Today’s blog is late and I wanted to tell you why. I got three time-consuming communications in the mail yesterday. They mark the way machine systems do not work any longer. There is no automatic pilot.
First I got a bill for a flu shot I got Jan. 15, very late because the doctor group which treats me ran out of the stuff in 2009. So when they had new supplies I trotted along for my jab. I am over 65, and covered by Medicare. Older folks are supposed to get flu shots preventively. And inoculation serves a public good by cutting contagion risk.
Despite this, the bill was $65 for a minute’s work by a nurse. This was paid for $38.91 by Mewdicare, with your editor supposed to pay $26.09 in addition.
Then I got a statement for May 15 to June 15 from my personal bank account, with HSBC. It showed that on June 7, a day when I was happily in NYC writing my blog, and one on which I made a cash withdrawal from my HSBC account in midtown Manhattan, I also withdrew $970.37 from a branch in Edgbase, Birmingham (England, I think.). This was not me. My ATM card remained in my wallet. I did not share my secret password with anyone.
It was a fraudulent withdrawal and shows that my account was compromised apparently along with those of others at my branch or perhaps more widely.
Then Albany weighed in with a “penalty” bill for failing to file withholding taxes for 2009 for my company which is incorporated in New York State. It is called Agorot Ltd. d/b/a Global Investing. As long-term readers know, after the bankruptcy of the former publisher, Rightside Advisors, I financed a restart-up in early 2009 out of my own pocket. I did not pay myself a salary, and I am the only full-time employee of the company. (I did pay freelancers and web experts, and stuff like rent, Internet, electricity, but no salary.)
Dealing with this stuff takes hours. Hence the letter is late today. Moreover, there will be no blog tomorrow as I am again attending an investor conference. I could hire a day laborer to fill in for me but I suspect nobody would do it for what I pay myself, which is bupkas, nada, nichevo, nichts, rien.
