November 21, 2008 — Consider this the next time you see a teenager take a drag on a cigarette: Your state government likely has a financial stake in that kid continuing to smoke. And quite possibly, so does your retirement portfolio. That was hardly the intention 10 years ago, when [Keep reading]
ARCHIVE – 2011 — His is the face of revolution in the Middle East and in Latin America. He’s on the cover of a book published in Mexico. He’s an unforgettable image of anger on T-shirts everywhere. He’s an icon painted by graffiti artists on city walls in Spain and [Keep reading]
JAN 29, 2005 — Linda Trevino, who lives in a Chicago suburb, applied for a job last year at a local Target department store, and was denied. The reason? She already worked there — or rather, her Social Security number already worked there. Follow-up investigation revealed the same Social Security [Keep reading]
ARCHIVE — Jan. 5, 2007 — One moment Dave DeSmidt had $179,000 in his 401(k) retirement account, the next he had nothing. In an instant, 25 years of savings had disappeared. With a few clicks, someone raided DeSmidt’s retirement account with J.P. Morgan & Co and ordered a full disbursement [Keep reading]
ORDER THE NEW EDITION OF GOTCHA CAPITALISM NOW! ARCHIVE, Jan. 30, 2013 — The Equifax credit reporting agency, with the aid of thousands of human resource departments around the country, has assembled what may be the most powerful and thorough private database of Americans’ personal information ever created, containing 190 [Keep reading]
ARCHIVE, March 18, 2011 — Engineers used to talk about guarding against the “single point of failure” when designing critical systems like aircraft control systems or nuclear power plants. But rarely does one mistake or event cause a catastrophe. As we’ve seen in Japan, disaster is usually as function of [Keep reading]
ARCHIVE, MAY 31, 2013 — Bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow, there will be sun, Little Orphan Annie sang. Recent neuroeconomics research suggests she was onto something. The key to saving money for the future might not be self-discipline, but rather the ability to imagine that tomorrow, indeed, is coming. [Keep reading]
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED JUNE 13, 2012 — “FYI EVERYONE — There’s a site called spokeo.com and it’s an online phone book that has a picture of your house..,” begins the breathless chain email, which has made its way around the Internet for the past three years or so. It’d be hard [Keep reading]
Anyone who’s tried using the Internet to rent an apartment knows it’s a cesspool of scams and fake listings. But Kelly Kane found out this weekend that con artists are getting aggressive and vindictive. After she called out a would-be con artists on a fake ad, her cell phone number [Keep reading]
Oct 23, 2012 — The attacks seem straight out of a movie plot: An anonymous note is posted online — usually on a Monday or early Tuesday — declaring that week’s victims. The targets then are besieged at some point during that Tuesday through Thursday stretch. On Friday, the group [Keep reading]
Bob Sullivan