The following travel stories are all true, and involve people I know, bless 'em!

Which street?

A guy gets on a Caribbean island hopper plane from Kingston, he is aiming for Barbados. The plane does a couple of stops before landing at Georgetown. He catches a cab, asking to be taken to so-and-so house on Frederick Street. The cabby looks a bit vacant, but being a cabby, he drives around for a while, before pulling over and asking a passerby if they know where Frederick St is. No idea!

Three people later, someone leans inside the cab and asks the passenger in person,

"Where are you heading exactly?"

He says "So-and-so house on Frederick St."

The guy shakes his head and says, "Well, I've lived here on St Lucia all my life and never heard of Frederick St."

"St Lucia? What, this isn't Barbados?"

Which airport?

A bloke is driving like a maniac North up the New Jersey Turnpike trying to get to the airport in time for his flight. Just as he is pulling off at the exit for Newark, it suddenly dawns on him that he is supposed to be leaving from Philadelphia. Needless to say, he missed his plane.

Which country?

I was sat on a plane in London waiting for take-off, minding my own business. An air stewardess walks up to me and asks me to confirm my name. I tell her.

She asks me if I am heading to Bordeaux. A bit perplexed, I say I am.

She smiles and announces in a very loud voice. "You might be going to Bordeaux, but this plane is headed for Frankfurt. Goodbye."

Talk about doing the walk of shame down the aisle and off the wrong plane. But the sniggers from those passengers were nothing compared to the glares I received walking down the aisle of the plane that I had delayed.

If you are reading this from a feed reader, there may be more up to date posts on the Pisstakers.com

Joe Smugman, an Australian-born trader had the foresight to flee to cash when the Dow Jones stood at a record 14000. He was quoted as follows.

Hedge funds and financial wizards have been squirreling away billions in profits for years, and burning the trail to where their risk has been parked. Shame that when it matters most, they can't quite put their finger on where their liabilities are right now, but never mind, I'm alright.

When pressed on that callous remark, he raised his pint of beer and replied,

Cheers. Can you hear that? It is the sound of hedge fund managers unraveling and screaming, Houston, New York, London Tokyo, we have a liquidity problem. But I'm OK, I'm rolling in cash and drinking plenty of amber nectar for 2 devalued dollars a pint. I'm telling my broker to Buy Buy Buy financials. Making money is like falling off a log now.

He has since retracted that statement, claiming he meant to say, "Telling my broker not to buy banks."

His answer to questions on the deepening housing crisis have actually stood the test of time.

Hey, if you think it is a crisis when banks stop lending money to people who can't afford it, then shoot me.

He then put 20% down on the bar and secured a line of 12 beers on credit.

See, the only crisis here is i don't think I can stay conscious long enough to finish those drinks.

I wonder where he is now, 12 months on, in the hit and miss financial gambling world? Working the till at Trader Joe?

There is more financial humor and reviews from Ed. And if you are reading this from a feed reader, there may be more up to date posts on the Pisstakers.com

Last year, "Hurricane" Erin was the first major weather system of the year to head for US shores. Named after CNBC Business Channel beauty, Erin Burnett, it started life with a vengeance. But how the mighty are fallen.

Holiday makers and airport managers in the gulf were crapping themselves, their nervous fingers on the trigger, ready to beat a hasty retreat to safety. At the other end of the gene pool, Erin Burnett reported on speculators in New York with their fingers on the Buy Buy Buy trigger, ready to take advantage of the potential gloom for oil producers, airlines and home owners caught in the projected line of fire of Hurricane Erin.

(Un)fortunately, before it could make any waves of any sort, Hurricane Erin, fizzled out, somewhere off shore. It was downgraded from a storm in a teacup to a minor depression. Whereas coastal folks breathed a huge sigh of relief, their home insurance premiums safe for another day, the mood on Wall St turned positively negative. Another money-making opportunity had been lost!

Windbag Rick

When the hurricane alert degenerated into a non news story, the following dreamy observation came from analyst Rick Rantelli. (Judging by the state of his eyes that morning, he had been on the wrong end of three rounds with Warren "Iron Mike" Buffet.)

Traders were expecting to recoup recent credit crunch losses by trading on the misery of flight delays and wanton destruction in the Gulf. Now look at them. They are screwed and can't off-load their stocks quickly enough.

When pressed on a strategy to limit losses, he ranted.

Baby and bath-water are two economic terms that spring to mind here, folks. This disaster is an opportunity for buyers with cash. Oh, wait, no one has any cash and we can't get a loan either. As you were.

Meanwhile millions of financially unsavvy homeowners and holiday makers breathed a sigh of relief, un-battened the hatches, and got back to an honest day's work and play, living on credit they can't service!

On the floors of the NY stock exchange, Erin's colleague Mark Haines left viewers with hot tip to ride out the mortgage problems - buy buy buy tent stocks.

There is more financial humor and reviews from Ed. And if you are reading this from a feed reader, there may be more up to date posts on the Pisstakers.com

Ever heard of a TV clown called Jim Cramer? He is the 60-something Mad Money financial stock-picking Booyah guru from CNBC and King of Prussia, NJ?

Have you ever acted on his Mad Money picks? If you are reading this, presumably you still own a computer connection and a shirt, so, I guess the answer is "no!"

Not everyone rates Cramer!

He might be good for an entertaining rant or two (The Feds know nothing) but on balance, you are probably wise to take Cramer's stock-picking advice with a healthy dose of credit crunchy salt! Here's why.

I was reading a report in a forum by a guy who ran a Mad Money paper portfolio. He lost "money". So what, they may say, one failure doesn't make Cramer a schill.

Not daunted by his abject poverty, this guy ran a real portfolio, with real money, and claims he did the opposite of what Cramer said. When Cramer yelled, "Buy, buy, buy." he sold, sold, sold, and vice versa. He did this 153 times. Out of 153 Cramer calls, he flipped the TV schill's advice on its head, and made money 132 times. Make what you will of that anecdote.

A closer look at Mad Money's Cramer

There are loads of "better" TV entertainers out there, (Colbert is king of my TV castle) but Cramer is talk-worthy because he performs his show in the dry world of stocks and shares.

The first time I saw a clip of the show, the Lightening Round, I was transfixed by the showmanship. 15 seconds later I was holding my ears, thinking. "The second there's a lull in this racket, I'm turning the volume right down to 1." I did exactly that, and it was still too loud, so I took a pair of binoculars and listened to the show from the comfort of a seat out in the garden. High-pitched crazy talk.

But, shrillness aside, to be fair, he is very entertaining.

Funny money

Cramer is not without wit and humor. He once invested in a company offering psychiatric services. He justified it as a good move at a time when hedge fund managers were jumping off buildings. I guess he needs to come up with a few more tips like that - for auto CEOs and the rest of 'em!

When he isn't chopping off plastic bears' heads with his Bowie knife, he is inventing yet another permutation of his Southern booyah catch phrase. Cramer also likes to be slightly anarchic, regularly reminding folks that he took an MA in Communism at Harvard.

To Euro readers this red reference probably seems un-noteworthy, but in the USA, for some reason, Communism is still a semi taboo subject. So, forget that millions of people just got repossessed and owe their broker a pension or two, Cramer dared mention the "c" word on national TV.

Why follow Cramer?

Apparently he has a following of millions of ordinary people who have put their faith in his ability to buy and sell stocks. That is Mad! A bit like planning your kid's future on the basis of an info-mercial.

But he has a good track record, they say. He was one of the financial stars of the 90's, calling that particular crash ahead of time. So what! He once made money off a half billion dollar fund when everyone else was losing their shirt? Lucky Jim. We all know what track records are like, anyway - OJ Simpson had a fairly good one didn't he! Personally, I think Cramer is trading off the fruits of a lucky past.

Now he runs a charitable trust, owns no shares of his own, and gimps around on a TV show at age 63. He has called more bottoms than a bum bandit, and advised people to leave the stock market for 5 years - probably the time when Wall St will make its biggest advances in decades... So do you really want to do everything a guy like that says?

What can Cramer teach us about stock-picking?

Cramer does have merit as a source of financial advice. He finds interesting ways of looking at stocks and shares to buy into. Mystical microtrends in tea leaves (buy tea futures), a break in the weather (buy recession-proofed umbrellas), contrarian views... (the tide mark on his bath is getting crustier- time to buy even more Unilever...)

He may have friends all over the financial quarter, but he does like to blow the lid on Wall Street practices. For instance, when the stock market isn't melting down, do you know how the big fund boys traditionally operate towards the end of a quarter? Traditionally, 80% of all fund managers fail to outperform the market, so towards the end of every quarter they try to compensate for their inadequacies by driving the price of a good stock down - just in time for them to buy more and ride the surge back up at reporting time. That is how they keep the herd willing to invest in their loser funds.

Now you know! When the Dow gets above its pre 2000 levels again, you can invest with a little extra knowledge of how it all works.

On a closing note of irony

One Cramer mantra is to never act on a stock tip from friends, or from anyone for that matter! Bottom line, according to Jim, a nod and a wink to buy a certain stock is a signal to avoid that stock. Either a hustler is trying to create demand for a crap company, or the news is insider info and illegal or... you get the idea.

What would happen to his show if the followers of Cramer acted on that tip!

I was using the power of the internet to write a review in Yahoo Yellow pages. It was about a local mechanic who ripped us off. Through the red mist, I noticed the members' profile page from where you can do an online identity search - by name, telephone or email address!

I already know the identity, number etc of this particular scumbag, so it doesn't interest me to go snooping for more of his personal details, but I tried a little experiment to see how much I could find out about someone else from an online search. I searched for my father's identity, using his email address.

How many fathers?

Bloody hell, judging by the extensive results, I could have a hundred fathers! It was like a reversal of a girl in every port. A pop in every state.

Anyway, the point is, I can barely remember my father's private email address, and I am his son. It seems creepy that a complete stranger could have his email addy on a mailing list and use it to find out his name and more. I though that access to that sort of info was a bit too intrusive for my liking. But that was just the tip of the info iceberg

From Yahoo Yellow Pages, I followed a couple of clicks and found a site, Intelius, where you could enter a name and for $49.95 find the Social Security number, name, address, neighbors and all sorts of personal details. Now, I thought that was well spooky. Why would I want to know all about my father's neighbor?

That lead me to People You will see in hell. A site full of nasty people located all around America. I suppose that explains why people should be able to search for their neighbors' personal information!!

Sex offenders and online identity search

I am not on the side of the bad guys, but I do wonder if anyone can be trusted to do the right thing with info publicly available online. For instance, if you are a serious sex offender, (as opposed to a horny teen prosecuted for dipping his wick a year before his future wife was "old enough"), I think your identity and basic personal info should be publicly available your whole life.

On the flip side, it is only right that society be educated enough to know how to deal with the information they glean online about such people. It was reported recently that a sex offender was horribly mutilated by a mob in London. Those attackers should not have had access to his personal details.

Pediatrician not pedophile

Even.if you are not a sex offender and have nothing to hide, it can be a big deal when the wrong people come to the wrong conclusion about your identity, and address and personal details! An upstanding paediatrician had "Paedo" sprayed on the walls of her house by neighbors. That's right, a pediatrician, a doctor dealing with kids' health issues. The neighbors were so illiterate, that after coming across her personal info in public records, they thought that her job title meant child molestor! They smashed every window in her house too! Seriously, that happened in the UK a few years ago.

Online identity theft

Then there is risk of identity theft via online searches. There is a lot more to it than on-line bank frauds.

There is the risk of harrassment from nasty people who wish you physical harm, harrassment from Nigerian people after your money, politicians after your vote, children after your approval...

Even your company brand name can be stolen as a result of online identity searching. Click on the image to see if your user name has been hijacked on social sites. It may not matter to most of us, but as SEOsmarty alludes to, when big companies cannot sign up as themselves, it is a bad deal for building a brand!

How to prevent online identity theft.

Don't go online, ever!

Too much freedom of information

Yes, I am very wary of all this freedom of information crap, but not because I have a guilt complex. Having recently been checked out by the FBI, I can proudly announce that I have nothing to hide in terms of illegalities. However, I am a private person by nature, and a cynic too. From knowledge comes power and with power comes all sorts of bad shit, especially when power is in unaccountable hands.

Why should I feel relaxed knowing some marketing clerk at a commercial online retailing company is looking through all my spending habits trying to work me out? I am not interested in them, so leave me alone - or at the very least do your job properly and stop mailing me brochures for colostomy bags. Just because I am called the Pisstaker, jeezus.

I don't trust anybody outside of the top agencies to do the right thing with my info, and neither should you! And I guess if I were a former blonde bombshell CIA spy called Valerie, I wouldn't even trust the authorities to keep my personal info private, either!

Don't be paranoid, be very paranoid about your online identity - I know your IP address! Dr Zblovskch from Bucharest.

This is the new secluded home for Ed's personal ramblings. The posts here are vaguely well researched, immensely opinionated, moderately useful and reveal even more than any About Ed the Editor of The Pisstakers ever could.

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