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business expense, which I am sure it was, based on this image from the video:

    I mean, if those people are not conducting legitimate business, I would like to know exactly what the hell they
are
doing.
    Unfortunately, if you wind up going to trial, you will be judged by a jury of ordinary lowlife non-CEO people who do not understand sophisticated business matters and, in many cases, have never spent so much as $1,000 for an umbrella stand. Yes, it is unfair. But that is the price we pay for living in a democracy.
    GUIDELINE NUMBER THREE: Whatever else you do as Chief Executive Officer of the corporation, do not—repeat, do NOT—allow yourself to come into the possession of any information regarding specifically how the corporation works.
    This is very, very important. Because if the authorities decide that your corporation is doing bad things, they are going to try to hold somebody responsible, and often—unfair as it seems—they go after the person running the corporation. A chilling example is the case of Bernard “Bernie” Ebbers, who was CEO of WorldCom, a large corporation that got into a legal kerfuffle over some accounting hanky-panky involving, give or take, $11 billion. When Bernie went to trial, his defense, basically, was that he did not know what was going on inside the corporation. Oh, sure, he was the CEO and everything, and he was being paid many millions of dollars plus stock options, but as far as what WorldCom was actually
doing,
accounting-wise, Bernie was not in the loop. The defense did not come right out and use the phrase “total moron,” but that was the gist of it.
    Unfortunately for Bernie, the jury did not buy this defense. The jury apparently believed that somehow, in the course of being in charge of WorldCom, Bernie must have picked up some whiff of what was going on there. This is why it is so vitally important that, as CEO, you never, ever allow yourself to learn any details about your corporation. If you go to a meeting, and some corporate executives start talking about corporate business, put your hands over your ears and go, “LA LA LA LA, I CAN’T HEAR YOU!”*  10

7
    PROVIDING FOR MEDICAL CARE
    You’ll Need Some Leeches
    I F YOU’RE LIKE MOST AMERICANS, your biggest single fear is that you’ll become injured or seriously ill and have to be admitted to a hospital, where a psychopath posing as a nurse will sneak into your room one night, inject you with a paralyzing drug, and, while you’re still fully conscious, remove both your eyeballs with a shrimp fork.*  11 But coming in a close second is the fear of being unable to pay the medical bills.
    Yes, medical care has become hideously expensive in this country. Go to any American hospital today to have even minor surgery such as removal of your tonsils, and you’re looking at a minimum cost of $13,000. And that’s just for
parking.
*  12 The actual procedure will cost you way more.
    Why is medical care so expensive? There is no one simple answer to this question, by which I mean: lawyers.
    I’m not talking about
all
lawyers, of course. There are plenty of good ones, such as . . . OK, Abraham Lincoln was a lawyer, right? He was pretty good. Also Raymond Burr. But the rest of them are scum.
    This is especially true of the lawyers who make daytime-television commercials like this:
    ( W E SEE A LAWYER, WEARING A SUIT AND TIE, LEANING AGAINST A DESK IN AN OFFICE. B EHIND HIM IS A SHELF FILLED WITH BOOKS.)
    LAWYER: I’m Bernard Tortmonger of Tortmonger Legal Associates Legally Practicing Law. Are you in pain? Of
course
you are. Why else would you be watching daytime television? You’re in pain, and that means somebody is responsible, and that means you need to SUE THEIR ASS.
    (“ 1-800-SUE-THEIR-ASS ” IS SUPERIMPOSED ON THE SCREEN.)
    LAWYER: Every day, we at Tortmonger Associates help people just like you get the money they have coming to them.
    ( W E SEE A VIDEO CLIP OF A MAN WEARING A NECK BRACE.)

    MAN: I had no idea I