How to Prevent Financial Snooping | Richard Barrington

How to Prevent Financial Snooping

Edward Snowden made waves internationally with his revelations about the electronic snooping the U.S. government does into personal communications. But government spooks aren't the only people who may be trying to peer over your shoulder digitally.

The growth of electronic banking has spurred growth in the number and sophistication of criminals using computers to pry into the private accounts of people and businesses. Getting taken by one of these criminals may not be as traumatic as an on-street mugging, but it can be every bit as costly.

Here are some things you can do to protect your accounts from criminal snooping:

1. Cover the keypad. Behind you at the ATM or in line at the supermarket checkout, there may be someone waiting to casually observe your PIN for future use. Don't even bother looking behind you -- whatever the situation, get in the habit of using your free hand to screen the keypad as you type in your PIN.
2. Take a good look at that gas pump. Thieves are increasingly using credit card skimmers -- devices that look like card readers, but that secretly transmit your credit card information to their operators. If the card reader at a gas pump seems loose-fitting, sticks out more than usual, or doesn't quite match the surrounding equipment, notify a station employee -- and don't insert your card!
3. Don't use public networks to view sensitive financial information. Online savings accounts and checking accounts may be increasingly popular, but pick your spots to check your account. Public networks are typically not as secure as those at home or your place of business.
4. Don't broadcast your information. Another drawback of accessing sensitive information in public is that if you are using a WiFi hotspot, scammers can use Bluetooth-like devices to pick up the information you are transmitting from your computer to the network.
5. Always log off when finished. Wherever and whenever you access your account, always log off the bank site when you are done. Logging off is like locking the door when you leave the house: It doesn't make breaking in impossible, but at least you won't have made it easy.
6. Know what's in your wallet. Periodically make a photocopy of the credit cards in your wallet, and keep it in a secure place. This will help you quickly identify the cards and the numbers that need to be reported if your wallet is stolen or missing.
7. Go through credit card statements line-by-line. Don't just look at the total amount you owe -- check out each transaction on your credit card bill to spot anything unusual. Some scammers are subtle enough to use card information for a series of transactions that are small enough to go unnoticed, so they can continue to bleed accounts over time.
8. Balance your checking account. This involves a statement review similar to checking your credit card statement, but balancing the bank's records against your own is a real double-check for preventing unauthorized transactions of any type from endangering your checking accounts.

Think of your bank accounts as a pile of money: You wouldn't invite a stranger into a room with that money just sitting there, so don't allow criminals to get that kind of ready access to your money electronically . 

 

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America's Largest Rocket Launches Top-Secret Spy Satellite

A United Launch Alliance (ULA) Delta 4 Heavy rocket carrying a payload for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) lifted off from Space Launch Complex-6 here at 11:03 a.m. PDT today. Designated NROL-65, the mission is in support of national defense. This is ULA's eighth launch in 2013, the 24th Delta 4 mission and the second Delta 4 Heavy launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base. Credit: Pat Corkery/United Launch Alliance View full size image

The United States' largest rocket launched a spy satellite on a hush-hush mission Wednesday (Aug. 28).

An unmanned Delta 4-Heavy rocket lifted off the pad at California's Vandenberg Air Force Base at 2:03 p.m. EDT (1803 GMT) Wednesday, carrying a classified payload to a polar orbit for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO).

"Today's launch is dedicated to the men and women who serve for our nation's freedom," a commentator said a few minutes into the liftoff. [See more photos of today's spy satellite launch]

It's unclear what intelligence the spacecraft, which is known as NROL-65, will collect as it zips around our planet. Because of the clandestine nature of the mission, it entered a planned media blackout about seven minutes after liftoff.

"We are truly honored to deliver this critical asset to orbit," said Jim Sponnick, United Launch Alliance vice president for the Atlas and Delta Programs. "The ULA Delta 4 Heavy is currently the world's largest rocket, providing the nation with reliable, proven, heavy lift capability for our country's national security payloads from both the east and west coasts."

The Delta 4 Heavy, which is built by ULA and first flew in 2004, is the biggest and most powerful American rocket in operation today. The 235-foot-tall (72 meters) launcher generates about 2 million pounds of thrust at liftoff, according to ULA officials.

Wednesday's launch managed to stay on schedule despite the difficulties imposed by the automatic federal budget cuts known as sequestration, which went into effect March 1. The liftoff marked the 364th flight of a Delta rocket overall, and the 24th for the Delta 4 family. Delta 4 rockets have now lifted eight payloads into space for the NRO, which builds and operates the nation's spy satellites.

While the Delta 4 Heavy is the current American heavyweight rocket champ, several other vehicles on the horizon will be even more powerful. For example, NASA is building a giant rocket called the Space Launch System (SLS) to send astronauts toward asteroids, Mars and other destinations in deep space.

The first incarnation of SLS will stand 321 feet (98 m) tall and carry up to 70 metric tons of payload. But NASA plans to develop a 384-foot-tall (117 m) "evolved" version that would be capable of blasting 130 metric tons into space, making it the most powerful rocket ever built.

The SLS is designed to launch a crew capsule called Orion, which is also in development. The duo is slated to fly together for the first time during an unmanned test run in 2017, with the first crewed mission expected to come in 2021.

Orion will be ready to fly before the SLS is up and running. Orion's first test flight is scheduled to take place in 2014, when NASA will use a Delta 4 Heavy to send an uncrewed Orion out to a distance of 3,700 miles (6,000 kilometers) from Earth — farther than any spacecraft built for humans has traveled since the Apollo program ended in 1972.

The private spaceflight company SpaceX is also working on a big rocket, which it calls the Falcon Heavy. That launcher, which is expected to fly for the first time in 2014, will produce nearly 4 million pounds of thrust at liftoff, SpaceX officials say.

Goay Joe Lie

Director of JOELIE BEAUTY AND COSMETICS

Spanx Billionaire Founder Redefines Failure and Inspires Others | Mohamed A. El-Erian

Spanx Billionaire Founder Redefines Failure and Inspires Others

If you haven't already done so, I would strongly suggest that you become familiar with the story of Sara Blakely, the founder of Spanx. Not because she is said to be the youngest self-made female billionaire ever, and not because of an amazing business success that runs counter to conventional wisdom about business training and experience; but because she seems to epitomize the combined power of hard work, persistence, innovation and humility.

I have heard Blakely's story several times, including Sunday on CNN's GPS show with Fareed Zakaria. Every time, I come away with insights that I am eager to share, especially with my 10-year-old daughter.

Blakely's initial claim to fame and fortune is a product that, in her description, makes women's figures look better. The idea came to her as she prepared for an evening out. Frustrated by how she looked in white pants, she took scissors to traditional panty hoses and created what has evolved into a popular range of "body shapers."

Today Spanx offers a rapidly-growing product offering that benefits from increasing adoption (including abroad). It is opening stand-alone stores (five at last count). It is even extending the concept of body shapers to men's undergarments. In the process, Blakely believes -- and others confirm -- those who use Spanx can end up feeling better about themselves.

The journey from initial concept to today's unlikely reality was a long and difficult one.

Blakely faced many obstacles. She confronted a daunting string of early rejections and skepticism that would have probably derailed many (if not most) others. She had very little money to support her entrepreneurship. She also lacked any formal business training. Yet she managed to overcome all this, and shares with us wonderful stories here on how.

So, what made her persevere and prevail in the face of such overwhelming odds?

Having heard her interviewed several times, it comes down to more than steadfast conviction in a brilliant new idea, personal dedication to entrepreneurship, and a desire to make a difference.

Yes, they are all "necessary" conditions; but I doubt they would have also proved "sufficient" given all the headwinds that Blakely faced. Understanding the difference provides important insights for those committed to improving their parenting skills and our education system; and especially so in a world that is yet to overcome harmful conscious and unconscious biases - regarding gender, race, religion, sexual orientation etc. -- that are detrimental to empowering, enabling and enhancing human talent.

Through her upbringing and early employment, Blakely evolved her definition of failure from the traditional construct into a more inspiring and constructive one: Rather than interpret failure as the lack of success, she deemed it to be the lack of trying.

This simple and subtle change was the result of a father who encouraged Blakely and her brother to always extend their thinking, activities and aspirations (he would regularly ask his kids at the dinner table about their failures, commending them for trying); and of a job that exposed Blakely to many rejections (that of selling fax machines door-to-door).

One last point. While I have heard Blakely story several times, I do not know her personally. Yet, having come across other very successful entrepreneurs, I cannot but admire the humbleness that comes across whenever she recounts her story -- all of which makes her success even more inspiring for the rest of us.

Goay Joe Lie

Director of Joe Lie Beauty And Cosmetics

The Various Stages of So-Called 'Talent Management'

It is argued that the main differentiator between successful companies and failing ones is the crop of talent that leads them. Thus, three things are important; identifying the talent, developing it, and retaining it. The changing environment of business has prompted worries about talent shortages and getting talent into the right place, and specifically that talent management is of strategic importance and can differentiate a business when it becomes a core competence – and when its talent significantly improve strategy execution and operational excellence. (however is this the truth though?)

 Attraction

The first stage in keeping talent is attracting it in the first place. To this end, companies have to position themselves as a good employer, but provide an excellent place to work and develop an employee's career (very proper). This includes the notion of 'employer branding', which is the process of managing the organisations reputation and image as a great employer in the eyes of potential recruits. Talent management frameworks do not just treat advertising for staff as a one way process, where the company selects  from a pool of applicants, but sees it as a two-way process whereby talented people also consider carefully who they work for. Organisations discuss how the potential applicants react to 'signals' from the recruiting organisation which is send out during its application process, and varies at all levels within the organisation.

Selection

Selection is arguably distinct from attraction in that this is where the company begins to identify 'talent' from within the pool of people who have applied, others argue that attraction and selection are indistinguishable. I believe that there is a REAL lack of evidence on how recruiters manage the selection process, and how that impacts upon retention rates and general business outcomes. The challenge is how to select talent, rather than just identify competent employees and of course this varies depending on the level of the job being recruited for.

Development

Development of talent is much more focused on individuals and personal development. Similar to attraction and selection, it is a two-way process; talented staff will have demands about what development they need for their career, they will not accept a one-size-fits-all approach. Thus, within the talent management framework, development strategies will often be highly personalised, involving outside organisations, for training and learning whilst focusing on skill building (in many cases) for employees. Onboarding  is a key process as part of the talent induction into a new job, it is developed as a technical part of organisational learning through 'getting to know' the values and philosophies of an organisation.

Engagement

Talent management can be positioned as being about more than ministering a set of simple factors, and more about developing an engaging culture within an organisation and designing a strategy based around the values that the business wants to project and one that matters to employees. Do you believe that this is more important in the long term for employees than simple things such as pay ?

Retention

If the recruiting organisation can attract, select, develop and engage its top talent, it should not find itself losing key talent to competing organisations; retention should become a self-fulfilling prophecy that builds up talent. The difficulty in analysing retention is difficult, partly because it is sometimes a subjective distinction between retention and attrition, and partly because it can only be measured over long periods of time.

Other approaches to talent management

There have been many that claim that talent development and retention is the new frontier of competitive advantage, and retention of key employees is the defining factor for commercial success; as a result of this, attention has been given to the most effective strategies to do this. Yet, underlying this is the suggestion that the importance of talent management to retention works better in a globalised workplace.

Factors such as rates of pay, the type and amount of training provided, the speed and visibility of promotion, the working conditions and access to mentors and senior leaders are all postulated as being critical components; but there is limited ability to explain why and how these factors impact upon retention.

As an example of this, successful talent management and retention strategies are vital for succession planning it is said. However using talent management as a way of managing succession planning brings the idea of retention into focus; it is using talent management as a way of retaining the best talent to take over the lead of the organisation in the future, rather than simply keeping talent for an ill-defined idea of competitive advantage…

I do not fully say that existing talent management is either wrong or misdirected with its topics on attraction, selection, development, engagement and retention, however I do believe that it needs to be extended and supported instead of HR professionals just following the 'guru's' and HR institutes.

The idea that talent management as a framework genuinely offers strategic and operational benefits to organisations of all kinds is probably true (have you seen evidence of this, though?). However I equally believe that these benefits will only come to fruition if both organisations and HR professionals can successfully marry the conceptual underpinnings of talent management with widely applicable, practical methodologies for its use.

Goay Joe Lie

Director of Joe Lie Beauty And Cosmetics

10 Brands That Will Disappear in 2014

Is your favorite brand amongst the ones shown above? Prepare to say goodbye to them, if 24/7 Wall St. editor Douglas A. McIntyre's prediction is correct.

Each year, 24/7 Wall St. identifies 10 important brands sold in America that we predict will disappear before 2014. This year's list reflects the brutally competitive nature of certain industries and the importance of not falling behind in efficiency, innovation or financing. [...]

We continue to use the same methodology in deciding which brands will disappear. The major criteria include:

1. Declining sales and losses;
2. Disclosures by the parent of the brand that it might go out of business;
3. Rising costs that are unlikely to be recouped through higher prices;
4. Companies that are sold;
5. Companies that go into bankruptcy;
6. Companies that have lost the great majority of their customers; and
7. Operations with withering market share.

Each brand on the list suffers from one or more of these problems. Each of the 10 will be gone, based on our definitions, within 18 months.

Read the list and Douglas' analysis over at 24/7 Wall St: Link

Goay Joe Lie

Director of Joe Lie Beauty And Cosmetics

Stocks end near lows; Dow skids 200 points

JeeYeon Park CNBC

16 hours ago

Stocks finished near their session lows Thursday, with the Dow dropping more than 200 points, as the market continued to speculate about when the Federal Reserve, responding to an improved economy, will start to reduce its generous stimulus to the markets.

(Read more: S&P could trade at 1,900 'relatively easily': Pro)

The major indexes posted their biggest two-day losses since June. Meanwhile, the 10-year Treasury yield jumped to 2.82 percent, its highest level in two years, before pulling back to 2.75 percent.

"A lot of uncertainty creates volatility," said Todd Salamone, director of research at Schaeffer's Investment Research. "We had some bellwether names with disappointing earnings, and economic data that sparked tapering worries. We also broke below a support level on the S&P 500 at 1,685, which is the level where we entered August and the peak back in May."

The Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbled 200 points, dragged down by a 7 percent drop in Cisco. The blue-chip index fell through its 50-day moving average and is on track for its biggest weekly drop in nearly four months.

The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq also fell more than 1 percent each. 

All key S&P sectors were firmly in negative territory, led by techs and financials.

(Read more: Cramer: 'Giant reset' looming for markets)

"The S&P's tight range of the last 13 trading days bounded by 1,709 to 1,682 has been clearly broken," wrote Elliot Spar, market strategist at Stifel Nicolaus. "The decline of the last few days is the averages catching up on the downside to the correction that many leading sectors and stocks have been going through for the last two months. I expect the 1,650 area on the S&P to stem this decline."

On the economic front, manufacturing growth in New York and mid-Atlantic region weakened in August, according to the New York Federal Reserve and the Philadelphia Federal Reserve. And industrial production was unchanged in July as a decline in manufacturing output and utilities counteracted an uptick in mining activity, according to the Federal Reserve.

Consumer prices edged up 0.2 percent in July, matching expectations, according to the Labor Department.

On the upside, weekly jobless claims fell 15,000 to a seasonally adjusted 320,000, hitting the lowest level in nearly six years, according to the Labor Department. Economists polled by Reuters had expected a reading of 335,000. 

(Read more: The really bad newsbehind the jobless claims drop )

And homebuilder confidence rose near an eight-year high in August, according to the National Association of Home Builders. Homebuilders including Lennar and DRHorton turned higher following the report.

Earlier, St. Louis Fed President James Bullard reiterated his comments from Wednesday that the central bank should wait for further evidence that the economy is firming before winding down its asset-purchase program. 

"The committee still needs to see more data on macroeconomic performance from the second half of 2013 before making a judgement in this matter," Bullard said at an event hosted by the St. Louis Fed.

(Read more: Worst case for Fed taper: mere market 'indigestion'?)

Among earnings, Wal-Mart Stores declined after the world's largest retailer reported disappointing quarterly sales and cut its outlook for the year.

Kohl's climbed even after the department store chain forecast current-quarter earnings below expectations after reporting a decline in second-quarter profit.

Cisco Systems posted earnings and revenue that edged above Wall Street expectations but shares tumbled heavily after the network equipment maker said it would cut 4,000 jobs in the face of uncertain demand for its products. Analysts were mixed on the stock: at least three brokerages cut their price targets for the company, while two firms lifted their targets.

Dell, Applied Materials and Nordstrom are among notable companies slated to post earnings after the closing bell.

Billionaire investor Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway sharply reduced its holdings of Kraft Foods and Mondelez during the second quarter, according to Berkshire's quarterly filing with the SEC. Kraft Foods and Mondelez were created by a split up for Kraft Foods last October.

Meanwhile, Berkshire raised its stake in automaker General Motors to 40 million shares and reported a new stake in satellite television provider Dish Network of nearly 550,000 shares, worth approximately $24 million.

Apple was stuck below $500 after breaking above that level on Wednesday for the first time since January. RBC raised its target price on the iPhone maker to $525 from $475. 

Goay Joe Lie

Director of Joe Lie Beauty And Cosmetics

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/13/carl-icahn-apple-tweet_n_3750230.html?utm_hp_ref=business

Carl Icahn Tweet Boosts Apple's Stock Price By 3 Percent

Today we got a lesson in the power of Twitter, the power of Carl Icahn, or both.

A single tweet on Tuesday by the billionaire hedge-fund manager boosted the stock price of Apple, the biggest U.S. company by market capitalization, by 3 percent in a matter of minutes. At about 2:21 p.m. ET, Icahn tweeted:

While Icahn hasn't disclosed how much money he invested in the tech giant, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday evening that his stake in Apple is now worth over $1 billion.

Icahn followed up with a tweet a few minutes later suggesting he would agitate for Apple to give more of its $147 billion cash pile to investors:

Almost immediately, Apple's stock, which was already about two percent higher on the day, jumped another 3 percent -- worth about $10 billion in market value. (Story continues after chart.)

Author and investor Eric Jackson observed:

Obviously, the biggest winner here is Icahn, who got yet another boost to his ego. He has been on Twitter less than two weeks and is getting a quick lesson in the instant gratification it provides. Except instead of a few retweets and LOLs like the rest of us saps get, his tweets create $10 billion in paper wealth.

Apple shareholders are also happy with the stock's big jump. Apple itself may not be so thrilled, on the other hand, as it now is being pushed to give back cash more quickly than it wanted. That could involve, gasp, bringing some cash home from overseas.

The big losers here are Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, who earlier on Tuesday warned that Apple would "not be nearly so successful" without Steve Jobs, calling Jobs "irreplaceable." Ellison's declaration made nary a dent in the stock, in contrast with Icahn's.

The other big loser today is Icahn's bitter rival, hedge-fund manager William Ackman, who has lost an estimated $400 million in a war with Icahn and other hedge-fund managers over the weird-shake-marketing-thing Herbalife. Icahn claims he has made $500 million betting in favor of Herbalife, in direct conflict with Ackman, who calls the company a pyramid scheme.

Ackman has been in the news the past couple of days for a short-lived beef with J.C. Penney, and news that Herbalife is under investigation for a safety issue from a couple of years ago.

Icahn found a way to snatch the spotlight back for himself, in less than 140 characters.

UPDATE: 6:37 p.m. -- This story has been updated to include Carl Icahn's stake in Apple.

Goay Joe Lie

Director of Joe Lie Beauty And Cosmetics