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sarganaga

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Posts posted by sarganaga

    Equifax Massive Security Breach

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Here are a few articles about how insurers use credit reports to "help" determine rates:

     

    https://www.edmunds.com/auto-insurance/does-your-credit-score-affect-your-car-insurance-rate.html

    https://www.nationwide.com/car-insurance-credit-score.jsp

    https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/car-insurance/credit-scores-affect-auto-insurance-rates/index.htm

     

    If the insurer can't check your score, it can't tell that you have excellent credit.

     

    A few states such as California don't allow this.

    Equifax Massive Security Breach

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    My wife and I were both affected by the data breach according to Equifax.  After thinking about the potential problems, we believe that having someone attack the money in our existing accounts or committing crimes using our identities are the biggest problems for us. Credit card misappropriation, payday loans, & other borrowings are pains to resolve but less serious for us. If our credit rating is impacted by having any of these happen, we don't anticipate borrowing money for much of anything anyway. We're content with our current credit cards and use them for convenience rather than a credit line. So this is our situation. Here's what were doing so far.

     

    (1) We signed up for the free credit monitoring with Equifax and also for free monitoring with AAA. I don't expect this to stop anything, but it will let us know if something nefarious is going on.

     

    (2) We signed up for "True ID" at our local DMV. This was a little bit of a hassle, but might be very useful in resolving murky questions of identity in disputes.

     

    (3) Retirement accounts are now set up as "No Money Out". To take it off requires a personal visit. While doing this, we met a few minutes with the branch manager and the person who processes this paperwork and explained our reasons for doing so.

     

    (4) Verbal passwords and voice recognition protocols and now set up for phone calls to all accounts.

     

    (5) Wherever possible, we have setup two factor authentication for online account access.

     

    (6) We have not done a credit freeze yet. I'm concerned about auto insurance price increases as a result. I'm sure there are other places where the credit companies have inserted themselves as indispensable cogs with penalties for their non-inclusion. Also, a credit freeze is nowhere near bulletproof for stopping the bad guys, as discussed in the recent Forbes articlehttps://www.forbes.com/sites/nickclements/2017/09/13/3-reasons-a-credit-freeze-wont-protect-you/#385db10a42e1. I'm not sure if we will do this or not.

     

    (7) We both file income tax with PIN numbers.

     

    This is what we've done with our situation so far. What I mostly take away from what I've been researching is that all of us are on our own. Government officials and corporate types may make some concerned and thoughtful noises, but not too much important stuff will likely get done. This is a big deal and going to get worse.

     

     

    Equifax Massive Security Breach

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Didn't see your other thread. I agree with your suggestions & possible investment implications.  I signed up today for the monitoring. My wife's signup date is tomorrow & she will signup then. At least Equifax has taken the arbitration condition off.

     

    Unfortunately, this seems like a really big deal that will hang like a dark cloud over our finances for many years to come.

     

    Yes, this is huge.  We can be compromised for the rest of our lives with this one.  Maybe this will be a catalyst to come up with a different solution than the way SSN and credit checks work (e.g., freezing that is easy to do and not cost anything and requiring that the freeze be honored, at the liability of the issuer)...

     

    I really hope this obvious solution has a chance of becoming reality. This  makes sense & should be easy to do. However, the scum that inhabit the halls of congress are richly rewarded for seeing this doesn't happen. If the financial wizards didn't suffer too much for their role in 2008-2009, probably won't suffer too much this time. Equifax should be facing financial death penalty for this.

     

    Color me skeptic. Likely nothing will be done, nothing will be changed, Equifax settles class action for pennies and that's pretty much it. Do you guys really think that govt can push through a reform? Or that credit bureaus + financial companies will try to change the credit check solution voluntarily?

     

    As noted above, I would like to think something positive and simple could be done, but unfortunately join you in the skeptics camp.

    Equifax Massive Security Breach

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Didn't see your other thread. I agree with your suggestions & possible investment implications.  I signed up today for the monitoring. My wife's signup date is tomorrow & she will signup then. At least Equifax has taken the arbitration condition off.

     

    Unfortunately, this seems like a really big deal that will hang like a dark cloud over our finances for many years to come.

    Equifax Massive Security Breach

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    The masterminds at Equifax managed to allow the personal data of 143 million Americans to be stolen. This includes social security numbers, date of birth, addresses, and other info as described here http://money.cnn.com/2017/09/11/technology/equifax-identity-theft/index.html

     

    Been searching for security suggestions. https://krebsonsecurity.com/2015/06/how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-embrace-the-security-freeze/This seems to make sense, but there are inconveniences with credit freezes, even perhaps significant increases in your auto insurance rates if your credit records can't be accessed.

     

    FWIW, both my wife and I are affected by this.

     

    Anyone have any thoughts or experience in dealing with possible/actual identity theft?

     

     

    Anybody else play poker?

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Been playing since the late 1960's. Public card room games in Vegas and SoCal at medium stakes (5-10 NL) and up have gotten very tough. Even 2-5 seems to have quite a few competent players when I've looked at that. Higher stakes wannabe pros  keep moving down the food chain trying to find games they can beat. Very few, if any, new recreational are players coming into the games. The rake keeps going up. Skill levels continue to equalize.  Looks like a race to the bottom.

     

     

    worst of times?

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Here's what I would do if starting now. Figure our what you would like your ideal overall asset allocation to be. Meb Faber has some useful white papers and a book on this at his website http://mebfaber.com/. Consider buying assets that are cheap now ... emerging markets, especially small caps (you can get broad exposure through First Trust Emerging Markets FEMS and other etfs), Japan, etc. Hold cash to buy investments in the other components of your ideal allocation as they become "cheap" enough for you to feel comfortable. Periodically survey investments in the under owned segments of you ideal allocation to find candidates that meet your criteria.

    Reasonably priced growth companies in Emerging markets

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    It's essentially a collection of assets that were under the control of the Beijing Municipal Government. The mishmash of businesses is not that unusual in China (ex Cheung Kong, Cofco, Chinese Resources Holdings before some of its spinoffs,Jardine  group, Shanghai Industrial, etc) . As to the cheapness, who knows for sure? I think it mostly got caught in the downturn of Chinese stocks. Some people probably didn't like that they invested ~US one billion in Russian natural gas fields.

     

    They have monopoly like status for most of their businesses in Beijing with growth opportunities outside the area in water, natural gas distribution, and beer. It's about a 4% position for me.

     

    Their website is user friendly and has quite a bit of info about the company, structure, future plans, etc http://www.behl.com.hk/en/global/home.php

    Chou 2016 semi annual report

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    FWIW, I bought CHOEX (Chou Opportunity Fund) in late June for the following reasons:

    (1) Chou's stock/security selections are very different from other stocks I own. Put another way, he buys things I would never buy or don't understand such as SHLD & VRX.

    (2) His long term record is pretty good.

    (3) The fee reimbursement for 2015 & waiver for 2016 is not commonplace & IMO demonstrates a lot of integrity.

     

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