• HOLIDAY TRAVELERS BEWARE!!! Phishing has now become systematized – faster to deploy, harder to detect, and easier to replicate. Latest scams: (1) Large scale campaigns have impersonated brands like Microsoft, Adobe, We Transfer, Fed Ex, and DHL to steal credentials by distributing HTML attachments through email;  (2) A Russian-speaking threat has registered over 4,300 domain names designed to target hotel reservation customers, in 43 different languages, with spam email domains like Booking/ Expedia/ Airbnb, urging recipients to click a link to confirm booking in next 24 hours, which then shifts to a bogus site with phrases like guest-check/ card verify/ reservation to give illusion of legitimacy;  (3) Phishing emails posing as legitimate customers or business partners requesting quotations or invoice confirmations through domains belonging to local enterprises, distributors, government-linked entities and hospitality firms that routinely process RFQs and supplies communications.  [HACKER NEWS]

 

  • “WE GAVE STUDENTS LAPTOPS AND TOOK AWAY THEIR BRAINS.” As schools have replaced traditional learning with digital tools and students now spend hours daily viewing screens, three decades of research confirm that digital tools impair learning, supported by consistent drops in internationally standardized tests in reading, math & science. The fundamental reason is evidently simple – that “students comprehend and remember less when reading from online screens than from paper, which triggers an unconscious shift from deep concentration to shallow skipping (glancing, scrolling and extracting instead of truly learning).”  https://www.thefp.com/p/we-gave-students-laptops-and-took

 

  • I. IS CURRENTLY REPLACING ONE-IN-EIGHT WORKHOURS, affecting nearly a quarter of job positions, half of which are white collar. Worst hit sectors are in I.T., health care, administration, accounting, HR, call centers and data entry. Since rule-of-thumb in business is that a new worker costs for recruiting/ on-boarding/ training is up to six-months salary, most companies won’t be firing experienced people, but will just stop hiring new employees as they grow – up to a 13% decline in employment. Jobs that are least vulnerable to this AI impact are skilled trades, personal services like medicine/ nursing/ physical therapy/ personal training/ child care/ cooking & bartending/ content creators. But the replaceable white-collars in the middle, with their expensive degrees, face deep trouble. [PETER ST. ONGE]

 

  • THIS YEAR’S ‘GERRYMANDERING’ BATTLES are annoying but not illegal, since federal laws allow legislators to set voting districts by “considering political data,” including past election results, party registration, turnout history, and/or ‘demographic correlations’ like race/ income/ education/ urban & rural populations. Since the Constitution does not guarantee proportional representation, lawmakers are entitled to act on statistical voter patterns to create partisan map-drawing. Democrats have taken the lead in this battle and currently, in some states (like New York, Massachusetts, Illinois, Maryland) up to 40% of Republican voters don’t have a single seat representing them in the House; meanwhile, Republicans play the same advantage in some states (like Texas, Florida, Ohio, North Carolina), so whining by either side is incredibly hypocritical. Yet, where the allocations are geographically extreme, 49% of a party’s voters can lose 100% of the seats, so neither side wants to stop those advantages by condemning Gerrymandering nationally to allow proportional representation, and will only support reform where and when it doesn’t reduce their seats. Our system is the worst – except for most every other system in the world.

THOUGHTS FOR THE WEEK  

  • A FEW LAST-MINUTE BUSINESS TAX-SAVING STRATEGIES: (1) Allowable 100% depreciation write-off for procuring additional equipment which might otherwise have been pushed off until next year; (2) Prepaying otherwise accruable expenses with a term of up to 12-months (like insurance, service contracts, local taxes); (3) Reduction of inventory valuation for product to be offered at a reduced price (and below cost) within 30 days after count.
  • WHILE WE LIVE IN A TIME OF ABUNDANCE & OPPORTUNITY, life today offers no shortage of occasions or things about which to find fault, so we live in a culture of Complaint, too often encouraged and rewarded by commercials — which never stop messaging that our problems will continue unless or until we fork over money for a product or service that will ‘fix’ it. The message is that only with the following app/ robot/ service/ product/ pill, can we more quickly get to the life we want, evidenced by others on the screen or social media. (The fact that the product or service turns out to be just another subscription, more stuff, or more to do, and eventually breaks, doesn’t seem to matter.) “The trouble is that kvetching about everything is addictive, producing some kind of chemical reaction in the brain that becomes a dependency, and once in that mode, is hard to shake off. Some benefits also come from social attention – as others respond by dishing out some sympathy or pity, which only further affirms and rewards the complainer with pride of being the center of focus – a temporary dopamine hit.” [EPOCH TIMES]
  • Four stages of a man’s life: (1) You believe in Santa; (2) You don’t believe in Santa; (3) You are Santa; (4) You look like Santa!