Perhaps a school has a vested interest in not having high loan default rates?
Certainly some of the trade schools get called out for high default rates. At a minimum, it gives the school a bad name due to the implication that the quality of education provided is insufficient to earn enough money to pay off the cost of that education. Also, I thought, but am not sure, that high default rates sometimes contribute to decisions to eliminate a school's students from eligibility for insured student loans.
Not to say that I think schools should be able to hold transcripts hostage unless they have reserved that right in agreements with the students or some specific law allows the school to hold the transcripts hostage. Personally, I would support a federal law that prohibited a school from releasing an official transcript if the education that was reflected in that transcript was paid in part by defaulted student loans - or at least required that any such transcripts include in standard conspicuous language that the student was in default.
For a car analogy... If I don't keep my BMW clean and cosmetically maintained, it arguably reflects poorly on the BMW brand. But, if I don't owe BMW, the company, any money, they can't repossess my car because of its condition even if I'm in arrears in my car payments to an unrelated bank.
Which, of course, is why Ron Paul is not sufficiently popular.
However, he exists and, as far as I can tell, is "not controlled by corporations & their cartels, trade unions or organized crime". True, his policies would probably benefit many big corporations but that is not a result of him being controlled by them -- it's just a natural consequence of his principled beliefs.
I do vote for the guy when I get a chance -- but that's mostly because (1) I live in a state where my vote for presidential elections (primary or general) makes not one bit of difference in the outcome and (2) to communicate my libertarian leaning beliefs to other candidates to give them a hint which way to lean.
I agree that Ron Paul is very naive about removal of all regulation esp. WRT monopolistic behaviors by very large businesses.
He's also very naive about foreign policy - at least when taking into consideration the role the US currently plays (and pays for) in the world. A sudden withdrawal from the world stage by the US (as Paul seems to favor) would likely be a catastrophe. I could see getting to where he wants to be, but it would take several decades as other reasonably responsible players step up to the plate and form effective military alliances that are sufficiently strong and well funded to defend themselves from the likes of those who are currently held in check largely by the threat of US military might.
If my vote would ever be the difference between Paul being POTUS and not, I can only see voting for him if the alternative was the devil incarnate or if Congress was so opposed to Paul (which would be unlikely if Paul actually get elected) that he could actually get virtually nothing done.
I always figured that was an evolutionary adaptation that allowed the female to get away before the male got around to his second list of priorities and demand she cook and clean and beat her if she didn't.
There are no sufficiently popular candidates for office anywhere in the "free" world that are not controlled by corporations & their cartels, trade unions or organized crime.
so if i dont put up curtains that gives you free reign to peer into the windows of my house and make an inventory?
Generally, yes - as long as I do it from a location I am authorized to be (such as my own property or the sidewalk in front of your house). If my actions were associated with some crime (such as a conspiracy to murder) or in violation of court order (such as if you had a restraining order preventing me from being within 100 yards of your house) of course it is not okay.
Cite please? If someone forgives your debt obligations, you get something like a 1099 (I don't recall the actual form number - it may be a variant of a 1099) for the amount they forgave.
To address your second paragraph first... Legitimate business losses that have not yet been consumed to offset taxable profits are (at least in the US) legitimate "assets" that a company can use to offset future profits for tax purpose, or (at least at one time - I've not followed tax law much recently) can sell to other entities for the tax benefits, or serve to increase the value of the corporation to a buyer (who will then use or sell the "tax credit" assets to their own benefit). This is completely reasonable - otherwise cyclical businesses would end up paying taxes on all their profits but not be able recover those taxes when they have offsetting losses. If a legitimate corporation makes $0 over a ten year period but makes a lot of money in even years and looses a lot of money in odd years, they should pay no net income taxes as they had no net income during the ten year period. You may not like this feature -- maybe no one (individuals included) should ever be able to write off losses against gains, but if you allow losses to be written off against gains, it only makes sense to allow building up a "loss account" to offset future profits.
To address your first paragraph...
First, you are describing a situation that is clearly structured ONLY for tax gain, in the absence of taxation, there is no legitimate business rational for such a structure. Yes, people get away with these often because the IRS doesn't notice or the amount involved isn't worth the effort of pursuing (the latter, as I understand it, has a lot to do with attitude of the agent assigned and/or the office and may vary widely). However, when the IRS notices it and cares about it, they send you a big tax bill which if you don't pay will result in your house, car, first-born child, wife, and goldfish being seized (although you can delay this by a few years by fighting in tax court at the cost of $50K and up in legal costs until you lose and become an object lesson for others). Generally, the Tax Court agrees with the IRS on such matters. If it quacks like only a tax dodge and not a legitimate business, it's only a tax dodge.
I would agree that if you have a few million dollars to hire the best tax lawyers to represent you in Tax Court, you have a better chance of having a compelling argument being made on your behalf and the court finding in your favor -- that's a sad truth in civil, criminal, and tax court. (If OJ had one $175 an hour lawyer, he would have been in jail long before he finally ended up rotting there because he didn't have money anymore to fight much less serious charges in Nevada.)
Second, how does your "made up corporation" have cash to loan you? It's a sham, it has no money. Your yacht builder, mortgage holder, and car dealer demands CASH, not shares in an illiquid corporation that has no assets, has no income, and has no profits. So, I assume you really mean to use this faux stock as collateral and will continue on that assumption.
But, lets look at your specific example. You have a "made up corporation" - so what is that corporation? You "buy" their stock -- apparently at an absurdly inflated price (else the scheme doesn't work) when the actual value is somewhere below $0 (no legitimate business, no legitimate expectation of profits and, perhaps, no legitimate expectation of even revenue - just expenses for legal, PO boxes, and email accounts). Now, did OTHER unaffiliated legitimate and informed investors pay the same price for substantial amounts of the stock that you did? Probably not -- thereby exposing the fraud and sealing your fate. Even if you pass that hurdle and manage not to end up in a fairly pleasant "white collar" federal prison for ten years a few years hence, you have another problem -- you need to find someone (a bank perhaps) who will accept the faux stock as collateral at the face value of what you "paid" for it and put their hard cold cash on the line and give you non-recourse loan. Yes, you might get lucky and find a fool -- but after they discover that the stock was a sham, they will come after you like a 12 foot alligator who comes across a small pig frantically trying to get to shore.
You typically own capital gains tax on your gain in the collateral that was forfeited - just as if you sold the collateral and used the proceeds to pay off the loan. See, for example, this (specifically, the section entitled 6. Question: “What happens if I default on the loan?” or “What are the tax consequences?”) for what happens in one case of such loans.
If you really believe things work the way you describe, I suggest you check with qualified tax advisers before acting on those beliefs.
You're ignoring the entire lifecycle. There is no free lunch (as those who borrowed against their homes based on inflated real estate valuations discovered).
Eventually you owe the money you borrowed even if you got a good interest rate because you provided good collateral.
If you had cash laying around when you originally borrowed the money, likely you would have used that instead of borrowing money. Obviously, though, if you can get, on a post tax basis, a better risk adjusted ROI on that cash than the interest rate on your loan, you should invest that cash instead -- in which case, it's not "cash" anymore available to repay the loan.
When it comes time to pay your loan, you therefore need to liquidate some assets to make the repayment - then, if you made any gains, you owe taxes. If you lost money, you would have been better off selling that asset earlier and generated some cash so you didn't need to borrow (as much) money in the first place.
If the stock you used as collateral goes down enough, you may need to repay the loans immediately - indeed, in some circumstances, the entity who made the loan has the right to sell the collateral to recoup what you owe if you don't come up with additional collateral on demand.That sale of course will, if the collateral has appreciated since you bought it, result in taxation.
The "dodge" you describe is really just leverage -- which can backfire.
Yep - it's an older model now. Very true that climate control has the same problem!
I'm okay with knee steering -- but it seems to alarm some of my passengers for some reason.
Oh, one other thing to hate about my model is the damn "turn on the tail/parking lights" switch on top of the steering column. Every so often the car wash guys switch it on while wiping the interior and, if I don't notice it (such as when parking it outside in bright sunlight), sure enough -- dead battery next day. They seem to have fixed this on later models.
Sigh... I have a Subaru that has cup holders right above the audio control panel.
So if you use the cup holder and want to change the audio settings, you have to:
+ Remove the cup (and put it somewhere since it's customary to keep a hand on the wheel and you will need one hand for the following steps),
+ Push the cup holder in,
+ Make the necessary audio setting changes,
+ Pop the cup holder back out, and
+ Replace the cup in the cup holder.
Probably, they should have just added some sensors and, when this maneuver was attempted, just call 911 on your behalf since you're probably going to need them in a couple seconds.
Yes, I do exaggerate a bit. After a couple quick stops with the cup holder in use, the beverage would have dumped over the audio control panel and the system probably wouldn't work very well anymore so you'd stop using it. Kind of a self-healing design fault.
Good advice. DHMO is found in at least trace quantities in the majority of humans in industrialized nations.
DHMO kills many people every year by interfering with oxygen transfer. It is also found in large quantities in patients with many neurological diseases - to the extent that it would be newsworthy if doctors were unable to detect DHMO in most such patients.
Given that BB seems to be suffering from cost competition w/online retailers (including the sales tax problem), they have a motivation reduce prices to attract some of the online business -- and one way to do that is to lower expenses such as "buy/return to rent" schemes.
However, it appears that right now BB's expenses exceed income and that can't last too long so, yes, in this case, staying in business means that all cost savings can't be passed to consumers. However, cost savings may help BB stay in business -- which, by offering continuing some price competition, will make Fry's and the like keep their prices lower.
I can't speak to taxes and BB, but it's pretty certain they won't be paying any income tax in the near future since they are losing money.
He was not claiming it was defective - he said he just decided he didn't want it. BTW, it HAD been used and he acknowledged that (apparently it was fairly obvious from moisture in the unit). If it was defective, I don't know if they would have given him his money back (esp. if they didn't have a comparable model of another brand available for the same price).
I do just what you do at Fry's "gauntlet of shame" - no one has ever bothered me (and, when they are busy and people are standing in line to have their receipt checked, I can't figure out why as I walk out why everyone waiting doesn't go "doh..." and just walk out - I would expect even sheeple would follow the faster proven path).
It has occurred to me though that Fry's could condition returns on having a "validated" receipt and have the receipts "validated" by door checker dude (perhaps using a scanner that would scan a bar code on the receipt and then print a unique "validation" code on the paper copy while also updating the store records). Then, they would probably get me to stop and "be inspected" at least 1/2 the time.
While Fry's is good about taking just about anything back for any reason, the process is a nuisance.
Although always read the return policy carefully. Unfortunately the guy in front of me a couple years ago apparently hadn't done so before "renting" a portable air conditioner from Fry's for a couple days during a heat wave. He wasn't at all happy when Fry's refused to take it back.
As a customer who doesn't do such things, I was happy to see them enforce their policy as every time a customer "rents" via buy/return, it raises prices for everyone else. (I think they would have exchanged it if it was defective which seems fair enough).
Legal "intent" can be formed in a fraction of a second - long after he got out of the car.
Zimmerman could have gotten out of his car and approached Martin planning just to ask him a question. When he approached, Martin could have called him an insulting name (which would not justify a lethal response by Zimmerman) and enraged Zimmerman enough for Zimmerman to pull out his gun and shoot Martin in cold blood just after Martin uttered the insult. This is sufficient time for intent and a finding of murder of some degree.
(Note that I'm not saying the above is what actually happened, it's a hypothetical).
"gated community" is not inconsistent with "HIGH crime".
The complex (The Retreat At Twin Lakes) was not a "high end" gated community with five million dollar homes. These are town homes that sold for between around $75K and $140K in the last few years. Looking at a few real estate listings, it appears they are attached town homes with one car garages. There have been many foreclosures in the complex as housing prices have plummeted.
The entrances are not manned - reports are that residents key in a code to gain entrance, but obviously the gates and walls are low so it's likely easy to enter without a code (or just piggyback on someone else who is entering).
Overall, I wouldn't attach too much significance to "gated community" here. Gates in cases like this are largely a "feel good" feature rather than an effective crime deterrent. Esp, in a complex which now has many renters. Actual crime stats would be much more useful to determine the crime rate in this complex.
Elsewhere on the site are tests with a similar setup but using jugs of water instead of drywall where I think he's trying to test "good penetration" (perp's body) instead of "bad penetration" (neighbors' walls). These results are comforting as I'm now much less concerned about the outcome should I be attacked by a gang of water jugs.
In high school, I had fun making up hidden meanings that seemed vaguely plausible and hard to refute. It actually got me some decent grades - of course I rearely knew what the "right" hidden message I was supposed to find was until the teacher revealed the secret (although, if I had paid more attention, they might have mentioned it in class sometime).
Slashdot Mirror
No. Why would anyone come to site that just showed blank pages?
Yahoo! might have wanted to consider doing so when picking a CEO.
Perhaps a school has a vested interest in not having high loan default rates?
Certainly some of the trade schools get called out for high default rates. At a minimum, it gives the school a bad name due to the implication that the quality of education provided is insufficient to earn enough money to pay off the cost of that education. Also, I thought, but am not sure, that high default rates sometimes contribute to decisions to eliminate a school's students from eligibility for insured student loans.
Not to say that I think schools should be able to hold transcripts hostage unless they have reserved that right in agreements with the students or some specific law allows the school to hold the transcripts hostage. Personally, I would support a federal law that prohibited a school from releasing an official transcript if the education that was reflected in that transcript was paid in part by defaulted student loans - or at least required that any such transcripts include in standard conspicuous language that the student was in default.
For a car analogy... If I don't keep my BMW clean and cosmetically maintained, it arguably reflects poorly on the BMW brand. But, if I don't owe BMW, the company, any money, they can't repossess my car because of its condition even if I'm in arrears in my car payments to an unrelated bank.
Which, of course, is why Ron Paul is not sufficiently popular.
However, he exists and, as far as I can tell, is "not controlled by corporations & their cartels, trade unions or organized crime". True, his policies would probably benefit many big corporations but that is not a result of him being controlled by them -- it's just a natural consequence of his principled beliefs.
I do vote for the guy when I get a chance -- but that's mostly because (1) I live in a state where my vote for presidential elections (primary or general) makes not one bit of difference in the outcome and (2) to communicate my libertarian leaning beliefs to other candidates to give them a hint which way to lean.
I agree that Ron Paul is very naive about removal of all regulation esp. WRT monopolistic behaviors by very large businesses.
He's also very naive about foreign policy - at least when taking into consideration the role the US currently plays (and pays for) in the world. A sudden withdrawal from the world stage by the US (as Paul seems to favor) would likely be a catastrophe. I could see getting to where he wants to be, but it would take several decades as other reasonably responsible players step up to the plate and form effective military alliances that are sufficiently strong and well funded to defend themselves from the likes of those who are currently held in check largely by the threat of US military might.
If my vote would ever be the difference between Paul being POTUS and not, I can only see voting for him if the alternative was the devil incarnate or if Congress was so opposed to Paul (which would be unlikely if Paul actually get elected) that he could actually get virtually nothing done.
I always figured that was an evolutionary adaptation that allowed the female to get away before the male got around to his second list of priorities and demand she cook and clean and beat her if she didn't.
FTFY.
For example, see Ron Paul.
Generally, yes - as long as I do it from a location I am authorized to be (such as my own property or the sidewalk in front of your house). If my actions were associated with some crime (such as a conspiracy to murder) or in violation of court order (such as if you had a restraining order preventing me from being within 100 yards of your house) of course it is not okay.
Cite please? If someone forgives your debt obligations, you get something like a 1099 (I don't recall the actual form number - it may be a variant of a 1099) for the amount they forgave.
First, you are confusing two things.
To address your second paragraph first... Legitimate business losses that have not yet been consumed to offset taxable profits are (at least in the US) legitimate "assets" that a company can use to offset future profits for tax purpose, or (at least at one time - I've not followed tax law much recently) can sell to other entities for the tax benefits, or serve to increase the value of the corporation to a buyer (who will then use or sell the "tax credit" assets to their own benefit). This is completely reasonable - otherwise cyclical businesses would end up paying taxes on all their profits but not be able recover those taxes when they have offsetting losses. If a legitimate corporation makes $0 over a ten year period but makes a lot of money in even years and looses a lot of money in odd years, they should pay no net income taxes as they had no net income during the ten year period. You may not like this feature -- maybe no one (individuals included) should ever be able to write off losses against gains, but if you allow losses to be written off against gains, it only makes sense to allow building up a "loss account" to offset future profits.
To address your first paragraph... First, you are describing a situation that is clearly structured ONLY for tax gain, in the absence of taxation, there is no legitimate business rational for such a structure. Yes, people get away with these often because the IRS doesn't notice or the amount involved isn't worth the effort of pursuing (the latter, as I understand it, has a lot to do with attitude of the agent assigned and/or the office and may vary widely). However, when the IRS notices it and cares about it, they send you a big tax bill which if you don't pay will result in your house, car, first-born child, wife, and goldfish being seized (although you can delay this by a few years by fighting in tax court at the cost of $50K and up in legal costs until you lose and become an object lesson for others). Generally, the Tax Court agrees with the IRS on such matters. If it quacks like only a tax dodge and not a legitimate business, it's only a tax dodge.
I would agree that if you have a few million dollars to hire the best tax lawyers to represent you in Tax Court, you have a better chance of having a compelling argument being made on your behalf and the court finding in your favor -- that's a sad truth in civil, criminal, and tax court. (If OJ had one $175 an hour lawyer, he would have been in jail long before he finally ended up rotting there because he didn't have money anymore to fight much less serious charges in Nevada.)
Second, how does your "made up corporation" have cash to loan you? It's a sham, it has no money. Your yacht builder, mortgage holder, and car dealer demands CASH, not shares in an illiquid corporation that has no assets, has no income, and has no profits. So, I assume you really mean to use this faux stock as collateral and will continue on that assumption.
But, lets look at your specific example. You have a "made up corporation" - so what is that corporation? You "buy" their stock -- apparently at an absurdly inflated price (else the scheme doesn't work) when the actual value is somewhere below $0 (no legitimate business, no legitimate expectation of profits and, perhaps, no legitimate expectation of even revenue - just expenses for legal, PO boxes, and email accounts). Now, did OTHER unaffiliated legitimate and informed investors pay the same price for substantial amounts of the stock that you did? Probably not -- thereby exposing the fraud and sealing your fate. Even if you pass that hurdle and manage not to end up in a fairly pleasant "white collar" federal prison for ten years a few years hence, you have another problem -- you need to find someone (a bank perhaps) who will accept the faux stock as collateral at the face value of what you "paid" for it and put their hard cold cash on the line and give you non-recourse loan. Yes, you might get lucky and find a fool -- but after they discover that the stock was a sham, they will come after you like a 12 foot alligator who comes across a small pig frantically trying to get to shore.
You typically own capital gains tax on your gain in the collateral that was forfeited - just as if you sold the collateral and used the proceeds to pay off the loan. See, for example, this (specifically, the section entitled 6. Question: “What happens if I default on the loan?” or “What are the tax consequences?”) for what happens in one case of such loans.
If you really believe things work the way you describe, I suggest you check with qualified tax advisers before acting on those beliefs.
You're ignoring the entire lifecycle. There is no free lunch (as those who borrowed against their homes based on inflated real estate valuations discovered).
Eventually you owe the money you borrowed even if you got a good interest rate because you provided good collateral.
If you had cash laying around when you originally borrowed the money, likely you would have used that instead of borrowing money. Obviously, though, if you can get, on a post tax basis, a better risk adjusted ROI on that cash than the interest rate on your loan, you should invest that cash instead -- in which case, it's not "cash" anymore available to repay the loan.
When it comes time to pay your loan, you therefore need to liquidate some assets to make the repayment - then, if you made any gains, you owe taxes. If you lost money, you would have been better off selling that asset earlier and generated some cash so you didn't need to borrow (as much) money in the first place.
If the stock you used as collateral goes down enough, you may need to repay the loans immediately - indeed, in some circumstances, the entity who made the loan has the right to sell the collateral to recoup what you owe if you don't come up with additional collateral on demand.That sale of course will, if the collateral has appreciated since you bought it, result in taxation.
The "dodge" you describe is really just leverage -- which can backfire.
Yep - it's an older model now. Very true that climate control has the same problem!
I'm okay with knee steering -- but it seems to alarm some of my passengers for some reason.
Oh, one other thing to hate about my model is the damn "turn on the tail/parking lights" switch on top of the steering column. Every so often the car wash guys switch it on while wiping the interior and, if I don't notice it (such as when parking it outside in bright sunlight), sure enough -- dead battery next day. They seem to have fixed this on later models.
So if you use the cup holder and want to change the audio settings, you have to:
Probably, they should have just added some sensors and, when this maneuver was attempted, just call 911 on your behalf since you're probably going to need them in a couple seconds.
Yes, I do exaggerate a bit. After a couple quick stops with the cup holder in use, the beverage would have dumped over the audio control panel and the system probably wouldn't work very well anymore so you'd stop using it. Kind of a self-healing design fault.
Thank god I read this comment just as the doorbell rang - I won't answer it. Yes, it could be FedEx, but best not to take chances.
01010010 01100101 01100001 01101100 00100000 01101101 01100101 01101110 00100000 01110000 01110010 01101111 01100111 01110010 01100001 01101101 00100000 01101001 01101110 00100000 01100010 01101001 01101110 01100001 01110010 01111001 00101110
Good advice. DHMO is found in at least trace quantities in the majority of humans in industrialized nations.
DHMO kills many people every year by interfering with oxygen transfer. It is also found in large quantities in patients with many neurological diseases - to the extent that it would be newsworthy if doctors were unable to detect DHMO in most such patients.
Given that BB seems to be suffering from cost competition w/online retailers (including the sales tax problem), they have a motivation reduce prices to attract some of the online business -- and one way to do that is to lower expenses such as "buy/return to rent" schemes.
However, it appears that right now BB's expenses exceed income and that can't last too long so, yes, in this case, staying in business means that all cost savings can't be passed to consumers. However, cost savings may help BB stay in business -- which, by offering continuing some price competition, will make Fry's and the like keep their prices lower.
I can't speak to taxes and BB, but it's pretty certain they won't be paying any income tax in the near future since they are losing money.
He was not claiming it was defective - he said he just decided he didn't want it. BTW, it HAD been used and he acknowledged that (apparently it was fairly obvious from moisture in the unit). If it was defective, I don't know if they would have given him his money back (esp. if they didn't have a comparable model of another brand available for the same price).
I do just what you do at Fry's "gauntlet of shame" - no one has ever bothered me (and, when they are busy and people are standing in line to have their receipt checked, I can't figure out why as I walk out why everyone waiting doesn't go "doh..." and just walk out - I would expect even sheeple would follow the faster proven path).
It has occurred to me though that Fry's could condition returns on having a "validated" receipt and have the receipts "validated" by door checker dude (perhaps using a scanner that would scan a bar code on the receipt and then print a unique "validation" code on the paper copy while also updating the store records). Then, they would probably get me to stop and "be inspected" at least 1/2 the time.
Although always read the return policy carefully. Unfortunately the guy in front of me a couple years ago apparently hadn't done so before "renting" a portable air conditioner from Fry's for a couple days during a heat wave. He wasn't at all happy when Fry's refused to take it back.
As a customer who doesn't do such things, I was happy to see them enforce their policy as every time a customer "rents" via buy/return, it raises prices for everyone else. (I think they would have exchanged it if it was defective which seems fair enough).
you missed my double negative :)
yep, all new communities seem to be "gated" nowadays - makes people feel special I suppose.
Legal "intent" can be formed in a fraction of a second - long after he got out of the car.
Zimmerman could have gotten out of his car and approached Martin planning just to ask him a question. When he approached, Martin could have called him an insulting name (which would not justify a lethal response by Zimmerman) and enraged Zimmerman enough for Zimmerman to pull out his gun and shoot Martin in cold blood just after Martin uttered the insult. This is sufficient time for intent and a finding of murder of some degree.
(Note that I'm not saying the above is what actually happened, it's a hypothetical).
"gated community" is not inconsistent with "HIGH crime".
The complex (The Retreat At Twin Lakes) was not a "high end" gated community with five million dollar homes. These are town homes that sold for between around $75K and $140K in the last few years. Looking at a few real estate listings, it appears they are attached town homes with one car garages. There have been many foreclosures in the complex as housing prices have plummeted.
The entrances are not manned - reports are that residents key in a code to gain entrance, but obviously the gates and walls are low so it's likely easy to enter without a code (or just piggyback on someone else who is entering).
Overall, I wouldn't attach too much significance to "gated community" here. Gates in cases like this are largely a "feel good" feature rather than an effective crime deterrent. Esp, in a complex which now has many renters. Actual crime stats would be much more useful to determine the crime rate in this complex.
Elsewhere on the site are tests with a similar setup but using jugs of water instead of drywall where I think he's trying to test "good penetration" (perp's body) instead of "bad penetration" (neighbors' walls). These results are comforting as I'm now much less concerned about the outcome should I be attacked by a gang of water jugs.
In high school, I had fun making up hidden meanings that seemed vaguely plausible and hard to refute. It actually got me some decent grades - of course I rearely knew what the "right" hidden message I was supposed to find was until the teacher revealed the secret (although, if I had paid more attention, they might have mentioned it in class sometime).