i'm the secret in the sauce...

that ground beef you buy every week at the grocery store is largely old steaks and roasts from the days previous. it changed the way i ate in a hurry...

benadrian wrote:While mastering music, I'm trying as hard as possible to not listen to lyrics. Instead, I try to hear the voice as a bunch of sounds no different than say a single note organ or synthseizer part.

Ben

that's how i listen to most music.

I recently had to complete an Employee Training Program on money laundering and financial crime. Here's some of what I learned...

The curiously-named Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) (formerly the Currency and Foreign Transactions Reporting Act):

In accordance with the BSA, bank employees are required to file a report to their supervisor if any customer makes an unusually large transaction (over $5,000, but generally with respect to the customer's regular banking history) or performs any other activity that meets certain criteria for being suspicious. The bank employee's supervisor then reviews the scenario and decides whether or not a Suspicious Activity Report with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) should be filed.

FinCEN is a federal government agency, a branch of the US Treasury. It was created in 1990 with the goal of combating money laundering and other financial crimes. The USA PATRIOT Act of 2001 has broadened the powers of this organization and now allows banks to share personal financial information with one another if they believe a money laundering or terrorist funding conspiracy is taking place.

If the bank employee suspects that a financial crime is immediately in progress, he or she is obligated to report it immediately to the appropriate law enforcement authority, the local police, the FBI, the IRS, DEA, etc. without alerting the customer that such a report is being made.

Some suspicious "atypical financial activities" which throw up red flags for bank personnel:

• Suddenly granting authority to multiple non-relatives to access a personal account holding large sums of money.
  
• Very large SIFTs (Structured International Funds Transfers) especially between certain designated high-risk countries
  
• Regular movement of funds among CDs, securities or other investment commodities (especially ones held in foreign countries)
  
• Debit purchases of unusually large quantities of goods or goods at irregular prices
  
• Frequent or large-scale business transactions with NRAs (non-resident aliens), especially NRAs from designated high-risk countries
  
• Frequent or large-scale business transactions with PEPs ("politically-exposed persons" such as senior foreign government officials, their family members or close associates)
  
• Conducting transactions with higher-risk businesses such as weapon retailers or chemical companies
  
• Privately-owned businesses which perform very few or no business transactions (indicative of a possible "shell corporation")
  
• A transaction which has no apparent lawful purpose, or is not the type of transaction that the particular customer would normally be expected to make, considering his or her background and transaction history

In addition to all that, any transaction (or number of transactions) totaling $10,000 or more with the same bank on the same day by (or known to be on behalf of) the same person, automatically require a Currency Transaction Report (CTR) to be filed with FinCEN.

Until just a few decades ago, it was entirely legal to put race restrictions in real estate deeds. While researching real estate title in Milwaukee for several years, I got really sick and tired of taking a black marker to such statements as "this property shall never be conveyed to a person of Jewish or Ethiopian descent." Legally worthless now, of course, but you can't turn over copies of documents with these restrictions to a client.

crazy, i've never seen that in my line of work...

The price of your textbooks is determined by the publishers, not the bookstore.

When moving, pack all your books and records so they stand vertically (in smaller boxes).

The helpful tech support people you call on the phone are swapping stories and laughing their asses off at you within seconds after you hang up the phone.

Colonel Panic wrote:The helpful tech support people you call on the phone are swapping stories and laughing their asses off at you within seconds after you hang up the phone.

yes! not only that they can see every file in your phone, including all of the pics people take...

a lot of people that i hang out with have worked at cellular services tech desks and i've heard lots of stories...