DICK JOHNSON ON GOVERNMENT SCAM ALERTS

The April issue of Reader's Digest arrived this week. Topping the list of Scam Alerts (page 23) is the $29.95 medal for the 10th anniversary of 9/11 issued by National Collector's Mint.

The magazine reports that "Senator Charles Schumer and Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York have asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate the National Collector's Mint." Further: "the outfit is charging $29.95 'for a trinket, whose true value has been estimated as low as 2 cents and as high as 60 cents' according to a New York Daily News editorial.'"

One might ask "What business is it of Senator Schumer or Rep Nadler, or even of the New York Daily News or the Reader's Digest what price a private company can charge for its product?"

If that $30 price is a scam for even 60 cents worth of metal, it is a greater scam for Reader's Digest to charge $3.99 per copy where it contains only five cents worth of paper!

These scam-masters did not take into consideration it costs close to $5,000 for artist's models and dies, plus another $1 to $2 each to strike that medal, plus an additional cost to add the partial silver plating. Plus the promotional cost of marketing the medal.

"What business you ask?" If you research WHY legislators Schumer and Nadler instigated their original complaint seven years ago for the first medal National Collector's Mint issued. The answer was they had entered a bill in Congress for the government to issue a 9/11 commemorative medal. They didn't want a private firm in competition with their medal! Take note, Federal Trade Commission.

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