Author Archive
Smartphone banking: Still evolving The day may be nearer than anyone thought when children wonder aloud what on earth their forebears did with those folded, leather things displayed in the museum. Tell them they’re looking at a checkbook cover and a wallet, and they may well ask, “What’s a checkbook? What’s a wallet?” [Click here […]
MOST AMERICANS would gladly opt out of their long-term relationship with the Internal Revenue Service. To that end, a good many of us pay CPAs to ensure we don’t give the IRS one penny more than we must. So when sundry people and corporations manage to avoid paying billions in arguably due taxes, you’d think we […]
TODAY’S OBJECT LESSON begins in the mid 19th century, when a Minnesota jewelry store declined a shipment of watches. Railroad agent Richard Sears purchased the shipment, peddled the watches, and ordered more. Knowing a good thing when he saw one, he quit the railroad and set up a mail order watch business. A year later, he […]
It’s not hard to pick out the banker in a Western. Just look for someone sporting sleeve garters and a translucent visor. This is a rare case in which Hollywood actually gets things right. In the late 19th century, sleeve garters served a practical purpose. Back then, you couldn’t walk into Nordstrom and ask for […]
Data breaching is big business. It is, as I wrote last week, something of an arms race. When we strengthen our armor, we don’t send the bad guys home in ignominious defeat; we send them off to upgrade their armor-piercing weaponry so they can return for another foray. The financial fraud arms race is as […]