UPDATE 10/31/2025 — With SNAP benefits about to be suspended due to the government shutdown, I checked the “theft scoreboard” to see if there’d been any improvement in this situation. In fact, it’s grown worse. More than $100 million was stolen in the most recent quarter, and the total is [Keep reading]
It’s a dark, cluttered room full of bookshelves, each shelf jam-packed with laptop computers. There are dozens of them humming away, lights flickering. And each one has a Post-It note attached with a single name on it. And there’s a pink purse just hanging off the side of one of [Keep reading]
If it acts like a bank, works like a bank, makes money like a bank — and when things go wrong, it can wreck lives like a bank — it should have to follow the same rules as a bank. That’s the logic behind a new rule established Thursday by [Keep reading]
It’s an irony too obvious to avoid writing: a group of big tech firms has sued to put the new “Click-to-Cancel Rule” on hold. Enough. We should hang up on them. Maybe I’m just unlucky, but I often pull my smartphone out of my pocket and I’m aghast to see [Keep reading]
Inflation. That might be the most important word in the future of America right now, so it’s worth taking a few moments to understand it a little better. I think I can help by talking today about how prices are set. Well….in reality, technology has changed business so radically that [Keep reading]
You might think your humble social media account would be of no use to multinational crime gangs, but you’d be wrong. Computer criminals have dozens of ways to turn hijacked Facebook, Instagram, TikTok or Twitter accounts into cash…or worse. You’d be stunned how quickly friend-of-friend attacks escalate into massive crime [Keep reading]
The above messages are all fake; they all landed on my smartphone in the past couple of days. You’ve probably seen them, or texts just like them. If they feel relentless, that’s because they are. According to Robokiller.com, Americans received 19 billion fake texts in June. Just in June! That’s [Keep reading]
You roll over in the morning, and you impulsively reach for it. You walk away from your desk and dig into your pocket for it. You have a free second or two waiting for a bus….or waiting for a red light…and you grab it. When you can’t get at it, [Keep reading]
Imagine getting a flurry of emails and calls from angry people claiming you’ve stolen their money — by promising them a job that doesn’t exist. And you have no idea who they are, or why they are calling. Work-from-home scams aren’t new, but I’ve seen enough data points lately that [Keep reading]
It’s rockets and feathers. All over the economy. As economists and politicians keep wringing their hands about inflation, I sure wish they would read up on asymmetric price adjustment — a phenomenon dubbed “rockets and feathers” in this 2009 paper. Prices rise faster than they fall. Inflation always “sticks” longer [Keep reading]
Bob Sullivan