Who do you trust?

So what? Two blogs in two days, you ask. After like ten days with no blogs! Just goes to prove you cannot trust bloggers. And we don't have deadlines like newspapers. So live with it.

It just so happens that I found two closely related issues that inspired me in two days. I certainly do not trust Sarah Palin as readers of the blog before this clearly understand. And Gallup announced the results of its December poll on trusted occupations. That one is almost as much fun as the winners of the Darwin Award.

Seems the least trusted occupation in the United States is (drum roll please) Members of Congress. They narrowly beat out HMO Managers, car salesmen, Senators, lawyers and advertisers. Lawyers and advertisers have been on the bottom of the list for a long time. And Used Car salesmen in particular are not popular. Put you have to take this with a grain of salt because opinion pollsters were toward to bottom too.

Another poll rated the least trusted banks. Which brings up the question as to why bankers were not in that scum skimming list. One independent poll, the same one that rated pollsters so low, put stockbrokers in the bottom five. But I digress. The least favorite and trusted banks are: Bank of America, Chase, Capital One, TD/Commerce, Fifth Third, Citibank and HSBC. No surprises there other than who would name a bank Fifth Third? I certainly think the current economy, bank bailout, mortgage freezes, foreclosures and the constant increasing of "fees" on credit cards had a lot to do with this list. The economy coupled with executive bonuses probably even more so.

But not trusting your banker is nothing new. The old melodrama villains (like Snidely Whiplash above) were often bankers come to foreclose on the house of the poor struggling heroine Nell. And my parent's generation were raised with putting your cash under the mattress. My brother and I hid ours in different volumes of the World Book Encyclopedia when young. Where to keep your savings is no longer an issue as there are no savings anymore to keep.

A pollster called me recently to ask if I had 401K or mutual funds. Not any more. Did I foresee a time when I would have either again. No. Did any of my friends have 401K or mutual funds. This one took some thought because I do have some rich friends but they seem to have moved on to other investments like real estate and art. Did I know if they would be putting their funds back in investment firms in the future. Absolutely not. Especially after this new list.

So where in your house is the best place to hide money? Assuming, of course, you have some to hide at sometime in the future?