C’mon! I am not a big fan of Martha Stewart. I believe that she had inside knowledge when she made her trades. I also believe she should have had a longer sentence. But that is beside the point here. According to the conditions of her release to house arrest, she is allowed to be away from the house for her job. She asked her probation officer for permission to attend a dinner celebrating Time magazine’s “100 Most Influential People” issue. The permission was granted, and she attended. But now they are second guessing themselves as to whether permission should have been granted. She should not be punished for something that she was given permission to do. If permission was incorrectly given, the probation officer who gave her the permission is the one who should be punished. This would be a like parent giving a child permission to eat a cookie, and then afterward punishing the child for eating the cookie. This is NOT justice!
I went to the Millionaire Conference seminar today. It was a LONG day. I got up at 5:30am so that I could be downtown at 7:30am. I got a seat front and center. The audience was interesting. I am thinking that many of the people there probably don’t have much in the way of wealth. The MC was Nathan Osmond who is one of Alan Osmond’s sons. He opened the seminar singing the National Anthem. Bob Kittell was the first up. He talked about stock trading, covered calls, and was pitching a web site with stock trading tools, and a seminar on how to use the tools. Once he quoted Peter Lynch, but out of context. At the end, he rattled off the price of several thousand dollars, and people were lining up at the back table to buy it. Next there was an unscheduled guy who was pitching a place that would build you a website store to sell their products. The problem I saw in this, is that if all the stores are built alike, they will be competing directly with earch other on the search engine listings. Most likely one that I put up would be buried in the listings, and not sell too many things. Next up was Robert Bluhm who talked about Asset Protection. He described various legal structures such as ‘C’ Corporations, Family Limited Partnerships, CRTs, Living Trusts, and how to set them up. He was selling books, and software telling how to set these up. Cost was several thousand dollars. Then we had a lunch break. Following lunch, Bill Danko spoke for a bit and introduced Lynn Alder. Lynn Alder pitched instruction in how to buy, sell, and rent real estate. Most of it was stuff I have run into in books I have read, such as by Robert G. Allen. Of course this cost several thousand dollars. He mentioned one guy who bought a storage place. That peaked my interest some as I had never considered that as a business opportunity, and may look into it. Bill Danko came out spoke again for a while. Thankfully he wasn’t pitching anything. He was an excellent speaker. Actually they were all excellent speakers (except for the the guy pitching the online store…he was so so). Wayne Gray close the day talking about buying Tax Lien Certificates and Tax Deeds. These were really intriguing, but not enough to merit the cost of several thousand dollars for his seminar. But I did order a book Profit by Investing in Real Estate Tax Liens : Earn Safe, Secured, and Fixed Returns Every Time by Larry B. Loftis for $13 from Amazon when I got home. It was interesting seeing the people lining up to plunk down thousands of dollars on seminars. Personally I am cynical of pitches like these as they sound to good to be true, and usually are. As we left, Nathan was passing out signed copies of The Millionaire Next Door. It was a softcover copy, with the signature on a bookplate stuck inside the front cover. The signature looks like it was signed with a felt tip pen, but when I compared two copies, the signature was too identical, so I am guessing it is printed on there somehow, and not truly signed. Oh well. It was an interesting day, and I learned some stuff, or at least was exposed to new things.
As I posted back in March, I got free tickets to a financial seminar featuring William Danko who is one of the authors of The Millionaire Next Door. I got up nice and early this morning so I can get ready, stop and get some cash and something to eat, get downtown and find some parking, and be at the plac eby 7:30am. I think it will be fun. There are four other speakers, but I don’t know any of them. I am sure they will be trying to sell me stuff, such as other seminars, but I am also sure that there will be plenty of good free information. I get a free signed copy of the The Millionaire Next Door. Right now I have a book club copy I bought for a buck at a library sale (which I loaned to a friend), and an ex-library large print edition which I also got a library book sale for fifty cents. So it will be good to have a nice signed copy. I listened to the book on tape anyway…which I checked out at the library. I am working on being more frugal! 
As I previously wrote, I sent in form PDF1048 for the Treasury Dept to search for bonds that my Mom had, but that we did not locate. I checked that I wanted the bonds cashed, and toe send me the check. I had it notarized, and included supporting documentation, and a cover letter explaing the situation. I got a letter from them in the mail yesterday saying they found two bonds in my mom’s name. Great! But the letter also said “If these bonds are missing, please let us know.” Apparently the morons didn’t read my cover letter stating that all the bonds we had found had been cashed or transferred. So obviously they were missing. That was the whole point of filling out form PDF 1048. So I called the number on the letterhead of the letter, which put me through the Federal Reserve Bank. They tell me they are not the ones who sent the letter, and that the Treasury Dept forwards the calls to them, but they are unable to help me! Arrgghh! They said I could email the Treasury Dept. SO I fired off an email to them. Then I went online and found a phone number for the a different department of the Treasury Dept, and call them. They gave me another phone number. I called that, and was forwarded, and finally talked to someone in the right group. But she told me that that are probably going to send me yet another form that I have to fill out and sign, and jump through yet more hoops! Savings bonds are such a pain!!!! If you really want to annoy your beneficarys, buy savings bonds! They are low interest, pains in the butt!!!!
Buy And Hold account:
7.509 shares Amazon.com (AMZN): $249.82
5.126 shares Carnival Cruise Lines (CCL): $249.64
5.082 shares Citigroup (C): $233.01
17.378 shares Coca-Cola Company (KO): $729.35
6.851 shares General Electric (GE): $244.79
6.888 shares General Motors (GM): $177.02
8.590 shares Merck (MRK): $294.38
20.460 shares SBC Communications (SBC): $473.24
6.932 shares Verizon Communications (VZ): $236.31
4.294 shares US Real Estate Index (IYR): $490.63
2.345 shares S&P Smallcap 600/BARRA Growth Index (IJT): $238.42
2.139 shares Vanguard Total Stock Market-Vipers (VTI): $238.86
Buy And Hold account Total: $3,855.47
Buy And Hold Roth IRA account:
8.209 shares I-Shares DJ Select Dividend Index Fund (DVY): $480.23
2.389 shares Ishares MSCI Emerging Markets Index (EEM) $474.22
8.896 shares US Real Estate Index (IYR) $1,016.46
6.455 shares US Energy Sector Index (IYE) $463.21
12.216 shares Pengrowth Energy Trust A (PGH) $246.76
10.361 shares Primewest Energy (PWI) $249.18
Buy And Hold Roth IRA account Total: $2,930.06