401Keg

On the lighter side.....

If you bought $1000 of Nortel stock a year ago, it would now be worth $49. With Enron, you would have $16.50 left of the original $1,000. With WorldCom, you would have less than $5 left.

Now, if you bought $1,000 worth of Heineken (the beer, not the stock) over the past year, drank all the beer, then turned in the cans for the aluminum recycling price, you would have $214.
Based on these figures, my current investment advice is to drink heavily and recycle.

This is my new retirement program. I call it my 401Keg.

do you mind if i forward this as an email to my friends? its hillarious!

its actually a forward from a friend of mine, no copyright issue....

This joke has an interesting history. I first heard the 401Keg Plan (not by that clever name, of course) in the 1980s -- it is supposedly true and dates back to the World War 1/1920s era about two brothers in Germany who inherited a fortune.

One brother carefully saved and invested his money.

The second brother was a wastrel who spent all his time in the clubs and caberets. When he'd come home falling down drunk, he'd throw his old bottles down in the basement.

Well, we all know what happened to the German economy in the post-war era. The prudent brother's savings/inheritance were wiped out by hyper-inflation.

The second brother didn't have any money left either but when he went down into the basement and collected the decades' worth of bottles, he was able to turn them in at some bottling or glass plant for a nice sum of money.

The story may be apocryphal or it may actually have some root in truth, who knows.

In my area, glass bottles are no longer accepted for recycling, and while I have heard Enron versions of the tale where the drunken "investor" got the money from turning in bottles for the deposit...it is interesting to see that your version is more modern in its incorporation of aluminum cans and of course WorldCom which collapsed after Enron.

I don't think there is any copyright issue because I think this is a piece of folklore that grows and changes with the times -- but always keeping that one core of truth.

:toast:

Hilarious! Send this to Lou Dobbs and Jon Stewart!

Got their email addresses?

http://www.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form5.html?9

Hope it works. Anyway, it's a kick back upstairs for anyone who needs a smile.