Fire Me. I Beg You.

Wow. Warren sent me this link. a tip of the hat!

Who is this guy and how did he get inside my head???

Fire me. I beg you. End my misery right now. This isn’t the right job for me. I don’t want to be doing this right now. This is not what I signed up for. Every day I come to this job I lose a part of my soul. I have been coming to work late for the past 2 months now. Can’t you see that I just don’t care anymore. Can’t you see that? I’m not meant for the corporate life anymore. I want to create something meaningful. I want to create something that others are going to use. I want to do the things that I’m good at. For the love of everything almighty. Fire me. Please.

That’s from this post. Another post details the steps that follow:

Thinking About Quitting Your Job? 10 Unorthodox Steps to Landing Your Dream Job. Step 1: Quit. Seriously — Robbie Abed

Lessons in Narconomics

The Economist has a fantastic piece this week discussing one industry that has thrived throughout the Great-Financial-Oppression (or whatever we’re calling it these days). The Mexican narcotics industry.

America cut its [cocaine] habit by about a quarter between 2006 and 2010… But the cartels have been nimbler than legitimate businesses in switching to new markets.

The drug industry’s flexibility is partly due to its exemption from import duties. Whereas legitimate Mexican traders have free access to America and Canada via the North American Free-Trade Agreement (NAFTA), drug smugglers are granted tariff-free entry to every country in the world thanks to the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, which prohibits the regulation or taxation of their product.

When free trade prevails, everybody wins

Get it? The invisible hand promotes a self-regulating marketplace. The weaker drug cartels do die off (literally), but the government does not bail them out or provide insurance to their depositors. Only the most flexible and efficiently-run cartels survive, and they are not shy about expressing gratitude to the communities that made their success possible. Drug cartels make huge donations to police and politicians. This church, for example, was donated to the village of Tezontle by the Zetas.

A beautiful chapel in Tezontle, courtesy of the Zetas
Donated by Heriberto Lazcano Lazcano (leader of the Zetas)

Narconomics –The Economist

Offshore Bank Accounts for Tax Evasion

San Pedro, Belize. Come for the coconuts. Stay for the tax haven.

 
Belize, Panama, Seychelles, Cyprus, and the Cayman Islands are not only fantastic holiday destinations, they also feature governments that aren’t excessively nosy about what businesses are incorporated within their jurisdiction.

Yesterday, the NY Times printed this very informative guide to setting up an offshore bank account for minimizing tax exposure:

My Big Fat Belizean, Singaporean Bank Account

I am only propagating this information to help stimulate ideas for the prevention of tax evasion, of course. I would never condone or partake in such antisocialist behavior. Also, I really like putting up pictures of places I would rather be than at work 🙂
Here’s another one:

Hahaha. Okay, okay, just kidding. Back on topic.

If I were super rich, I too would prefer to waste my money on a Belizean financial advisor instead of having it go to the federal government, where 85% of it will fund crap that I find ethically repugnant.

Tissue Culture Experiment 0

I made my first attempt at tissue culture over the weekend. Nothing too elaborate, just trying to establish a good control system for future experiments.

Here I’m trying to grow some squash in a medium made of agar and K-mart plant fertilizer. If this goes well, then I’ll try to clone something more exotic, like wasabi. If that works, then I’ll cut off a piece of my arm and use that for my next tissue culture. Then, world domination.

Islands for Sale

Private Cay in Central Andros, Bahamas. Only $999,000 USD

Apparently rich people are having trouble maintaining their private islands (so sad!), and many are letting them go at firesale prices. There has never been a better time to buy your own private rock in the middle of the ocean. Of course, there runs the risk that your investment may soon become submerged as a result of climate change (which still has not been proven to be caused by human impact).

Some of these really are cheap. Like Tahifehifa Island, only EUR 175,000. Being priced in euro, that’ll probably be about 50 cents USD in a few months’ time. The island is in Tonga (is that a country?), which is somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. I have no idea how you’d get to it. Maybe you can buy a yacht with all the money you save.

There are also cheap islands for sale in the US, such as Naomi Island on the Hudson River, only $125,000. It’s only a 90-mile commute to Manhattan floating down the river in an inner tube.

I’m calling dibs on this one in Belize:

Scipio Cay in Belize

Apparently it’s inhabited by local fishermen. I plan to colonize them and establish the imperial city-state of Elaineopia. Manifest destiny!