Category: Politics, Religion & Money

Again I ask, why should the Fed lower interest rates? What problems would it be addressing?

What we have right now is the long overdue return to the old normal.

To my surprise, Trump’s tariffs on Chinese imports had no apparent effect on inflation. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen didn’t make that point when questioned on last night’s PBS NewsHour, but she’s confident that Biden’s additional tariffs will likewise not directly hit American consumers.

The policy talk seems to have shifted from intellectual property theft by China to excess productive capacity. The bigger issue is, it’s a little late to undo the effects of 40 years of free trade globalization. Will protectionism motivate American manufacturers to stop looking at the quarterly bottom line, and start figuring out better ways to compete?

I very rarely use my Bank of America ATM card. Who uses cash anymore anyway? But every so often, there’s a reason to have some cash handy.

A couple of weeks ago, I had the new driveway sealed by the asphalt outfit that paved it a couple of years ago. The two guys the company sent did a perfect job, and when they were done I handed each of them a $20 bill. Good for beer, snacks, and lottery tickets.

To make cash withdrawals, I use the ATM inside the branch office of a local savings bank — with only one recent exception. Generic ATM’s are not to be trusted. Not ever. But what about an official Bank of America ATM? Like this one, in the corner of a Trader Joe’s parking lot. Shouldn’t it be a safe exception?

Despite not being in a branch office, there’s no way it could have a skimmer installed in it, is there? BoA’s technology must certainly be able to detect any tampering, right? You know what’s coming.

Of course it was hacked, and of course the card’s data was skimmed and stolen. Or, perhaps, a WiFi webcam had been planted in a strategic spot. Literally the only use of my debit card over the past year was one time at that ATM. Yesterday, my phone buzzed with this message.

Checking my e-mail, this was what I saw. There’s no reason to hide the last four digits of the card. It was deactivated within half an hour of my seeing the notices, and a new card is being sent to me by Bank of America.

The tiny amount of the withdrawal from my checking account was a typical tryout to see if the account could be exploited. The bank said it had been set up as a recurring payment, and I assume the next charge would have been for substantially more. The company name behind the crime is a legitimate business in England, and it’s undoubtedly also a victim of this fraud.

https://www.arrowsecurityshutters.co.uk/

Republicans have no concern whatsover about gay or trans kids being bullied in high school. They encourage the suppression of young people who refuse to be marginalized because they are different, to the point of enacting state laws against them.

Now their outrage is over allegations of student antisemitism. Rep. Lisa McClain says, “sometimes, you do need to use the stick, because disincentives work.” I wonder what her opinion is about the Trump supporters who rioted on January 6th?

The latest Mideast crisis began with Netanyahu’s utter failure to protect Israel. What he has done to Gaza in response to the horrific attacks by Hamas guarantees there will be another generation of terrorists. Bibi’s legacy will be that he has jeopardized Israel’s future security well beyond his own lifetime.