propped up only for the moment by heavily transfused amounts of Treasury printed inflationary US dollars under the guise of a totally new name, Ally Bank.  And I have to admit, this renaming, and their commercials are clever.  Maybe you've already seen an Ally Bank television advertisement; they are very funny. 

In them, a slick banker who looks like someone we have all worked with in corporate America at one time or another teases kids with empty promises like getting a big new toy truck to play with, riding on a shiny new bicycle, and our personal favorite, getting a real pony, if only the kid had just asked for one. We think teasing kids is funny, because they deserve it.

Kids are costly, germy, whiny, irritating, and call for bail money in the middle of the night while you're asleep. But Ally Bank is on to something.  We are like the stupid kids in their commercials and Ally is still the overly slick, deceitful GMAC banker that bought all those ridiculous CDOs and tanked a car company and an economy or three in the process.  Unlike financing a new Cadillac or Corvette it is entirely different and extremely more financially dangerous to dive into the risks of credit default swaps or purchase bundle after bundle of blocks of thousands of sub-prime home mortgages. If this twisted and bogus AAA credit paper was still actual being sold and resold, would Ally Bank have the sense to stay clear of it or will the secret GMAC bank mutation fall into the trap of buying into the next bizarre, little misunderstood, seemingly profitable, high-risk financial derivative product to be invented? 

Today what we have now is a situation where most of the money in the falsely bloated Dow Jones is parked money from institutional traders who have no other choice but to put it into the market and trade stocks back and forth among themselves from fund to fund to simulate activity. But the tepid volume at the NYSE clearly shows that regular investors however haven't the resources or confidence to trade at the volumes we saw over the past eight years, and with the Dow Jones barely able to keep itself above the 5-digit psychological barrier, that time doesn't appear to be too likely in the near future.
--BW Schulz, Editor in Chief

Corporate Diagnosis: Does Your Company Suck?

--M.Moops, Corporate Therapist


The Nation of Irrational Thinking
(San Francisco, California, USA) Prepare to contort your face in reddened rage and scream out loud as we rationally question the foundations for many of the most popular yet falsely accepted social and political views in current America. For each of the classical Latin, time tested and proven falsehoods in argumentation and logic, our staff will outline the traditional rule with an example of a modern ignorance, often from liberals and the left, but not exclusively.  This TWSEN article investigates how illogical arguments arising from the lack of disciplined thought are undermining the once truthful, open and honest debate in the United States. Please also be equally ready to close your browser and your mind too.  - Get ready to sulk in your immature anger in late April/early May...
- more to follow - ed.

CNN Immediately Withdraws Reporters from Haiti, Relocates Entire News Staff to Earthquake in Chili
(Concepcion, Chili)  March 2010
What a hassle. I was totally getting ready for the Academy parties this week and I get sent to Chili. For God's sake, I just got back from Haiti, how much more can I report on earthquakes?  The plate shifts, buildings fall down, look it up.  So I live in LA, it doesn't make me like your personal seismologist.  However, at least Santiago is nicer than my last earthquake assignment..what a relief.  Blow money has really built this place up. The hotels and night clubs rock in Chili!  Much like the 8.8 quake rocked much of Chili.  It is though sort of peligroso aqui Ed, y no quiero to be like sequestra express down here, so send The Dan Ryan or Moops to meet up with me, okay?  Hello?  Hey!   OMG i don't think they have texting here either :0
  -Steffi Panzer, Hollywood News Correspondent

Texas Taxpayer Crashes Plane Into IRS Offices - Posts Anti-IRS Manifesto - Read it at TWSEN
(Austin, Texas, USA)  February 2010
A Texas man apparently upset over the Federal tax system took his own life and possibly the lives of others when he flew his private plane into the building that houses an Internal Revenue Service office in downtown Austin.  Motivated in a MacVeigh-like way to strike at the building of his alleged oppressors, Joe Stack changed his company website into his own personal anti-government manifesto/ suicide note.

The website, which was quickly taken down by the FBI, was captured in time by the nerds on the TWSEN IT staff.  The nerd team examined the code and told me that Joe Stack, apparently the crashed pilot, wrote the content yesterday around 7:30 PM CST and then posted it on-line about twelve hours later, the morning of his plane crash into the office building. 

That probably was one long night for Joe Stack. For our readers though, we allow you to decide.  Below is a screen shot of the totally featureless website before the FBI took it offline. For a software engineer, Stack sure didn't put much flare into his last HTML code. He was likely preoccupied when he wrote it.
 
The image is linked to an Adobe PDF file that contains both Joe Stack's anti-government letter, unaltered, typos and all, and then after those pages the computer code that was used to serve his final words on this planet. Seriously, blokes, next time use Turbo Tax, not a Turbo Prop to settle up with the Feds.
  --The Dan Ryan, News Correspondent


CNN News Channel Covers Haitian Earthquake Around the Clock: No Other News to Report on in the World
(Port au Prince, Haiti)  January 2010
Yech!  Was this country always so gross or did God's vengeful hand make it this nasty in one day? When the TWSEN editor said he was sending me to Port au Prince, I thought I was going to Quebec or at the worst, maybe to France. But not to Haiti?

It's totally humid here and my hair curled up as soon as I climbed off of the C-130 military cargo plane and stepped onto the tarmac. I understand that they had an earthquake or tidal wave or something, but when did it happen?  I think I arrived late for this story because everything here is junk. There aren't even any shops to loot.  Boooring.

What does it say about your status as a first rate Third World Nation when you don't even have a thriving sweat shop industry?  Where are all the good deals on designer clothes and the hoards of child laborers feverishly toiling away with tiny hands to keep me in the latest fashions at the cheapest prices?  Is this the Dominican Republic? Am I on the wrong side of the island?  This looks like that island King Kong came from but without that skull shaped mountain and with lots more piles of trash.

So after we finish sending all our guilt ridden international aid to this place, I think we should donate some used garbage trucks and outsource some garbage men from Cuba. I guess the earthquake like just happened right before I got here, but what excuse of a disaster knocked out their curbside trash pick-up like a hundred years ago? Why don't they just dump their garbage into the ocean like normal people? 

Take some pride in your tin sheet hovel and sweep it out once in awhile. Pick up those diapers. Pile up all those tires that are laying around and light them on fire.  Do I have to think of everything myself?  I give up. There isn't anything new to report here. I can't tell what was ruined by this earthquake everyone won't shut up about and what was destroyed by years of military infighting and coup attempts or simply fell apart from corrupt government neglect or was trashed by one of their weekly hurricanes.

So if our editor wants to know anything new about Haiti, he can just turn on the CNN cable news channel. CNN has more reporters here than there are Red Cross workers.  I'm not kidding, their news crew alone accounts for a quarter of all the emergency water consumed here daily. 

Seriously, what did I do to deserve this misery?  I am so on the next flight back to Los Angeles and it better not be seven hours spent with a bunch of Corporal Von Bock's Army buddies ogling me during the entire flight again like on the way here.  So I want air conditioning and a martini because this assignment has traumatized me BW, do you hear me?  Hello?  Hey!   OMG i dont think they even have texting here :0
  -Steffi Panzer, Hollywood News Correspondent

President Obama Orders The Out of Control Drug Enforcement Administration To Concentrate Less on Soft Drug Targets
(Oakland, CA) December 2009
In a bold move to reign in para-military DEA attack squads operating in some 14 states that allow for the medical use of marijuana, The President expressed his commitment for agents to stop battering down the doors of advanced HIV and cancer patient's homes and refocus these budget and time wasting efforts on more severe drug threats from cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine dealers.

This Oval Office directive reinforces the first year in office President's desire to stop body armor covered agents from swarming upon Americans who are battling potentially life-threatening diseases has been received well by the national public, advocates of states rights, and medical officials.

A source in the DEA, who wishes her name not be used, said that agents will have to receive some retraining in order to tackle hardened criminal drug traffickers as most had become accustomed to plowing over frail, ill patients while they were armed with sub-machine guns, throwing stun grenades and dressed head to foot in ballistic-resistant military-grade gear.  "Knocking an assault rifle out of someone's hands is not as easy as a walking cane is.." the DEA source said. Adding that "..it will take some changes in our approach from smashing into elderly cancer patient's homes to raiding potentially explosive, biohazardous methamphetamine labs that I heard might have mean people inside them."

--M.Moops, Esq. White House Correspondent

Chinese Health Officials Offer Advice on H1N1 Vaccinations
(China, Peoples Republic of,) Fall 2009
These medical personnel have credentials that include plastisizer in cat/ dog food, lead-haired dolls, and contaminated baby formula so they speak from experience when they want our attention about this new plague that they are incubating. If you are still conscious after you receive these Chinese manufactured bird flu shots, please return later for the remainder of this article..  In the meantime, consult a health professional like a doctor or your private healing shaman.  They will contact the Dod and CDC for (to report) you.

--CPL. Von Bock, War Correspondent, HazMat Consultant
  ----Cont'd later---

The E! Channel Officially Renames Itself the Dead Michael Jackson Channel
(Yemen & Los Angeles)  September 2009
Take an Oxycoton, tune in, and drop dead. The mildly interesting Entertainment Cable Network Channel, E! has now become overrun with non-stop stories of the weird and twisted life of Michael Jackson. Even in the middle of the night viewers get no reprieve from the producers new found theme; even paid-programming has had to yield to running and re-running the same boring, remixed, commercial laden pseudo-news stories about Jackson.

What do we have to do to get some new programming to air on E? Throw Blanket out of a Berlin hotel window? Or are there any other celebrity non-convicted pedophiles who are close to death after 50 plus plastic surgeries that can supplant this redundant, morbid programming schedule that now is the mainstay on E? Clearly, if it weren't for all of those out of court child molestation lawsuit settlements, this plastisized dead pop-star would have wanted these documentaries to run non-stop on the Disney Channel, in order to touch, or rather, we mean reach, his under age audience.
  -Steffi Panzer, Hollywood News Correspondent

Let's Change Our Model for Traffic Commuting: It Could Save Millions of Gallons of Gasoline Every Day in America
(Santa Monica, CA, USA) January 2010
Last Friday I had the unfortunate obligation to have to use I-10 during rush hour, which people have said for years is no rush, that it is actually stop hour because you are stuck in your car for an hour and definitely more if there is something out of your control like a traffic accident that happens ahead of your travel that hasn't been cleared yet.

While I was sitting at a complete stop, as everyone else was, I observed the usual sight of drivers who were shaving, reading, putting on make-up, eating, and talking on their phones. Normally all these activities would be very hazardous on the freeway, but that is, if we were actually moving. Its when an idea came to mind; one that could save the United States millions of gallons of gasoline everyday that get burned up by idling cars stuck in these absurd daily commuter jams. 

The question was, why are all these people trying to get to work at the same time? What is so magical about the ubiquitous 8 AM start time for everyone? Do we need the light of the nearest star so that we can bring in the cows and gather up the wheat?

Like the FAA fanning out take-offs out of Newark, or President Bush's proposal to make some travel flight times more expensive than others (for example, old people have all day to travel and run errands, if you are retired, don't shop during 1st or 2nd shift please.) we can do the same thing with millions of workers everyday, too. Many employers, I know, could examine their business models and adapt the work day to stagger the times that people have to punch in and start working. If you polled the staff, you would find people who would want to start at 6 or 7 AM, and you would also find a lot of people who would like to start at 9 or 10 AM. For the commuters where an exact 8 AM start time remains necessary, at least there would be less drivers to contend with.

We know supervisors everywhere are balking at the idea of all their worker bees not being in the hive at the same time. Some even threaten firings for being a few minutes late too many times. Late for what? Late for getting my coffee? I can't control LA traffic. I know from observation that much of our work days is fake working. People looking busy at doing nothing, gossiping, browsing our on-line newspaper, talking on the phone, and all sorts of other fun things.

No one admits it, but we all know it is true.  How many of you bought some or all of your holiday gifts on-line from work for example? Like Peter in the film Office Space says, "In any given week, I probably only do 15 minutes of actual work." Mike Judge was exaggerating and joking, but there is some truth to it. The urgency is simply not there to have fifty million people hit the road at the same time every morning.

There could also be a great benefit to the economy as goods and services would be more available in our new staggered hours work-world. Wouldn't it be nice to have some people at your insurance office until 8 PM? How about if your plumber could arrive at 7 AM, a full 3 hours before your shift begins? No more missed work days calling in fake-sick waiting all day at home for a contractor to arrive. No more frantic lunch hours trying to jam all your errands in while businesses are still open.

This could lead to not just massive savings in petroleum usage, it would cut down on automobile exhaust from idling, non-moving cars, allow early risers or people who need to pick up kids at school to leave work sooner, and it would allow workers who are highly productive, but hate getting up in the morning from being fired for punching in one minute late, this sweatshop-like policy necessitating higher costs for the company by having to rehire and retrain another worker. We could save ourselves a lot of wasted gasoline and perhaps raise the GDP in turn as people, with more flexible hours can get more things done without missing work by calling in sick to get something done that has to be done during the strict business hours we are subjecting ourselves to right now.

--BW Schulz, Editor in Chief

DVD Film Review:
"Up in the Air"
(Los Angeles)  May 2010
How can I describe the ordeal that I put fellow correspondent Corporal Von Bock through by making him watch this movie?  Oh my God, what a disaster! This film gave me more flash backs than he has watching The Deer Hunter!   I've been fired from plenty of jobs, plenty, and this film did not bring any closure to me about those smug accounting consultant asses who do it for a living.  Meanwhile Von Bock was squirming and looked like he wanted to jump out a window to get away from the shallow dialogue and predictable plot.  Not my fault.  Our editor told me to get another perspective on "a chick flick" in my next film review. So I did, and an hour into the movie Von Bock commented that the only satisfying ending would be if the plane the actors were flying in crashed right now.  And I couldn't disagree!  This movie doesn't make you feel good.   You don't like the characters or care what happens to them.  You just want the film to end, and to not end predictably, but you won't get both. Up in the Air is not a film a normal economy fare passenger can relate to. It is not George Clooney's "best work" like it says on the DVD box, not even a test flight for it.
  -Steffi Panzer, Hollywood News Correspondent

The Dan Ryan Launches a Legal Injunction to Stop Kevin Spacey in Upcoming TWSEN News Movie
(Hollywood,CA, USA)  October 2009
Do you think you have the right... the godamn right to represent the Dan Ryan in the upcoming TWSEN movie ?. I have inside information from a cat source that you are in secret acting negotiations where my agents and attorneys are not present. I'll kick your ass right now Kevin Kansas City on the corner of Michigan and Rush Streets.  Right now big man. Bring it on The Dan Ryan. That is unless I get film-rights-revenue residuals, then everything is cool in the school.  Kevin the Spacey, the man. Right on.   Now return my attorney's phone calls and this whole misunderstanding will end.
  --The Dan Ryan, News Correspondent

Mr. Moops Meets with CNBC Reporters: Exclusive Interview with TWSEN
(New York, New York)  October 2009
  --Mr. Moops, Esq., News Correspondent

Editor:  Thanks for joining us today Mr. Moops, you had a chance to meet with the cast of CNBC. Can you tell our readers about what you learned from their advice and experiences?

M.Moops:  No, not really. No.. I can't. I just said that to get an interview on TWSEN.

Ed: So you didn't meet or interview with any of the staff?

MM:  No, not really, I didn't.

Ed: Why then are we having an interview with you on you interviewing the CNBC staff?

MM:  Edward..Ed, let's be realistic. Your reporting at TWSEN is, well, how can I say it?  It has its shortfalls. So would you like to continue the interview?

Ed:  Absolutely. Tell us about meeting the CNBC staff.

MM:  Great, we'll start with Becky Quick. She alone is worth buying a new alarm clock. When it's 5:23 AM EST and you've been up all night doing catnip and analyzing stock charts, she can tell you about the crashed Asian markets and the wild pistol to your head margin calls that you have due in a few hours and make you feel good about it  Believe me, there's nothing that I ever want quickly from Quick. She's like a Girl Gone Wild coed that happened to never get filmed.. and has an incredible financial brain.

Ed:  Fascinating.

MM:  That Becky has a brain?

Ed:  No, on what you said...

MM:  Ed, seriously, you're distracting me from the TWSEN interview and wasting my time.  I'd like to stay on track because I have a flight to catch for a lead-paint company IPO in Hong Kong tonight, tomorrow, whatever god damn day it is there, so get your questions done, Ed.

Ed:  Okay, Mr. Moops. How about Maria Bartiromo? Joe Kernen? Rick Santelli? Mark Haines? Larry Kudlow? David Faber? What did they say in your interview?

MM:  Whoah, slow down Professor, I'm going to get to everyone on the CNBC staff.  For example, I like Mr. Haines; he reminds me of mien fuder, who would constantly tell me to stop spending all my money on cheap liquor and girls and invest it stock and bonds. He is a champion of controlled spending, savings, and investing.

Ed. Hmmm. What is your opinion on Erin Burnett?

MM:  We agreed that this was off limits Ed and now this interview is concluded! You know damn well there is a PETA restraining order against me for jumping on top of her head and kneading around in that thick beautiful mane..

Ed. Wow, I apologize Mr. Moops. Can we invite you back to TWSEN for another report on your interview with the staff at CNBC?

MM:  Yeah..alright, Ed.  I tell you what, you email my assistant a good time for a follow up interview and my staff will try to find a place for you in my packed schedule because after Hong Kong I have a barely cacheable flight to Antwerp to negotiate a cheap bid on a rough batch of blood diamonds from Sierra Leone.

Ed: That sounds great. Thank you for your time, Mr. Moops.

MM: Auf Wiedersehen, Editor.

---Cont'd later---

|Afghanistan Government Claims US Gunship Killed Five Civilians -Full Story at TWSEN War on Terrorism

Is Your Money REITarded? - Full Story at The Economy Page at TWSEN

Palestinian Charity Places Propaganda Advertisement in Small Town US Newspaper --Exclusive TWSEN Breaking News

Articles are for entertainment and information purposes only, before making any changes to your positions please consult with your financial genius/advisor/expert before considering any decision involving money -editor

The US Government Wants You to Pay a Fee To Spend Your Own Money - Full Story at The Economy Page of TWSEN

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