the blog only robots read. Are you a ROBOT????

The author of this phrase is Rep. Eric Cantor, a Republican from Virginia. I thought it suiting as a title for this posting, which might turn out to be an open letter to him.

Then again, it could be titled, "now it is time to sit down and negotiate".

Back in 2004 I had to return a car I had leased from Mitsubishi. I liked the car very much. It was a sporty Eclipse, it was quite new, had only 13k miles on it. I had leased it for 4 years, and had paid over 22k in leasing and down payments. When it came time to return the car, I was naive enough to ask whether they were willing to negotiate the 10 k buy-out on the car. The curt answer from the anti-sales person was "we do not negotiate". End of story, a contract is a contract.

I will not go into details as to the process used for the return of the car, but I suspect at the end of the day, Mitsubishi received only 5k for the car in a used car auction, tops, 6.5k. I was willing to negotiate down to 7.5k, so they would make at least 1k more from this transaction, build goodwill and keep a client. As it stands now, I am no longer willing to buy or lease a car from Mitsubishi - ever.

Mr. Cantor either lives in a bubble, in need of a heavy duty reality check, or he needs to read his own website, which claims the politician is a champion of the middle class.

I am a member of the much beleaguered middle class. I am one of those suckers who bought property in the last few years, thinking that the folks running the economy and financial institutions knew what they were doing, and there were enough checks and balances in the system to ensure my investment would not go down the dumps like it did. I was one of the folks Mr. Cantor might call a hard-working, rule abiding American, for I used no deceitful tactics to achieve the American dream.

Yet, right now the property I have bought is probably worth between 50 to 75% of what I paid. If a buyer can be found anywhere.

It is easy to throw the blame solely on those greedy folks who thought they would become millionaires by accumulating property after property. Although these people acted irresponsibly, it seems to me that the myriad banks, mortgage companies and brokers who lent to these people with little or no due diligence are as much at fault as the trumpwannabesofthisworld, fed on a steady diet of Rich-Man-Poor-Man books, videos and conferences. They also violated the fiduciary duty of publicly traded companies, investing money on thin air, building fat to become the next big merger in the market, which maximize shareholder value so much and generated so many lavish bonuses to executives.

I am no simpleton. I do understand that pumping billions into failing financial institutions might ensure the very existence of our financial system. Yet, as far as I know, no one has been put in jail or been held responsible for the deceitful practices of lenders. These practices were "legal", after all, with the blessing of somebody. Were they in fact legal?

There will come a point, Mr. Cantor, where financial institutions will need to sit down with borrowers and rework the gory details of the unreal real estate bubble of the late 90's-2000's. Can any banks add on to the enormous list of foreclosures nationwide? In an overall pitiful economic scenario, who has money to buy these properties even at much deflated values and take them off the hands of American banks?

Just like Mitsubishi could have made a little bit more money by negotiating the car with me, rather than selling it for peanuts in a used-car auction and losing a client, banks will need to negotiate interest rate and principal on most property bought in the 6 to 7 years in this country.

Saving the American middle class, Mr. Cantor, is much more important than saving the financial system. The latter can be taken over by the government - will the government take over people's lives? The American middle class is the wheel that makes this economy - and dare I say - the world run.

Use your power smartly, keep the wheel rolling.

I pride myself in being somewhat immune to scams. However, I fell for this so very hopelessly...I am sad to admit. I reckon I have been through a lot of stress in the last three or four months, and that is what scammers count on.

Well, one day I was working on my computer, and suddenly I get this message that I had spyware and virus on my computer. I noticed my AVG was not working, so I figure I let the license lapse while I was out of the country, and was somewhat glad I got that notice from the nice folks at Antivirus Pro 2009.

I readily clicked on the removal button, and was prompted to buy the darn thing. In retrospective, the site was very fishy, dare I say, veeeeeeeeeeery phishy! However, afraid I would get major destruction on my hard drive, I signed up for the download, ran a scan, and was a happy camper. There is a sucker in all of us indeed.

I was a bit suspicious, because I did not get an email confirmation of the order, and the receipt that appeared on screen had somebody else's name, rather than mine.

Well, every single day, the same message kept on popping up, saying I had the same 31 spyware items on my hd, prompting me to remove them. Which I did.

After a few days, stress and all, I realized I had been big time scammed, and bingo, it does not take much sleuthing to find out this is a scam. There is no software. All you get is a screen, the silly pop-ups and a US$75.00 charge to your credit card, in my case, from a company called "professional BD Soft! from good ol' Latvia.

I did what I needed to do. Apparently it does not phish anything out of your computer, and at least on my case, all they did charge was the 75 bucks to my card - there was no shopping spree. Plus I removed the silly pop-ups and screen from my computer.

However, you might not be so lucky. They might have different modus operandi for different countries

Thus, if you get a prompt from Antivirus Pro 2009, know it is a scam, not antivirus software. Don't pay attention to the apocalyptic message displayed.

They got me good, but I am done with them yet.

Hello robots? How is the family?

Guess what, if you don't post anything new, google drops your ranking like hot potatoes. So here is something new.

I know that google is trying to bring some sense to the Internet, which is not a bad thing. I myself am victim of cloaking. You know, when some site steals your content to drive traffic to it, but, surprise, your text is not there when you click on the link and you end up with a page laden with advertisement. It often relates to porno sites or things you disagree with!

There is an area in google where such things can be reported. Which, again, is a good thing.

However, do not expect much.

I don't know how long it takes for action to be taken, but it does not look good.

I reported a site that violates two basic principles for inclusion in google, which, if violated, result in delisting.

One is using the same word, or concept, in a page, in very unnatural text. The same thing that got BMW's German site delisted once, for a few days anyway.

The other is having the same site copied over and over, with different domains.

Well this particular site violated these principles on both counts, and I reported it over two months ago. Just to make sure the information was received, I reported the same situation a few other times. The sites are still there, nice and dandy with good ranking too!

So before you get flustered with your site or name appearing associated with porno sites or content, calm down. It might take a while for the violator to be removed...

I saw a very peculiar ad on this week's US News and World Report. I don't know whether it was published elsewhere. It asks who owns oil companies. Then it goes at great length to say that common folks, like you and me, are the owners of oil companies, because most oil company shares are held by mutual funds, IRAs, retirement funds of all sorts etc. So, according to the ad, we should all rejoice upon the fact that oil companies are making the big bucks with the rise in oil prices.

This looks just like George Bush father trying to sound like a tough Texas college athlete on his youth, Obama's wife saying her husband snores, and Al Gore trying a few ridiculous dance steps to show he is a 'normal being', not a stiff.

Delve deeply into the matter, and you will find out that oil prices are not going through the roof because of PRODUCT supply and demand mechanisms, but rather, because of unrestricted and immoral speculation in commodities exchanges all over the world. Depending on what pundit you hear, speculation would account for as much as 30% of price. It is not the price of oil that is uncontrolled, it is the price of paper...

The question to ask is, who is speculating so much? Rather unfortunately, you will find that companies in the oil business are largely responsible for such speculation. In other words, they make money from sale of the product, then with the profit earned, they speculate some more and drive the price up, up, and up. This is really a feedback mechanism, and I don't see it stopping. It is greed to the nth degree.

The ad goes on to say that most shares are not owned by management. It fails to say that management does in fact receive millions, if not billions of dollars in cash profit share or bonus payments every year, before dividends are declared. So their interest is to extract as much profit as possible from oil prices, and walk alway with their mounds of cash.

These folks, who are not regular Joes, are making money now. The regular folks, whom the ad identify as the real owners of oil companies through mutual funds, reap no immediate benefit from such ownership. Sure, they might have a better retirement twenty years down the line, but even that is questionable. If oil prices continue rising so much, the ugly head of inflation will eat up much of the earnings from IRA's, retirement or mutual funds.

Do not be fooled, regular folks.

Financial authorities worldwide should consider whether or not futures, options and derivative markets are any good for humanity. I know it is not going to happen, but the suggestion is made. It seems that the next commodity on target is rice...

Well, this year marks the 40th anniversary of Jim Clark`s untimely death at the wheel of a Formula 2 car. The American Racer magazine published a 'what if' article, speculating what would have happened to Clark, had he not died so early, at 32 years of age.

'What if' scenarios for dead drivers are one of those wonders of life. Nice to put together, but totally useless. I tried a few of these with Ayrton Senna, and in the end, the experience is more painful.

The article concludes, like I did with some of my Senna scenarios, that Clark might have ended world champion in 1968, 1970 and 1972, in other words, replacing Graham Hill, Jochen Rindt and Emerson Fittipaldi. It is based on the premise that Clark would remain a Lotus loyalist to the end of his career, concluding that perhaps Clark would have retired after his fifth world title in 1972. It saw a 1973 title as a possibility.

Clark had won the South African GP of 1968, the first race of the year, before death took him away in Germany. The race was significant not only because it was Clark's last GP, and the one in which he overtook Fangio's record of 24 wins. It was also the end of sponsorless Formula 1.

Curiously, it was the very Lotus team that began the trend of carrying conspicuous non-racing related commercial sponsorship in cars, when the Lotuses came in Red, White and Golden livery as of Spain.

You might say, so what? I think this is important, considering the long term Clark career. For Clark was not your regular Jackie Stewart or Graham Hill, who did OK under the spotlights of TV, or talking to throngs of fans, and chatting on the radio. Clark did not fully adapt to fame, and in my analysis, he would not have taken too well to the age of commercial sponsorship.

Sure, in formative years sponsors did not milk dry drivers like they do today, but I believe two years of sponsor commitments would have damaged Clark's desire to continue in the game. I basically think that yes, he might have won the 1968 title, but Stewart would still come out on top in 1969, which might have been Clark's last season. I do not see him going on to 1970 and forward.

Whether Clark would have moved to another team, I do not know. Full commercial sponsorship was widespread only around 1972, so there may have been a few teams around in which Clark would probably feel less pressured.

Thus, in my scenario, we would still end with a 3-time Clark champion, with probably 30-32 victories under his belt. And still alive today.

It turns out that the current economic crisis can be attributed to the real estate bubble. Before that, there have been a few stock market bubbles. Bubbles galore, bubbles bonanza. A lot of air.

This remind me of a story. When running for reelection, George Bush the elder made a stop at a super market, and was marveled by the 'new price scanning' technology he was witnessing. I suppose the man had not been to a supermarket for many a year, for there was nothing new about the technology by which time he noticed. Let us say Bush the elder, like many politicians, live in a bubble too.

So the government seems to wake up to the fact that the entire financial industry needs regulation. Good for them. But they do not need only regulation, but caps. Greed has to be stopped on its tracks, because it is the cause of these so called bubbles.

I have not read the entire 218 page document, but one thing I know. If the government does not establish caps for credit card APRs, to a reasonable amount such as 12 or 13%, the crisis will continue. Credit cards with 30% APRs in the American economy are almost criminal, meaning modern time slavery - especially now that bankruptcy rules have changed.

SUVs are the most popular vehicles in the USA today, although $4 to $5 a gallon gas might kill American appetite for such gas guzzling machines. Strangely enough, although there are races for pretty much all type of road vehicles, from cars, to pick-up trucks, to tractor trailers, to grass mowers and motorcycles, there has never been a circuit race series for SUV's. At least I have not seen one.

It would probably be a grand spectacle, with vehicles of all makes vying for honors. Fans would be able to root for their favorite SUV brand at Daytona, Watkins Glen, Laguna Seca and Talladega.

I guess most SUV drivers, who are quite used to drive their heavy vehicles at great pace, frequently ask: "Why is there no race series for my favorite mode of transportation?" After all, they feel like regular Jeff Gordons and Tony Stewarts using their powerful wheels to cut across regular cars, at great speed and abandon, at I95 and elsewhere.

Well SUV driver, do you know why there are no race series for SUVs? Due to their high center of gravity, all SUV's are very unstable making turns in high speeds, and tend to roll over easily. This property is not exclusive to the Suzukis of the 80's. All SUV's suffer from the problem, it is inherent to the type of design. SUV's ARE DANGEROUS AT GREAT SPEEDS!!!!!V-E-R-Y D-A-N-G-E-R-O-U-S.

Which means that when you are driving your SUV like a nut on the road, daydreaming you are Mario Andretti, you are no only placing your life and your kid's life in danger, but also the lives of all drivers on the road who still drive 'boring', unfashionable cars. SUV's should be driven at sedate pace, and turns, especially tight ones, should be made extremely carefully, at low speeds.

If you bought your SUV thinking it is a NASCAR racer, a high performance vehicle, you have been duped, dude. Easy on the accelerator. Let me drive by in my Mini-Cooper...

If you don't believe me, read on

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=CENTER+OF+GRAVITY+SUV&btnG=Google+Search

This year's presidential election has brought the prejudice issue to the limelight in a big fashion. The supposed front runner status of Barack Obama makes the country get goosebumps, a Rodney King `we can all get along` feeling. There is a widespread feeling that we have finally overcome the problem, after all, many white people have left the race card aside to lend their support to a man of a different racial group, in national politics.

I would like to discuss prejudice from a different, rare angle, for it is normally discussed from a black-white perspective.

I am Brazilian, and I have been in the USA for 32 years. When I arrived in the country I soon learned that I was now a being from a different planet when I was happily greeted by the words "coffee beano" by one of my classmates in gym class, a couple days after starting High School.

I am white, light skinned and very tall, so I do not fit the American white stereotype of a latino. But I soon found out that my superficial white appearance does not last long. All it takes is opening my mouth and saying my name. Once the accent spurts out, and my name, Carlos, is pronounced, I soon become a bug eating, tree-top living, samba dancing and soccer playing humanoid to my white counterpart, and sifted out and laid aside as a class B acquaintance.

It just happens that 30 odd years down the line, I have not gotten rid of my accent, because I suspect a hearing impediment in speaking frequencies makes it difficult for me to perfectly reproduce English sounds accentless. So I still have a perceptible accent, and I am still treated with some distance by white Americans.

At least I have the benefit of being a man, because Brazilian women are instantly profiled as sex crazed hot mamas, whose main aim in life is walking around in string bikinis and flirting with any man they find.

So, one would think Hispanics would embrace us Brazilians wholeheartedly. Guess what? No they don't. We are not one of them either. They treat us with some distance (especially we, light skinned Brazilian), as if we get some type of break they don't get. Which is entirely the opposite, arguably. In other words, we are also blanquitos, and we are also seen with some reservation by Hispanics in general. And most Argentines basically treat us as the inferior Northern monkeys.

African-Americans, I found out, were also not that bullish on us Brazilians. I realized that out real fast, as soon as I got to college two years after arriving in the USA. Most African Americans treat us on the superficial white appearance, as an object of suspicion. The reverse prejudice most white Americans report today, guess what, we get it too, big time, and in double dose!! We get it for being white and for being foreign. Accent or no accent.

Orientals try very hard to fit into White-American society, so they also keep a safe distance from us Brazilians, after all, we can spoil their blending efforts. A guilty by association type of thing, you know.

So there it is. We are the subject of prejudice from all major racial groups in American society. I have never met any Native-American, so I will refrain from passing judgment. Maybe they fancy Brazilians. Could it get worse? You bet.

Even a lot of Brazilians who try to hard to fit into any of the above groups, also hold some prejudice against Brazilians in the USA. Hardened by years of ill treatment by all of the above groups, they lash out their anger and frustration against other Brazilians, claiming lack of unity and sense of community, selfishness, and myriad other things, while they live on their melting pot bubble, aiming to belong.

Thus, it is not surprising that a large number of first and even second generation Brazilians end up clinging to their own small groups, their cocoonish ghettos, even after being in the country for decades.

We do know a thing or two about prejudice and about being a minority...