Imagine loading up your shopping cart on Thanksgiving week, strolling to the checkout counter with a buggy packed with stuffing, turkey, cranberry sauce, apple pies….only to be told by the store clerk that your card won’t work. Crying baby in one arm, smartphone in one hand, you are ushered to [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]
The $15 minimum wage battle cry always rang hollow to me. I know, $15 sounds like a lot to people who grew up in the 1970s or 80s (the minimum wage was $3.35 when I got my first job. Come to think of it, this would be a fun first [Keep reading]
Bob Sullivan