• SMALL & FAMILY BUSINESSES ARE “MORE LIKELY TO EXPERIENCE A SECURITY BREACH than larger organizations, since ransomware operators are opportunistic, targeting any organization that has valuable data… Reality is that 82% of cyberattacks have nothing to do with failure in cybersecurity systems or software; most breaches can be traced back to the human element – phishing/ stolen credentials/ human error – which typically go undetected by technical controls because they originate from legitimate sources such as employees or trusted partners, by leveraging natural human weaknesses like judgement errors, biases, careless online behavior, weak passwords, etc.” The importance of training employees on how to spot spam and malicious communications is a critical factor in maintaining business efficiency, profitability, and often survival. DCG can help. Call us for courtesy consult. [FAST COMPANY – 9/14/22]
  • A BILLION DOLLARS IS A PRETTY INCOMPREHENSIBLE NUMBER – a thousand millions. At the beginning of this year, there were some 3,300 Billionaires globally, based on “assessing their total net worth including all business and investable assets for primary addresses known,” with aggregate Wealth around $11.8 Trillion. The majority are 975 Americans representing 38% of total Wealth, and three of every ten centered in New York, San Francisco or Los Angeles. Bloomberg’s Wealth-X Billionaire Census reports that aggregate Wealth increased 90% over the past decade and increased 18% in 2021 alone. While ‘reeling markets’ in 2022 had recaptured 12% even before this week’s chaos, the Billionaires are not suffering.  [VISUALCAPITALIST – 9/15/22]
  • TODAY’S HIGH-TECH SURVEILLANCE STATE is evidenced in communist countries by their governments “shutting down websites & media which don’t support state propaganda, expelling foreign journalists, clamping down on street dissent, tracking via cameras/ facial recognition algorithms & biometrics, constant screening of digital devices, and effectively making residents live inside a virtual cage.” In many respects, a surveillance state is also already in place and growing in the United States, in the form of “ubiquitous cell phone cameras, easy uploading of images to the internet, and fear of public shaming and humiliation on social media… These newfangled not-so-subtle tactics in attempt to stifle dissent” are happening irrespective of the premise that America is a non-authoritarian led country.  [THE BULLETIN.ORG – 9/8/22]
  • DESPITE THE FACT THAT, DURING THE PANDEMIC, HOUSING L.A.’s HOMELESS IN HOTELS WAS A DISASTER, with rampant drug use, constant fighting and fires, the L.A. City Council, last month, after narrowly voting down a proposal to currently “force hotels to open any vacant rooms after 2:pm daily to any Unhoused Angelenos, including homeless addicts and mentally ill vagrants,” they still then voted to put the measure on the ballot for 2024. Similar results of pandemic policies happened in San Francisco, Seattle, San Jose, but the dumbest probably in Austin, where its City Council purchased a hotel for $9M resulting in damage “spanning all three floors, with nearly every door bashed in, clothing/ belongings/ trash strewn throughout, TVs ripped from the drywall & stolen, copper stripped from the entire hotel, washes/ dryers/ air conditioning systems & electrical wiring destroyed – wrecked from top to bottom… What else could possibly go wrong” in Los Angeles? [RED STATE – 9/16/22]
  • THOUGHTS FOR THE WEEK:   

“With The Godfather serving as their leadership manual for many politicians, especially the baptism murders scene – when Michael Corleone participates in his nephew’s christening while his goons assassinate the head of rival families – the contrast parallels our president’s 9//11 speech: declaring that ‘national unity’ is the greatest lesson of that day while his Dep’t of Justice seized cellphones and issued subpoenas to scores of Trump supporters, giving the Trump haters a pound of flesh while scaring much of the opposition into silence.”  [NY POST] 

‘Influence peddling’ – aka Pay-to-Play – has always been a major aspect of political power, with few when any legislators inclined to ever regulate. So far, the uncontested record is held by Clinton Foundation which, averaging annual collections exceeding $250M during Hillary’s Sec’y of State tenure (until losing the 2016 election and the Foundation was shut down), paid out nearly $35M to 486 employees plus another $55M for other expenses in one year alone, while over half her 154 ‘private interest meetings’ were with Foundation donors. [INVESTORS BUSINESS DAILY]

Have you EVER heard a more magnificent voice than this?  https://biggeekdad.com/2022/05/a-beautiful-voice/

Or a more astonishing magic trick?   https://biggeekdad.com/2021/09/magician-shin-lim/