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• Tweet ^[1]
• Email ^[2]

I hope you and yours have a fun and relaxing 4th of July weekend. For those outside the United States, I hope you have a fun and relaxing 4th of July weekend that has absolutely no historical significance to you (unless you’re in England, in which case sorry about that).

If you have a hankering for some interesting news to read, here are a few good ones.

• There are a lot of online scams out there and many are easy to see, like the King of Nigeria (or sometimes it’s the prince) wanting to give you a million bucks if you’ll help him move $50,000 to his cousin in Georgia. Well, sometimes the longer cons are a little harder to see and the Red Tape Chronicles details a “money mule” scheme that one recent job seeker fell victim to ^[3]. This is a pretty long con and I’m not surprised people fall for it, it’s cleverly disguised.
• There’s a retirement rule of thumb where you can assume a 4% withdrawal rate on your nest egg and have it last your lifetime, here is the origin of the 4% rule ^[4]. It’s from a study out of Trinity University and that’s not all they said.
• Don’t buy any hand tools new at the store, it’s one of those things where used is just as good as new and you can save a boatload of money that way. Here are the best places to buy used tools ^[5].
• When I’ve had a little too much to drink, I usually fall asleep harmless in my bed. PVM Oil Futures trader Steve Perks bought 7m barrels of crude oil ^[6]. Yeah… there should be checks that prevent that sort of thing.
• According to the Census Bureau’s annual survey on income, the median household income fell ^[7] from $52,748 in 1999 (adjusted for inflation to 2008) to $50,303 in 2008.

And if you have 20 minutes and a desire to experience a brain implosion (it’s funny too), watch this video (no seriously watch it, it’s really entertaining and fun):

We’ll be taking tomorrow off in observance of Independence Day, we’ll be back with more awesomeness on Tuesday!

(Photo: iluvcocacola ^[8])