Today is my lucky day. I just won the Europe national lottery for one million euros. Here is the mail I got,

Sir/Madam,

CONGRATULATIONS: YOU WON 1,000,000.00.

We are pleased to inform you of the result of Europe National Lottery which was held on the 15th, March 2007. Your e-mail address attached
to e-ticket number: 834509819, with Prize Number: 237359446 drew a prize of 1,000,000.00 (One Million Euros).

This lucky draw came first in the 2nd Category of the Sweepstake. You will receive the sum of 1,000,000.00 (One Million Euros) from
our authorized bank.Because of some mix-up with sweepstake prizes, including the time limited placed on the payment of your prize: 1,000,000.00,
we advice that you keep all information about this prize confidential until your funds: 1,000,000.00 have been transferred to you by our bank.

You must adhere to this instruction, strictly, to avoid any delay with the release of your funds to your person. This program has
been abused severally in past, so we are doing our best to forestall further occurrence of false claims. This sweepstake was conducted
under the watchful eyes of 8,000 spectators. Your e-mail address was selected and came out first by a e-ballot draw from over
250,000 e-mail addresses (personal and corporate e-mail addresses).

This program is sponsored by CFI Networks to compensate faithful internet suffers around the globe. Congratulations for becoming
one of the few lucky winners.With your permission, your e-mail will also be included in the next sweepstake of 5Million.

You must claim your prize: 1,000,000.00 not later than 14-days from the moment you receive this e-mail.
In order to avoid unnecessary delays with your claim from the bank. please contact them immediately,
and quote your winning and personal information to the Bank in all your correspondence with the paying bank.

<< contact information deleted >>

Congratulations.
Angelic Van Theiry.(Mrs)
Coordinator.Europe Million Lottery Internation

But I still don’t understand why the mail is addressed to “undisclosed-recipients”.

Jokes apart, these things are increasingly becoming dangerous. I have got “genuine looking” mails from ICICI, HDFC and Paypal asking for complete details including ATM pin, internet user id et. The “from id” is forged and the URL text looks genuine. The fake site URL also is very similar and they copy the exact branding! What is more problematic is that they even bypass gmail’s spam protection.

Three friends went to a hotel. The bill was Rs 30/- Each one contributed Rs.10/-. The waiter took the bill to the cashier.

The cashier was happy & decided to give them a discount of Rs.5/- & asked the waiter to return them Rs.5/-.

Now the waiter was confused. How to distribute Rs 5 among 3 persons?

He kept Rs 2 in his pocket & gave one rupee to each one of the 3 persons.

So initially each one had contributed Rs.10. Now as they are given 1 rupee back, their contribution reduces to Rs 9.

They all contributed Rs 9 — that is 9×3=27 & 2 rupees are in the waiters pocket.

The total becomes 29. But they had paid Rs 30.

Where is the remaining 1 rupee?.

An old man lived alone in Minnesota. He wanted to spade his potato garden, but it was very hard work.

His only son, who would have helped him, was in prison. The old man wrote a letter to his son and mentioned his situation:

Dear Son,

I am feeling pretty bad because it looks like I won’t be able to plant my potato garden this year. I hate to misdo the garden, because your mother always loved planting time. I’m just getting too old to be digging up a garden plot. If you were here, all my troubles would be over. I know you would dig the plot, for me if you weren’t in the prison.

Love,
Dad

Shortly, the old man received this telegram:

“For Heaven’s sake, Dad, don’t dig up the garden! That’s where I buried the GUNS!!”

At 4 a.m. The next morning, a dozen FBI agents and local police officers showed up and dug up the entire garden without finding any guns. Confused, the old man wrote another note to his son telling him what happened and asked him what to do next. His son’s reply was:

“Go ahead and plant your potatoes, Dad It’s the best I could do for you from here.”

So the moral of the story is that “whatever situation you are in, you may be able to help someone in need”. Now it is a completely different question why such an intelligent fellow ended up in jail

For personal tax payers, budget this year turned out to be depressing. No tax limit increase even though inflation has gone up. Yesterday I came across this funny look at tax system. In Kerala context, this can be applied to lot many things! This is apparently written by David R. Kamerschen, Professor of Economics, University of Georgia.

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100.

If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that’s what they decided to do.

The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until on day, the owner threw them a curve.

“Since you are all such good customers,” he said, “I’m going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20.”Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men - the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his ‘fair share?’

They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody’s share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer.

So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man’s bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so:

The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).
The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.

“I only got a dollar out of the $20,”declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man,” but he got $10!”
“Yeah, that’s right,” exclaimed the fifth man. “I only saved a dollar, too. It’s unfair that he got TEN times more than I!”
“That’s true!!” shouted the seventh man. “Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!”
“Wait a minute,” yelled the first four men in unison. “We didn’t get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!”
The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn’t show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn’t have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

Here is another good email forward I came across, 

With a pile of 300 résumés on his desk and a need to pick someone quickly, my boss told me to make calls on the bottom 50 and toss the rest.

“Throw away 250 résumés?” I asked, shocked.

“What if the best candidates are in there?”

“You have a point,” he said. “But then again, I don’t need people with bad luck here.”

- Becky Horowitz(Reader’s digest)