[geeks] [rescue] E250 temperatures

[Sridhar Ayengar]

Phil Stracchino wrote:
>> I believe that if you take a big mortgage that you can't pay, and your 
>> house gets repossessed, you got what you deserved, even if you were 
>> lied to by the bank.  You should've known better than to listen to the 
>> bank.
> 
> Many people expect their bank - to whom they entrust the keeping of 
> their money - to take proper care of it, and that includes giving them 
> sound financial advice when they ask for it, or at least not actually 
> outright lying to them.  And I contend that selling someone on a loan 
> you know they can't actually afford to pay is outright lying to them. 
> The basic problem here is that far too many lenders regard borrowers not 
> as customers or clients, but as marks.

I don't trust what my bank tells me.  I assume what they're telling me 
is a lie.  I just *barely* trust them enough to put some money there, 
and even then, I don't keep enough money there that it would be a 
problem for me if they decided to fold up and disappear overnight.

The only ones who shouldn't be allowed to lie are the ones who lie the 
most:  the government.

>> But then, I also believe that there shouldn't be any laws against 
>> fraud.  If you get taken by a con-man, you deserve to get taken.
> 
> Oh, so Enron didn't do anything wrong except get caught, then?  Survival 
> of the crookedest shall be the whole of the law?

If you looked at the stuff Enron *publicly* did before they got caught, 
it would have been obvious that everything they were doing was bullshit 
anyway.  I wouldn't have touched them with a ten foot pole even before 
all the allegations of fraud hit the news.  The problem is that people 
invest money without knowing what they're investing in.  If you aren't 
smart or knowledgeable enough to understand everything (or even most 
things) in their reports, you SHOULDN'T BE INVESTING IN THE COMPANY. 
People have forgotten that kind of wisdom.  They trust far too much.

The only ones who really, truly got screwed on that deal are the 
pensioners whose pension funds were invested in Enron.  My heart goes 
out to them.  It really does.  But, then again, I don't put the fault of 
that problem with Enron, but with the ones running the pension funds. 
The ones who invested in Enron.

However, all of those people who invested their own money (or invested 
in mutual funds that were invested) in Enron don't get my sympathy.  Not 
even a little bit.  You took your chance and you got screwed.  THAT'S LIFE.

Now, that being said, I *do* believe in civil recourse to deal with 
fraud.  I just don't believe that it should be a crime.  And I'm not 
speaking from a perspective where I've availed myself of the protection 
afforded by the criminal code in these situations.  When I've been taken 
by a con-man (and it *has* happened), I've taken my licks and continued. 
  Also, in those rare circumstances, I've been cautious enough that I 
haven't lost much on the deal.

Trust is earned, and even my family and best friends haven't earned it 
completely from me.  Call me unreasonable.

Those who know me really well have heard me sum up my philosophy of life 
as, "Everyone in the whole world is full of shit, including me."  Words 
to live by.

Peace...  Sridhar