Fruit at the bottom

Testes, testes.

I sure am hungry. For yogurt. Fruit at the bottom.

Last night a big fat Finnish mama came over to talk to me about life insurance and investment opportunities. It was a two hour presentation, that ended in way to launder your own money so as to keep it out of Uncle Sam's pocket. She talked about 401k's, CD's and mutual funds, and by the end of the night, she called me a Marxist. I took one of her stupid pamphlets, but only to get her to go away.

A Marxist?

Some time during the presentation, she came to a segment in which she demonstrated the basic theories of "Tax Now" (interest accruing savings accounts and public investments getting taxed at the end of every year) "Tax Later" (401k's and IRA's) and "Tax Never" (her glorious solution to all our problems). During this segment, she did a lot of confusing math, and ended up with this bottom line: "If you accrue $900,000 in a 401k plan, and take out a small percent to live on in retirement, the government will tax you $810,000." I must have had a disturbed look on my face immediately upon hearing this news because she said, "You have a disturbed look on your face."

"Yes," I said, "I am disturbed." Then I told her that I didn't buy it. It sounded to me like she was throwing a bunch of unverifiable numbers at me and creating a fictional scenario in order to demonstrate an alarming situation so that when she got to what she was selling, I would be so emotionally relieved to know that I could avoid this perilous fate at the hands of my government in my old age that I'd jump at the opportunity to buy up that heaping helping of financial salvation. Then I told her I didn't believe that our leaders would let that happen to old people. Corrupt as they were, I just couldn't see that level of blatant thievery happening, at least not to our own people. Maybe to Iraqis or Mexicans, but not red blooded, retired Americans.

Fruit at the bottom. I take a side in the great yogurt debate. My girlfriend eats that Yoplait, whipped kind of yogurt. Me... I find it well worth the extra effort of stirring the little cup so that the boogery lumps of real fruit are well mixed... but I'm no Marxist.