invest
if you buy something because you think it will become more valuable and you will be able to make money by selling it, you are “investing”

funeral
after you die, your friends and family will come to your “funeral”

pension
a “pension” is money you get from the government or from the people you worked for because you are old or can’t work for some other reason

Patrick Kinlin (easy version)

Patrick Kinlin was a businessman. He lived in Ontario, in central Canada. In January, 2000, he was sent to jail for five years. Patrick’s business was investing people’s money for them. He told them that if they gave him their money, he would invest it carefully and, in the end, they would get much more money back. Patrick was always very kind and polite to the people he worked for. They believed everything he said.

But Patrick was not really investing the money. He was stealing it. He stole around Can$12.5 million. He spent it on cars, boats, clothes, meals, houses, and women. He was married at least five times.

When he sent Patrick to jail, the judge told him he had to give back the money he had stolen. But Patrick paid back nothing.

After he had been in jail for a few months, Patrick was allowed out during the day. One of the policemen who had caught Patrick was angry about this. He said that being out of jail during the day would give Patrick a chance to run away. But Patrick didn’t run away. He stayed in jail and, in March 2001, he died there from heart problems.

At the time Patrick died, he and several other men in jail with him were being watched by the police. These men were able to get on the internet from jail, and the police thought they were using it to steal money from the Canadian government. They were telling the government they were old and they were asking for their old age pensions. During the day, when they were out of jail, they were picking up the money and putting it into the bank.

- information from "The Toronto Star," 00.11.09 and 01.03.07