First of all: Don’t break the law. Don’t break the law. Don’t break the law.
Now I would like to discuss money laundering.
This is a topic that has nagged at me since the movie “Office Space” was released. How can a bunch of highly educated people not have a clue as to how to launder money? ANY amount of money? It is ridiculous to think that people who have been to college can’t figure out how to make something as anonymous as CASH become an untraceable item.
There are two driving principles to launder money: (1) You want it to be untraceable. In order for the money to be untraceable you need to convert it from one type of monetary system to a different type of monetary system, or you need to send it from one anonymous account to a different anonymous bank account with timed transactions. And (2) Once you have this money, you want to be able to spend the money without fear of being tracked down.
Pretend you have somehow acquired a few thousand dollars (no more than say…$100k) and you want to spend it…but you don’t know the history of the money and you suspect that it may be money that was acquired through less-than honorable means.
Normally of course, one would be inclined to turn in the money to the authorities, but for the purpose of this posting let’s presume that if you go to the authorities someone in your immediate family will have to face the music and go to jail or otherwise face legal punishment or criminalization.
(more…)
The most insane thing happened this past Saturday night. I saw something on SNL that was gut-bustingly funny, funnier than anything I’ve seen on that show in years, perhaps in a decade (I just realized I’ve been watching this show for the past fifteen years, which is somewhat depressing). 
