People are often told that the Mafia (or whatever organized crime is referred to as in your neck of the woods) has a stranglehold on racketeering schemes. [color=purple]NOT TRUE.[/color] Let me be the first to inform you that there are two organizations that have those time-honored wiseguys beat. Number 2 on the list of People Legally Stealing Your Money is your cable provider. What other place can tell you that to go from 10 channels (five of which you will [color=purple]never[/color] watch [color=purple]anyway[/color]) to the next level package is gonna cost you $50 a month? It's even worse if you want to get high-speed Internet. Then they can soak you for cable [color=purple]and[/color] Internet at a nifty price tag of [color=purple]only[/color] $100 a month. No wonder SBC and DISH network is making a killing in my area. But the cable morons are amateurs. Number 1 on the list of People Legally Stealing Your Money is none other than your local college or university, be they Ivy League to Big 10 to state-sponsored to the area community college. Those people are [color=purple]professionals[/color] when it comes to separating you and your hard-earned money. Have you ever walked into a college bookstore? The prices are outrageous. I myself spent over $300 for books, pencils, paper, and a couple pens. I probably could have bought half the stuff at Staples for a hell of a lot cheaper. The real joke comes at the end of term---when the bookstore has this magical period called "book buyback." Now [color=purple]there's[/color] a robbery in progress. Each semester I take back the textbooks I no longer need or never want to see again, only to find that the $65 book I bought is now worth only $27. The real irony is when I go to buy a "used" textbook, I'm certain they've marked up the "purchase price" they paid us poor college students by some 20% and are charging $42 for the textbook that was worth them only paying you $30 for. And people wonder why college students are drowning in debt...