Apple has already made big changes to how we buy things, now that it's possible to use Apple Pay to check out with a flick of the wrist or a press of a button. And Apple Pay has significant competition, with Google and Samsung promoting their own mobile payment systems, so many transactions that used to require plastic and signatures are now virtual. Apple Pay alone is on track to process 10 billion transactions this year.
Apple's recent announcement of the new Apple Card service may at first blush seem like just another added feature—now Apple Pay can have a line of credit. But it's possible that this will impact the credit card industry almost as profoundly as how Netflix affected Blockbuster when it started sending DVDs in red envelopes.
Apple Card is a credit card that lives in your Wallet app, supplemented by an unusual physical card. The application process will be built into the app when Apple Card becomes available in the United States sometime in the middle of 2019—no mention was made of other countries. Apple Card accounts work only for individuals; multiple cards aren't supported.
Apple Card uses two different methods of payment, Apple Pay and the Mastercard network. As with current Apple Pay transactions, there's no permanent number associated with your account, and therefore no number printed on the physical card—the Wallet app generates a unique number for every transaction, which happens behind the scenes.
For Mastercard transactions—which you'll use whenever purchasing from a vendor that doesn't take Apple Pay—a tap on the card in Wallet brings up your card number, expiration date, and CVV security number. These are assigned when you open the account, but for security purposes, you can recycle those numbers and get issued new ones at any time, right in Wallet.
You'll need the physical card only when making purchases in person at vendors that don't accept Apple Pay—the card has both a chip and a magnetic stripe. Left unclear is how the magnetic stripe works when you can change the number virtually. Historically this would require writing the new number to the magnetic strip, but perhaps some networking magic pulls the latest number from Apple Pay at the time of purchase.
Bring up your Apple Card account in Wallet, and you'll see the kind of data you'd expect from a credit card Web site, combined with financial analysis and presented with Apple design. The launch screen shows you your balance and available credit, a thumbnail chart of your recent purchases, and a reminder of when the next payment is due. All your purchases are automatically categorized (it's unclear if you'll be able to set your own) for grouping in multi-colored graphs so you can see what you've spent on restaurants or car expenses. The report also automatically includes weekly and monthly charts and summaries.
It's at the transaction level that the Apple Card interface has some real wow factor: pull up your transactions, and each one will be clearly described instead of showing the incomprehensible abbreviations that sometimes appear on statements. It even shows logos for known vendors. Tap a transaction, and a map comes up showing you where you made the purchase—good for a reminder of what you purchased, or evidence to dispute a charge.
Behind the pretty pictures, Apple Card's financial features are quite different from what you may be used to. During the presentation, Apple said that there are no fees, period: no annual fees, no late fees, no cash advance fees, no over-limit fees. Plus, Apple said, and this is worth quoting, "our goal is to provide interest rates that are among the lowest in the industry." Even if you miss a payment, your interest rate won't go up.
When you make a payment, which you do through the Wallet app, you can use a calculator that lets you set a payment less than the full amount, and shows you what the resulting interest charge will be. Obviously, it's zero if you pay the full amount every month, but otherwise, you'll know precisely what you're being charged to carry over debt. The slider includes suggested amounts to pay: carry a large balance and the circle is red, pay a decent chunk and it shifts to yellow, or pay most or all of it for green. You'll always know when the payment is due: it's the last day of the month, for everyone.
The Wallet app will also provide "smart payment suggestions" meant to help you lower your interest charges or manage your money better, such as setting up multiple monthly payments timed to your paychecks. Wallet will prompt you that more frequent payments will lower your interest charges—which implies that interest accrues daily since the more standard monthly accrual method doesn't lower the interest you'll owe if you pay a week early.
Instead of points, rewards, or other incentive programs, Apple Card offers cash back—same-day cash back, called Daily Cash. You'll be credited 3% for purchases with Apple (including the App Store), 2% for other Apple Pay transactions, and 1% when using Mastercard. You can apply Daily Cash to the card balance, use it for any other purpose within Apple Pay, or send to a bank account, and there's no upper limit on how much you can receive.
Fraud protection is built in by sending you a notification whenever a charge is made, which is commonplace with other credit card apps. But other apps don't give you a button to tell Apple the charge was unauthorized—Apple claims it'll then take care of it without bothering you further—and most don't offer a live 24/7 text chat in Messages you can drop into for any other problems. (Those who do don't offer Apple's no-wait promise.) It seems likely that Apple is leveraging the still-in-beta-since-iOS-11.3 Business Chat service. The prominence of the chat suggests that if you prefer to get a human being on the phone, well, good luck.
Their other major security feature is mind-blowing: much as Apple can't read your iMessage conversations in real-time, the company says that it knows nothing about your transactions, their size, location, or any other metadata. That's all handled by Apple Card's banking partner, Goldman Sachs. The Wallet app stores all of this information locally to make graphs and show you the details you want. Apple hasn't said whether you'll be able to delete locally stored transaction data for security purposes, but the only way to get to it or any purchase capability is with Touch ID or Face ID. What Apple has done here is create a purchasing platform where Apple itself isn't part of the loop.
Most likely, this is done with end-to-end encryption from Goldman Sachs servers through Apple to your iOS device. Apple is warranting that Goldman will use your transactional data only for account purposes and will never share or sell it to third parties. That's a sweeping statement for one corporate partner to make on behalf of another and puts Apple on the hook both for Goldman's deliberate actions and for any errors or attacks that disclose data. It's a shockingly user-friendly move in the context of the credit card industry, as is giving up the rich data mine of information that these transactions create. Beyond that, the engineering commitment necessary to present the data Wallet has to process, in a way that exposes none of it to Apple, is stunning for a dozen technical reasons. The privacy promises Apple is making required massive effort, indicating that this is a true company value rather than a marketing maneuver.
In fact, scratch the surface, and there's quite a lot that's stunning about these Apple Card policies. What appear to be a few user-friendly features could have massive ramifications.
One key thing to understand about financial technology is that the tools we use affect the purchases we make. If you pay with your watch versus pulling out a card, you'll buy different things—more accurately, you'll buy more things because you're bypassing psychological barriers involved with cash and plastic. There's a reason Amazon patented one-click purchasing.
Likewise, the data you have affects your behavior. How long do you spend deciding whether to make a $500 purchase and is that more time than it took you to add a $500 option to a $40,000 car? The price of the car inclines you to think differently about the $500—especially if it becomes less of a blip in a monthly payment. This effect is called priming.
The credit card industry is geared around getting you to pay more and to never be quite clear on how much more. Say you buy a $600 item because it's on sale for $500, and you use a credit card because it's outside your immediate budget. That amount might cost you $10 in interest each month—carry that balance for a year, and that sale purchase was silly. The $100 came out of the retailer's pocket and went to the bank (with a little extra), so the bank doesn't want you to think of it as an added cost for that purchase. It's just a fee. Meanwhile, you "saved $100" and are inclined by this thinking to do so again in the future.
If you know the basics of personal financial management, you know that this kind of thinking is not merely irrational, it's dangerous—the slippery slope to crushing debt loads. But this isn't about rationality. The psychological effects that the credit card industry triggers are hardwired—chimpanzees in primate labs demonstrate the same irrational financial behaviors we do (substituting grapes and sugar water for folding money).
Apple is upending this by dropping all fees and by telling you precisely what it will cost you to underpay your balance. Having that information primes you to make different choices—you'll know from the slider and suggested payment plans that $500 out of the budget this month is an extra $10 next month, and that same $10 every month until you pay it off.
Consumer advocates have been fighting to force credit issuers to provide this information for years, but the best they've been able to get out of regulators are those 40-page pamphlets that no one reads. Their biggest victory to date has been the summary box on every application and acceptance letter. Like an FDA ingredient label on food, it boils down the most salient costs of the card. But a consumer needs non-trivial math skills to understand this information—if your card has a 24.9% interest rate and a late fee of $25, how much interest will be added and what will your balance be in 3 months if you pay off half your balance? This involves compound interest—even math whizzes usually need a spreadsheet to calculate it. Apple Card brings those skills to the masses.
This difference is crucial. Earlier, I introduced good credit practices by saying, "if you know the basics of personal finance management." The fact is, very few people do. We routinely use credit instruments where calculating interest requires a spreadsheet and knowing how and when to raise a decimal to the twelfth power, in a country that routinely prints a suggested 20% tip calculation on restaurant receipts because people don't know it means "divide by 5." It's not an overstatement to say that some credit card issuers prey on their customers' ignorance and exploit normal but irrational human behaviors. Apple turns this upside down: Apple Card and Wallet subtly teach you about credit and create virtuous feedback loops that likely improve your behaviors on an unconscious level. It's the same priming, but on the side of the angels for the first time.
Once Apple starts doing this, the question for every other credit card issuer in the country will become, "Why don't you?" And because this is part of a free-market competition between private companies, those in favor of minimal regulation of the financial industry can do nothing about it—Apple has moved it from a political issue to a consumer feature.
Apple gets to look extremely generous with its Apple Card fee structure. It's a compelling argument to switch from more expensive cards with complicated reward structures to no fees and daily cash back. So one might ask—why? Does Apple hate money?
The answer involves some psychology and some microeconomics. Credit card issuers usually want to find the right customers. Customers who carry no debt are potentially money losers, eating the cost of the rewards and paying no interest, which is why high-reward cards have annual fees. Customers who carry a lot of debt run up huge interest, which is great for the issuers… unless those people go bankrupt. It's no longer possible to walk away from debt via bankruptcy the way you once could, but credit card issuers still get pennies on the dollar. The sweet spot, toward which these companies herd their customers, is where the credit card issuers are extracting as much profit as possible without pushing too many customers into bankruptcy and turning future revenue into written-off unpaid debt. That's why there are due dates, minimum payments, and late fees—they ensure a regular flow of income from even the biggest debtors because they are incentivized to avoid more fees.
Here is where Apple gets to exercise its power in an interesting way: miss a normal credit card payment and it costs you money, but miss an Apple Card payment and every Apple device you own might degrade in service. Just as failing to pay for iCloud prevents any new uploads to your paid iCloud storage, Apple could deter you from going into arrears on Apple Card by affecting everything you do with an Apple ID. If you're paying for other Apple services, you might also lose access to Apple Music, be unable to purchase new apps, or have problems using apps that require ongoing subscriptions. Now consider the free services Apple provides, such as iCloud password and calendar syncing, which could also be suspended at the same time or at a later date for customers who still haven't paid.
Apple doesn't need your late fees. Apple could apply pressure in other ways to make sure Apple Card is the first card you pay.
Does Apple Really Intend to Lower Interest?
I am more skeptical about Apple's claims that it wants to be generous regarding interest. The business of lending money is all about interest. Goldman Sachs isn't interested in a partnership with a charity.
Part of the answer lies in the unannounced details of what merchants will pay. When you buy something with a credit card, the merchant typically pays 2–3% to the credit card issuer. (That cost is generally built into the overall price of the purchase; it's why gas stations advertise separate cash and credit prices.) Another smaller deduction is made for the credit card processor—for example, CNN reports that Apple currently makes under 1 cent for each Apple Pay transaction. Multiply by 10 billion transactions, and that's some nice money. But it's nothing compared to a percentage of the transaction.
Apple is still the processor of payments that take place over Apple Pay, but it also has a relationship with Goldman Sachs for Apple Card charges. Financial news coverage is saying Apple will now share in the issuer fees that Goldman Sachs receives from the merchant, and maybe other revenue. Let's assume Apple will make a 1% profit after shouldering business costs and its share of the 2% rebate to cardholders. The average credit card charge in the US is $93, which means Apple makes less than 1 cent on Apple Pay, but 93 cents for whatever fraction of 10 billion transactions end up being paid through Apple Card. That's a strong incentive for Apple to sign up as many customers as it can safely manage.
Apple could have gone a different path. Apple Card is issued by Goldman Sachs, but not in New York City. It's issued by the Goldman Sachs branch in Salt Lake City, Utah. Like Delaware and South Dakota, Utah is particularly friendly to credit card issuers, and by locating their consumer credit arm there, Goldman and Apple can charge higher rates and enjoy less-restrictive regulation than would be the case in New York or California. That location likely predated Goldman's conversations with Apple, but given the tight integration that must be taking place in this partnership, Apple could have forced a new location and made a binding promise about Apple Card's rates by issuing cards in a state that caps at a lower ceiling. Draw your own conclusions as to why this did not happen. It's one of the few things about Apple Card that's just like every other credit card.
One last thing is striking about the sum total of Apple's announcements, and it has little to do with financial matters. Recently, Senator Elizabeth Warren made headlines by talking about bringing antitrust charges against big tech companies, including Apple. This led to a lot of uninformed comments about how such breakups could never happen. That's historically inaccurate. Both Standard Oil and AT&T in its "Ma Bell" days were far more integrated and centrally crucial to the American economy than Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Google are today, and the federal government broke up both. The current political climate is different, but those who think it couldn't happen again should read the writings of people who said it would never happen to AT&T.
There is no way of knowing how successful Elizabeth Warren will be in her presidential bid, of course, but she's also a senator, and now that she's put the idea of breaking up Big Tech into the political marketplace, others are likely to take up the idea or propose parallel options. That doesn't mean that such a thing will occur, but it does suggest that the concern is not going away, and that in turn puts public pressure on corporate shoulders.
In several ways, the Apple Card announcement paints a much larger target on the company's back. There are solid technical and business reasons why it's consumer-friendly for Apple to sell iPhones, run the App Store, and ship iOS apps independent of what's part of iOS. That's a case Apple could do well with in court.
But when Apple runs the bank that you use to pay for Apple products or uses its control of Apple Pay to set pricing for Apple Card transactions, that's when it starts to look like an oil company controlling everything from the well to the refinery to the gas station. Apple is also proposing to sell you TV hardware, connect you to TV providers, and subscribe you to its own TV content—this is already drawing attention, and there's no technical argument against breaking up such business integration.
Combine this, however, with what I said earlier: the consumer-friendly processes Apple is introducing, without any government intervention, have been a goal of Elizabeth Warren's side of the political spectrum forever. (And specifically for Warren, who came to politics after becoming known as an economics professor promoting such ideas—she's the woman behind the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.) What Apple announced is a win for consumer advocates, on par with how environmentalists would feel about Exxon Mobil announcing that it would start closing gas stations to replace them with wind power for electric vehicles.
It's fascinating that just as the American political spectrum is widening in both directions to include discussions of previously "impossible" ideas—and other major markets like the European Union and China undergo their own chaotic political and economic changes—Apple announces that it's getting into the financial world in a big way. Just as the iPhone blew away every mobile phone with a keyboard, I believe that the Apple Card could mark a similar turning point for consumer finance. First for what customers expect from their financial service providers, second for government action driven by those changes, and finally for the corporations themselves. The more people who use Apple Card, the faster these changes could occur.
Warren said she worries about the financial security of working and middle class Americans, who she says have not enjoyed the spoils of a stronger economy.
The 2% discount (3% on Apple purchases) and daily reward of such will atrract a non trivial number of people.
I have a Costco Citi card that gives me 2% on anything I buy from Apple PLUS extends the Apple warranty by 2 years up to a total of 4 or 5 years. And I have some other travel rewards cards that net out to 4% or 5% returns plus add a year of warranty if I like my discounts in terms of miles and points.
I might get it but I'd need to see more details about exactly what benefits I'd get.
For a global player like Apple, and in line with the "no fees" emphasis, I would expect "no fees" also means no foreign transaction fee. If so, this would be another place where the Apple Card stands out. In my experience, most "no annual fee" cards have a foreign transaction fee.
Apple did say no foreign transaction fees, which is pretty unusual. That is another benefit of the Costco Citi card, though. That also has no foreign transaction fees for Costco members.
I would guess that the main attractions of the Apple Card are the visibility and definition of charges and location of charge within the app, and the lack of late fees and interest rate penalties for people who have a tendency to be less reliable about paying bills on time.
Apple said their card has no foreign transaction fees. But I saw some website zoomed in on the slide showing their example statement and one of the items was a foreign transaction fee!
My Chase Amazon card has no foreign transaction fees. I used that in Europe last fall and it saved me hundreds of dollars my other card would have charged me. Those fees really add up when you're traveling!
I remember seeing the same posting. However, the site later noted that the picture was of the statement for the non-Apple Card; the Apple Card statement showed no fee.
Is the periodicity of a statement still monthly? Will the transactions be easily exportable on a statement basis to a financial program (i.e. downloadble in .qfx format)?
Apple has said that monthly bills will be due at the end of a month. But what is the statement closing date? How many days of no-interest grace will be provided between the closing date and due date ((i.e. the grace period). For most credit card providers, it's between 21 and 28 days.
The market for streaming entertainment services in the highly regulated Chinese market is growing rapidly, and though Netflix tried to negotiate deals, nothing has happened. And although internet service currently tends to be slow and spotty in many areas, China is pushing ahead with 5G. Apple Music is already available there, and Apple's manufacturing presence is important to China's economy, so they might have a better shot than Netflix. And although Netflix has been hugely successful in Mexico, Brazil, India, etc., Apple has a good chance in other emerging markets too.
News+ also has great international potential. Condé Nast, one of the founders of Texture, publishes editions Vogue, GQ, Wired, Traveller, Architectural Digest, New Yorker, Glamour and more across the globe, including in China. Another Texture founder, Hearst, publishes Cosmopolitan, Elle, Esquire, Harper's Bazaar, etc., is also a major presence across the globe, not to mention other publishers.
An international roll out of Apple's new credit card would be a great boost to the sale of hardware and subscription services, in addition to the revenue it would generate in and of itself.
I'd get one just for the much better security and privacy from merchant tracking if there were no other considerations.
Goldman Sachs? Really Apple, was climbing in with such a sleaze ball the best you could do?
More importantly though is something that I never see mentioned in 'getting a new card' discussions: It can cost hundreds of bucks from increased insurance rates. Insurance companies claim that getting a new card is a red flag that you're going to commit fraud or abscond, and they convict and penalize you in advance of any actual crime because they're allowed to. When I got my credit union card so I could ditch my Chase card, I ended up paying over $300 in increased home insurance rates over several years. I only knew because WA state requires disclosure, and because I read the home insurance fine print. That was about ten years ago, but with less regulation these days it could be even worse now.
Insurance companies claim that getting a new card is a red flag that you're going to commit fraud or abscond, and they convict and penalize you in advance of any actual crime because they're allowed to. When I got my credit union card so I could ditch my Chase card, I ended up paying over $300 in increased home insurance rates over several years.
Odd. Haven't heard of this one. My daughter and I do a lot of CC spending to get points. We both have over 20 open cards each in our families. And our insurance didn't change once we started this.
Now if you only have a few cards without much of a limit and spend up to the limit that can really ding your credit score. A big factor in your score is how much you typically have ourstanding in relation to your total limit. And I suspect that a lower credit score can cause your to pay more for insurance.
Anyway compared to the cards I have and that are available (and your goals) the Apple card appears to not be bad, just not all that great.
Here's a good overview of the Apple card and others and why you might pick each.
How does Apple Card stack up against other cards that cost you zilch to hold?
It can depend on state laws. WA allows the surcharge aka theft, but requires disclosure. Other states may have different rules.
It could also depend on their algorithms. If someone has a years long habit of getting new cards, it might lower the risk score.
I'm pretty sure that I have a dreadful overall credit score, because I don't normally buy all that much, I pay in full every month, and have no debt of any kind. Only the credit union makes any money off of me at all, because they get to use the money in my accounts. Financial people hate people like me. Which is fine since the feeling is mutual.
These links are from a site I frequent called "The Points Guy". There are dozens of others. "One Mile At A Time" is another I like. I'm travel oriented so I tend to follow sites that deal with travel things.
Many Americans are making some big missteps when it comes to calculating their credit scores. Are you one of them?
As the new year kicks off, it's time to check in on your credit score. Follow these helpful tips to get 2019 started on the right foot.
Many of Amex's best rewards cards are charge cards rather than credit cards. Learn about the implications for your credit score and credit utilization ratio.
Thanks for those pointers to articles from The Points Guy, David Ross. I do wish the articles had publication dates though. At least one of them seemed to have information that was out of date.
There are two questions that I have not seen clearly answered. First, what is an Apple purchase? Is that something that has the Apple logo on it or a service from Apple? Or would it include anything purchased from an Apple store, even if it was not a Apple product? Second, does the store matter for purchasing an Apple product? I'm wondering both about other Apple Stores (for example, Apple Store for Education) and other retailers that sell Apple products. And would a non-Apple product from the Apple Store for Education be the same as the same non-Apple product from the Apple Store? Would brick-and-mortar be the same as on-line?
I assume that Goldman Sachs would have some mechanism such that the customer could automate payment-in-full each months.
Leads to reply 1 to Dana Schwartz: it really can't be overestimated how much goodwill this will generate among consumer advocates, including presumably Warren. For as long as I've been aware of these groups, they've always focused on government regulation because it was simply a given that no corporation would ever unilaterally do this.
As for Goldman Sachs—I'm told that when they launched their consumer credit, most of their customers were extremely wealthy people who used Goldman as their investment bank. I.e., "I have $500 million under management with them, so it's convenient to have a checking account and credit card." The consumer bank and the investment bank are separate by law, so in theory your opinion of the investment bank should be as well. (In practice, a corporate culture could cross over, but in my anecdotal secondhand experience from Wharton friends, the two groups don't socialize.) I can see why Goldman retail would see this as a way to diversify their customer base in a big way.
David Ross: analysis I read today mentioned something I should have twigged to, that the cash back reward is likely to be available for the first time to borrowers who don't usually qualify for rewards cards. The story estimated that 2/3rds of Americans will likely qualify based on the interest rates mentioned—and if Apple is telling the truth, a higher percentage because they'll offer 24% rates to the 25-28% group as well.
Will M and others: I fully expect that one month after the Card is out, we'll see a flood of tweets and posts to the effect of "APPLE LIED!!!1!1!!!" because they got hit with some low-volume uncommon fee. I'm not sure what causes a foreign transaction fee? When I've traveled (and it's not been for a few years internationally), debit card and ATM usage only costs a few tenths of percent extra in the exchange rate.
Alan Forkosh: I'll be shocked if downloads don't integrate with every major financial app. My guess is that the grace period will be "no interest until the following cycle" as per usual, otherwise there's a small interest charge on charges made the 1st and paid the 31st. The statement that paying twice a month lowers interest payments indicates daily compounding, so my guess is that the grace period is until the same day the following month.
MMTalker: I'm not going to prognosticate international rollout because the regulatory issues are 10x normal. Here Apple can bypass being regulated like a consumer bank by partnering with one; if that's not true elsewhere (and I'm sure it isn't in the EU), they're going to be very slow to expand. And since I suspect that Apple is going to use an adjusted risk model, they're going to want to test those assumptions with a year or two of data before expanding.
Gastropod: Your credit rating is independent of interest paid, until it gets very high when it lowers your score. They want to see frequent charges that are paid off, and it certainly doesn't hurt that you don't carry any other debt. The kind of debt that improves your score is very large loans paid off monthly over time, i.e. a mortgage.
Will M: any payment made at Apple is 3%, so non-Apple products at an Apple Store or non-Apple providers in the App Store all qualify. At least, if there are exceptions (i.e., for education stores) that's not stated yet; OTOH, my educational storefront is the Penn Bookstore and that's not Apple.
Will close by saying: I wasn't a financial journalist before this story, so while the story is fact-checked my comments are not, and I welcome corrections.
Well, 'privacy' in that Apple doesn't see the data, but Goldman Sachs does. To be honest, I'm much more comfortable with Apple having my data than Goldman Sachs.
Exactly. I will never get an Apple Card until they use an ethical financial services provider.
This Matthew Panzarino article is a useful 'how it works' piece.
All a bit moot in Europe… the absence of Tap to Pay with the card will be a big disincentive on this side of the water. We have Apple Pay and Google Pay and young people do use it but Everybody taps.
The main detail in this article that was depressing for us is that Apple Card is tied to an individual—there's no way to get multiple cards for the same account. Tonya and I only ever do that to reduce the amount of accounting and mental overhead in dealing with multiple cards (I honestly hadn't even considered the possibility that a credit card would ever not make that possible). Unlike folks who try to game the points and rewards systems, we don't find dealing with credit cards amusing and we try to have as few as possible.
So I'll probably have to sign up for Apple Card to see how it works and be able to write about it, but it will have to be a truly unique experience for us to use it over any other card.
Well, 'privacy' in that Apple doesn't see the data, but Goldman Sachs does.
At the 36 minute mark of the keynote the VP for Pay and the screen behind her says "Goldman Sachs will never share or sell your data to third parties for marketing" or advertising.
Speaking of accounting, is there any indication if and how information will get out of Wallet and into MoneyDance/Quicken/etc.?
Good questions, Alan. I have a third one: will the "monthly" invoice be mailed or will it just be a PDF that has to be printed? I pay my credit card bills by check so I'll need an invoice stub I can mail in with the payment.
If not via QIF, CSV, or OFX, then you may have to manually enter it. Of course that is what I do now immediately on making a credit card transaction, rather than using the sparse info included it the various download files.
The main detail in this article that was depressing for us is that Apple Card is tied to an individual—there's no way to get multiple cards for the same account.
Perhaps that will be added at a latter date, Adam. First, let Apple get the initial bugs worked out then maybe they can add a form of Family Sharing.
I'm not sure what causes a foreign transaction fee? When I've traveled (and it's not been for a few years internationally), debit card and ATM usage only costs a few tenths of percent extra in the exchange rate.
In my experience, the fee was supposedly to recover exchange rate costs.
Foreign exchange fees are communicated as "to recover exchange rate costs" but they are also a huge money maker for both the card networks (Visa/Mastercard/Amex) and to a lesser extent the banks. In addition to shopping the most favorable exchange rate for the transaction, there is a 2.5% - 3% markup applied as a "convenience charge".
I think it's reasonable for consumers to be divided as to the fairness of this. After all, it is much more convenient not to have to convert and carry foreign currency. But there are ways around this which the truly savvy consumers will use if they find that to be worth the time value of money relative to the savings.
"No foreign exchange fee" cards do away with this convenience fee but still may shop the most favorable exchange rate for themselves, meaning you might be a few basis points above the best possible exchange rate, but save the 2.5% - 3% compared to a "normal" card.
My experience is with Chase which is relatively fair in their application of conversion rates. My recent overseas charges show less than 15 cents per $100 of variation between the wholesale rates and the rates Chase used–very acceptable!
Indeed - while Jeff noted that foreign exchange fees were "a few tenths of a percent extra in the exchange rate", on a family trip to Europe that costs $3000 that would be $90. For people taking a couple such trips a year, it's easy to understand why they might search out a card that has no foreign exchange fees like your examples from Chase.
Um, no. That would be the case if it were 3%.
"A few tenths of a % extra" as per Jeff means it's likely ~$10 for a $3000 vacation. Ten bucks on a several thousand $ trip I find highly acceptable. I know that a conventional currency exchange would charge me a lot more for that exchange in cash. I can't speak for anyone but myself, but I find $10 for that extra convenience perfectly reasonable if I'm spending $3k anyway on that vacation.
Traditionally, US credit cards have charged a fee of 3% or so for any transaction conducted in a foreign currency. This is independent of the currency exchange rate which is usually very close to the neutral rate you'll see in currency exchange apps and tables. By the way, most credit cards that I am familiar with use the rate promulgated by the card brand for the day; so that all Visa cards have the same rate; all Mastercards have the same rate, etc. In general, this is a better rate than you will find doing any cash exchange.
A competitive feature of some credit cards is to drop the 3% charge. For example, among credit cards I am familiar with, the Amex Blue has the charge and the Chase Southwest Card has it. However the Chase British Airways card does not have it, and the Citibank Costco card dropped it recently. The Apple card will join the latter group.
Traditionally, US credit cards have charged a fee of $3 or so for any transaction conducted in a foreign currency.
I think you mean 3% or even higher. It's not a flat rate. I used the wrong card buying a Eurail pass a few years ago. I did it online in the US before my trip and didn't even think about it being a "foreign transaction" — my $400 payment got me charged an extra $46 for the foreign transaction fee.
Yes, my mistake. It's been so long since I switched to a 'no fee' card when I travel that I messed up the explanation. I have edited the original response.
You're fully entitled to dislike Sachs, but at least be aware (as others have noted here already) that institutions this size are large and varied. Banks' investment arms are typically isolated from their commercial banking operations (everyday business and consumer usage), and are often licensed separately. Essentially they share a company brand name, but the staff are very separate. After the '2008 economic event', they also churned both policies (as govt imposed slightly tighter regulation) and people; the questionable ones have likely moved on to elsewhere anyway.
AFAIU, it's similar to most European banking. Here in London, banks are required to keep the businesses separate to avoid the possibility of risk spreading from the relatively more risky investment banking (typically including pensions, and OEIC's/unit trusts, et al.).
Certain of our banks had the same bad banking issues, but really, the world of banking is in many ways small enough that you can't throw the baby out with the bathwater, as they're very interlinked organisations.
A company the size and type of Apple does its due diligence enough for customers to know they're not going to jump into bed with some fly-by-night. And anyway, this is not your bank account, but a separate credit (i.e. debt) facility, so they can't access your actual money.
As in basis points, so 30% of 1% percent, you'd mean 30 basis points.
(One for the economically trained people out there.
Apple's forthcoming Apple Card and updated Wallet app promise innovative features and consumer-friendly particulars. But Jeff Porten thinks Apple Card will have a farther-reaching impact.
Really? Has this been proven with facts from the small print or elsewhere, as it sounds rather unlikely that Apple would remove iCloud services as an incentive to pay your credit card bill (partially or in full).
Surely that's rather a cross-contamination of services, that I'd find it rather likely that US authorities wouldn't look kindly to such persecutory practices being allowable.
Surely they'd just increase your interest rate, reduce your card limit, or cancel your card after repeated errors by the user.
EDIT: Actually I just heard seconds ago on MacBreak Weekly, they're not doing this, but rather the failed payment will simply appear on your credit file as "July: missed payment", "August: missed payment". So other credit facilities will end-up being affected, when those lenders see how bad you are at making payments.
Gosh credit scoring/rating/files (depending on your country) is a minefield. If you pay everything in full and on time they don't like you as they're making no money in interest, conversely if you're crap and have debts unpaid, they don't like you either (they're not getting paid back &/or bankruptcy-type things). No, what they want is someone who is kind-of in debt, but not so much they cannot make payments, and you continue to make them!
Yes, such concerns are without any basis. Not going to be an issue or even close to it.
Banks' investment arms are typically isolated from their commercial banking operations (everyday business and consumer usage), and are often licensed separately.
We USED to have laws regulating this… they are no longer… I hope you do realize we are in an age of the dismantling of any and all regulations that provide any protections for consumers (just look at who heads Treasury)… along with the air we breathe and the water we drink.
As for the "card" it's something very tightly integrated with their phone… I don't have or need that kind of phone AND I would never,ever have any involvement with anything attached to Goldman, they are the true vultures of our day. I'll repeat a comment I made on FB… "All your finances belong to us." that!
Regardless of the level of separation between the investment and retail sections, Goldman Sachs's retail operation does not have an ethical policy as far as I can tell. I'm not willing to have my spending profit a bank that is then investing in industries and causes I don't agree with. Given Apple's ethical policies, I would have hoped they'd gone with a financial institution that had an ethical investment policy.
Here is where Apple gets to exercise its power in an interesting way: miss a normal credit card payment and it costs you money, but miss an Apple Card payment and every Apple device you own might degrade in service.
It's very clearly written as speculation with "might" and "could." I pushed back on it in editing too because it seemed extremely unlikely and legally problematic to me as well; this text was where we ended up.
Obviously, there's no way of knowing for sure what will be true until Apple Card actually becomes available, but the point to ponder is that Apple's business is encompassing multiple industries, each with their own ongoing services and fees. Apple is working hard to tie things together on the user-facing side, so it's not inconceivable there could be additional connections elsewhere in the business model.
Gosh credit scoring/rating/files (depending on your country) is a minefield. If you pay everything in full and on time they don't like you as they're making no money in interest, conversely if your crap and have debts unpaid, they don't like you either (they're not getting paid back &/or bankruptcy-type things). No, what they want is someone who is kind-of in debt, but not so much they cannot make payments, and you continue to make them!
Based on my experience, I believe that it is a myth that if you have no loan history and always pay your credits cards within the grace period (so, no interest), you are considered a bad credit risk. I have never owned a home, always paid cash for a car, and with the exception of misreading a statement every few years, always pay my credit card statement in full. I Have several credit cards with ridiculously high limits so that my utilization numbers are low. I do charge most non-trivial expenses, finding that I need to replenish cash less than once a month. Still, my credit rating is apparently in the 95th percentile. So, the credit companies make money from me on what they siphon off on purchases, not on direct charges (interest) to me. Apparently, they are happy with that, as I still get mumerous offers for no-fee cards.
Yeah, I was being a bit tongue in cheek – a bit of a comic-book explanation of how cc companies see their users in a simplistic outsider-looking-in view!
Thanks for those pointers to articles from The Points Guy, David Ross. I do wish the articles had publication dates though.
They do. Centered under the article title.
The oldest article was from November 3, 2018.
But, yes, details can change a lot in a few months. My picking those over the few hundred other was they give an overview of how things work.
For both groups, the interest rates and fees are predatory, and the obfuscation of how credit usage translates into increasing debt is very high.
As someome who has been on the thin end of the asset and income spectrum at one point in my life here's my take. If these issues apply to you DO NOT GET A CREDIT CARD. End of conversation. If you can't pay the full balance every month, pay on time every month, and never exceed your limit, DO NOT GET A CREDIT CARD. That is all there is to it.
 Yes there are situations where a credit card will offer to spread out payments for 0%. But you MUST make every payment on time or you get back billed the full interest charge.
The ability to create virtual card numbers is nothing new. With my Bank of America credit card I can create one-time numbers or numbers intended to be reused. I can specify how long the numbers are valid and I can set a dollar limit with them. Once used with a particular business, the numbers cannot be used with any other business.
If the new Card has a magnetic stripe intended for use with old fashioned card readers, then it is no more secure than old fashioned credit cards.
Sorry. I strongly feel I play the "game" [noun], but I do NOT "game" [verb] the system. I rarely cancel cards unless it is being replaced by a card I was offered. I follow the rules. Those who "game" [verb] the system tend to get their cards cancelled. And at times their entire business with a bank shut down.
Based on my reading and overseas travel a few times a year and my daughter's more extensive travels (around the world twice just because she could) the best way to avoid excess conversion fees is get cash out of ATMs i the local currency with no fee debit cards (Germany is real big on cash compared to most of the "first" world) and find a no foreign transaction fee card for credit purchases.
And if it is contactless so much the better. In Germany a few months back the grocery stores would give me a total and then somewhat frown when I pulled out plastic then roll their eyes followed by a big sigh when they realized it wasn't contactless and they had to actually get me to sign something.
I believe that it is a myth that if you have no loan history and always pay your credits cards within the grace period (so, no interest), you are considered a bad credit risk.
Total myth. As long as you use the card some reasonable amount they are more than happy to collect 1.5% to 4% of each transaction as profit after the expense of dealing with you.
But banks do NOT like people with credit cards that are gathering dust.
No, I mean privacy from store purchase tracking, the same way that Apple Pay stops that if you eschew loyalty cards. But not everyone takes Apple Pay, such as Kroger and their sub chains. With the Apple card, even if the number isn't tokenized for each purchase (I'm not clear about that) I can frequently change the number outright to block the store from linking all of my purchases together, and the uber-companies linking those to all of my purchases elsewhere. It won't help for online purchases because they have the shipping address to act as a key. But any lessening of data falling into the mill is a win.
I too would rather have Apple have the data than Goldman (or any other bank), but at least it's (probably) no worse than my current credit card, and might be somewhat better.
And will sometimes auto-cancel them on you (I've had it happen, this isn't just internet legend). While this may not seem bad (you're not using the card after all), it can affect your credit score. First, it will decrease your total credit limit which will increase your usage percent (if you have a balance on any card). Second, if it's an old card it may decrease the average life of your cards. Both of those things (usage and life) can affect your score.
Of course if you have a high score and aren't looking to get a loan any time soon, you may not care about the few percent drop in your credit score, but if you do, think about using every card once or twice a year or so.
Chase just did this to me with a card I've had for nearly 20 years. I've only used it for balance transfers in recent years - but I HAVE used it. Yet I got a letter saying it was going to automatically cancel when it expired. It has a high credit limit so I didn't want to lose it. The letter stated that using it after I received the letter would not change its status - I had to call them.
Liberty did the same thing, except I had to use it to keep it. Guess this means I'm going to have to use the cards for little purchases now and then.
The Citi/Costco Visa card gives 4% on gas, 3% on restaurants and travel, 2% on Costco purchases, and 1% on everything else, which would include purchases from Apple.
I am assuming the Costo card is not a no fee card, as you have to pay for the membership fee. What is it currently?
Yeah this is basically true, get the right card for the right job, is the basic rule. Checking each ones fee structures for your usage. So if you travel a lot, make sure you get cards for that; if you want to pay an expensive item off over time, then get a multi-month 0% interest rate purchases card and make sure you can clear the amount within those months, etc.
Basically, cards are not specific to one use, each one has it's own raison d'être, and when you're done with one whose "good" function has ended, it's often best to then close it, as its after that that companies then look to make money from you being tempted to use it for the wrong things that they can charge you for in some way.
total is up to £30, you can either: chipNpin/contactless/ApplePay.
total is over £30, you can either: chipNpin/ApplePay.
The latter is typical, but some stores (for their own reasons?!) stop AP at £30 as well. The same is true in most other European countries, accept some have a different contactless limit, or none at all.
Obviously, each store sets their own rules depending on their liability for covering fraudulent usage. But why policies on usage can't be made more universal… who knows?!
In reality, how does it affect you in having a company tracking your spending?
Surely, all the store is going to do here is offer you things more relevant to you, like vouchers off, or maybe personal advertising in some way? And that's presuming they issue those at the till, as unless you use a loyalty points card or something on top, they don't have your address.
AFAICT, cc companies only track your amounts, not who you spend it with, (I've never had any offers concerning what I buy or should buy from my cc companies that I can remember, ever).
At least here in Europe, under regs like GDPR, neither stores nor cc companies are allowed to sell-on your data to third-parties, so that's a dead end for them.
Data security for theft is important (card skimming, et al.), but outside of that, companies knowing you spend x amount in their stores on y products, AFAICT really shouldn't affect you outside of not being tempted by any 'discount offers' they may try to offer you that fall outside of what you want to spend. And that's down to personal responsibility to not spend.
(1) Card skimming and the tokenisation on each charge.
(2) Ease and ubiquity of usage (I want to be carrying ZERO plastic sometime in future, including beyond payment cards —travel/loyalty/etc. cards— so unless enthusiasts bother to use these things now, it'll take longer to get there ;-).
The Citi/Costco Visa is a no-fee card. It's true that you have to be a Costco member to get it, but you pay the same Costco membership fee whether you get the Visa card or not.
The Costco card also serves as your Costco membership card, so it has your picture on the back. That could be useful when you need to show a picture id but don't want to show a driver's license or other government id.
The reward redemption process is a bit odd. The total amount available is shown with the February statement. You can only redeem it at the checkout of a Costco store. If you don't use it for purchases at that Costco, you will be given the reward in cash.
Sorry. I strongly feel I play the "game" [noun], but I do NOT "game" [verb] the system.
My apologies—all I meant was that all the points and rewards are just that, a game, and not part of a general personal finance strategy. Presumably you find it amusing and sufficiently rewarding to play that game, but I've always seen it as a lot of work and risk. Of course, I'm categorically allergic to all forms of gambling too because of the money involved.
I agree. I have 3 credit cards and I only intended to have 2. A Chase card to get 5% off of Amazon purchases. My bank's card which giver me an extra 10% rebate on top of the regular cash rebate (rebate amount varies by type of purchase), and a Target credit card which started as a Target only card and became a MC which gets me a 5% discount at Target and regular rebates elsewhere. All are no fee cards (if they charged me a fee I would drip them).
An important component of a credit rating is the age of your accounts. If you drop a 10 year old credit card account and replace it with a new one your credit rating will go down. So keeping old accounts is a good idea.
I am interested in the Apple Card, though I don't really want a 4th card. Not for the discount for Apple goods (I buy iTunes cards at 10+% discount on a regular basis from other stores) but for privacy, security, and the 2% discount when I use ApplePay. But I will have to pay attention if another card will give me a bigger discount in any situation. The Apple Card would not replace any of my other cards since they would give me larger discounts most of the time. The Apple Card would get most of its use at Trader Joes, Victory Comics and CVS.
That's perfectly fair enough. I'm exactly the same on most of these points/cashback/store loyalty schemes.
All cashback/points/loyalty systems are essentially trying to achieve, is to get you to spend money, and in doing so they get transaction fees at the most simple level, and further fees (interest, missed payments, etc.) at a deeper level – so the more throughput they can get, the more money they earn.
Importantly from a personal perspective, they all require work to keep ahead of, and that requires time and effort on some level as a user. Busy people don't want to spend their free time dealing with all these "deals", "offers", and paying this card off before that one, or within a certain timeframe or you lose out on said "deal" in the first place.
Sometimes just earning a living, taking simple affordable finance when required, and spending within your means, equals a happier life.
Agreed. If you don't want to put in the time then don't go for points and miles.
But I'm sitting on about $15,000 in value in my current points and miles acounts. Cost me under $3000 in fees. I just spent 2 nights in Florida using a free night certificate plus some points. I'll be spending 7 nights in London this June at an upper level hotel, all on points.
My daughter has been around the world twice (there were destinations and it was just easier to do it that way), taken a shower in a private suite over Europe in the nose of an A380, spent 5 nights in Japan with business/first class air fare both ways with travel costs of less than $400 and more. She and her hustband have had 2 for 1 status with Southwest for well over a year.
If you want to travel it can be a way to do it with a lot fewer $. Yes it will cost some time but the $ savings can be huge.
None needed. I just wanted to clarify. There ARE people who "game" [verb] the system and they tend to lose their credit cards. Not Meeee.
Collapsing all the notes about Costco. They sell Apple gear at a discount. Not much but more than the Apple store for most people. They sell iTunes gift cards $100 for $95 every day. Periodically they go down to $100 cards for $85. So a 15% discounts plus an additional 2% at the end of the year.
And the Costco Citi Visa warranty extension is also for purchases NOT at Costco.
In general Citi cards with $400+ annual fees offer similar warranty extensions but this one has no fees. And as far as I know all the other cards with warranty extensions only cover you up to 1 additional year.
Surely, all the store is going to do here is offer you things more relevant to you, like vouchers off, or maybe personal advertising in some way?
In the US, there are basically no regulations barring data collection or how that data can be used.
"Some of the categories are innocuous — pet owner, or winter sports enthusiast.
they all require work to keep ahead of, and that requires time and effort on some level as a user. Busy people don't want to spend their free time dealing with all these "deals", "offers", and paying this card off before that one, or within a certain timeframe or you lose out on said "deal" in the first place.
Hey, I don't think that is quite fair. There are many no fee bank credit cards that offer a % back on purchases. If you don't want to mess around with which one gives which % on which purchase, you still benefit from just using a points giving card for day to day purchases. With essentially no effort you get a benefit you can use to pay your credit card bill. Of course, it's always prudent to pay you bill by the due date. After all, you are getting free access to money, and a bonus % just for doing so. This doesn't require spending any time figuring out which card to pay first.
One reasonable resource for sorting this out might be nerdwallet.com.
They all do various financial related products (cc's / banks ac's / insurance / loans / etc.), and then there's the many others for everything from cheapest supermarket brand comparisons (mysupermarket.co.uk), to the plethora of travel sites/apps (Trivago.co.uk / Skyscanner.net / Kayak.co.uk / Momondo.co.uk / Travelsupermarket.com / Expedia.co.uk / Ebookers.com / etc. – many of these are international, obviously)… you get the idea, lol!


Orders placed by retailers upon suppliers rose (+13%) at a similar pace to last month year-on-year (+16%).
The measure for the general economic situation of the country during the last twelve months has decreased 11 points to -55; this is seven points higher than December 2011.
An expectation for the general economic situation over the next 12 months has decreased 16 points this month to -31; this is 10 points higher than December 2011.
The UK economy grew by 0.9 per cent in the third quarter of 2012, following three consecutive quarters of negative growth.
Despite being revised down by 0.1 percentage points from the previous estimate, the latest quarterly growth rate remains the strongest since the third quarter of 2007.
Unusual factors in the second and third quarters are thought to have been partly responsible for this. In the second quarter, the poor weather and the loss of a working day due to the Diamond Jubilee may have reduced output. In contrast, hosting the Olympic and Paralympic Games in the third quarter may have supported output.
In Q3 2012, household spending (adjusted for inflation) grew by 0.4 per cent (£874 million), Olympic and Paralympic ticket sales and car purchases were the main contributions to growth.
As usual with these monthly releases from the English Business Survey, not much has happened. I guess we should be keeping track and watching out for trends – but I think I'll wait for the annual summary.
And here is the link for Q3. – not much movement there either.
In the EU27 in 2010, 29.0% of employees with a low education level were low-wage earners, compared with 19.3% of those with a medium level and 5.8% of those with a high level.
In November 2012, year-on-year estimates of retail sales volumes continued to show upward movements that have been seen in the retail sector since August 2011. However, this is not a long term pattern for the retail sector which overall, between 2007 and 2012, has been relatively flat.
Compared with November 2011, the quantity of goods bought (all retailing seasonally adjusted sales volumes) in November 2012 was estimated to have increased by 0.9%. Between the same periods the amount spent (all retailing seasonally adjusted sales values) was estimated to have increased by 1.5%.
The estimated average weekly spend online in November 2012 was £711 million compared with £658 million in November 2011.


text:
Q: What weaknesses can be found in using Erlang? I am considering Erlang as a potential for my upcoming project. I need a "Highly scalable, highly reliable" (duh, what project doesn't?) web server to accept HTTP requests, but not really serve up HTML. We have thousands of distributed clients (other systems, not users) that will be submitting binary data to central cluster of servers for offline processing. Responses would be very short, success, fail, error code, minimal data. We want to use HTTP since it is our best chance of traversing firewalls.
Given this limited information about the project, can you provide any weaknesses that might pop up using a technology like Erlang? For instance, I understand Erlang's text processing capabilities might leave something to be desired.
You comments are appreciated.
Thanks.

A: Make sure you use erlang version R11B5 or newer!  Earlier versions of erlang did not provide the ability to timeout tcp sends.  This results in stalled or malicious clients being able to execute a DoS attack on your application by refusing to recv data you send them, thus locking up the sending process.
See issue OTP-6684 from R11B5's release notes.

A: With Erlang the scalability and reliability is there but from your project definition you don't outline what type of text processing you will need.
I think Erlang's main limitation might be finding experienced developers in your area. Do some research on the availability of Erlang architects and coders.
If you are going to teach yourself or have your developers learn it on the job keep in mind that it is a very different way of coding and that while the core documentation is good a lot of people do wish there were more examples. Of course the very active community easily makes up for that.

A:
I understand Erlang's text processing
  capabilities might leave something to
  be desired.

The starling project already provides basic unicode support and there is a EEP (Erlang Enhancement Proposal) currently in draft, but going in to bring it into the mainstream of Erlang/OTP support.

A: This sounds like a perfect candidate for a language like Erlang. The scaling properties of the language are very good, but if you're worried about the data processing abilities, you shouldn't be. It's a very powerful language, with many libraries available for developers. It's an old language, and it's been heavily used/tested in the past, so everything you want to do has probably already been done to some degree.

A: I encountered some problems with Redis read performance from Erlang. Here is my question. I tend to think the reason is Erlang-written module, which has troubles while processing tons of strings during communication with Redis.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Tickets on Sale for Virginia-Georgetown NCAA Quarterfinal Match
Purchase NCAA Quarterfinal Tickets | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – Tickets are on sale now for the NCAA Quarterfinal match between Virginia and Georgetown on Saturday (Dec. 6) at Shaw Field in Washington, D.C. Fans are encouraged to purchase tickets in advance as this match is expected to sell out.
Tickets are $5 each for all guests ages three and up (children two and under are free). All seating at Shaw Field (capacity 1,625) is general admission.
Fans can purchase tickets online through the Georgetown ticket office.
All tickets purchased in advance will be available for pick up at will call on the day of the game. Will call will open up at noon (one hour prior to the start of the game) and will remain open until halftime.
For all other pertinent information for this match, visit the Georgetown men's soccer ticket page at WeAreGeorgetown.com.
The No. 16 team in the field, Virginia (12-6-4) advanced to the quarterfinals after upsetting top-seeded Notre Dame, 1-0, Sunday evening in Notre Dame, Ind. The Hoyas (14-4-4), the No. 8 seed, moved into the quarterfinals with a 3-2 overtime victory over No. 9-seeded Syracuse on Sunday at Shaw Field. This marks Virginia's first visit to Georgetown since the 1997 season and is just the fourth match between the two sides in the last 17 years.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Data-Driven Efforts To Boost Climate Change Preparedness and Resilience
Posted by Brad Johnson Wed, 19 Mar 2014 21:00:00 GMT
On Wednesday, March 19, the White House, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) will host an event highlighting the Administration's commitment to empower America's communities with the information they need to prepare for the impacts of climate change. The event will include new announcements from Federal agencies, businesses, researchers, academia, and others to deploy data-driven technologies and leverage freely available open government data to build products and services that strengthen our Nation's ability to prepare for the effects of climate change today and in the future.
The Obama Administration recognizes that even as we act to curb the carbon pollution that is driving climate change, we must also improve our ability to prepare for climate impacts that are already occurring across the country. The insights gathered from scientific data are essential to help communities and businesses better understand and manage the risks associated with climate change. The cutting-edge technologies built by American innovators and businesses must be harnessed in order to unleash the insights of science in ways that directly benefit communities on the front lines of climate change.
Over the past few years, the Obama Administration has launched a series of Open Data Initiatives, which have released troves of valuable data that were previously hard to access in areas such as energy, health, education, public safety, and global development. These data are being used by innovators, businesses, researchers, and the public to create new services and applications that benefit Americans.
John Podesta, Counselor to the President
Dr. John P. Holdren, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology and Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy
Mike Boots, Acting Chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality
Dr. Kathryn D. Sullivan, NOAA Administrator and Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere
Dr. Ellen Stofan, NASA Chief Scientist
Jack Dangermond, CEO of Esri
Rebecca Moore, Founder of Google Earth Engine
Rachel Kyte, World Bank Group Vice President & Special Envoy for Climate Change
Joel Dunn, Executive Director, Chesapeake Conservancy
Denice Ross, Director of Enterprise Information, City of New Orleans
Stephen Harper, Global Director, Environment and Energy Policy, Intel Corporation
The event will also feature remarks, presentations, and demonstrations of data-driven tools by private-sector technology companies, communities, scientists, and other climate experts.
MEDIA REGISTRATION: This event is OPEN PRESS. Media wishing to cover this event must RSVP. Press holding White House hard passes must send their name, media outlet, phone, and email, to media_affairs@who.eop.gov, by Wednesday, March 19, at 12:00PM ET, with the subject line "CLIMATE." Press not holding White House hard passes must include their full legal name, date of birth, Social Security number, gender, country of citizenship, and current city and state of residence. All press will enter the White House at the Northwest Gate.
Tags Holdren, Obama, Podesta
Podesta Rebukes Environmentalists For Criticizing Obama's "All of the Above" Support For Fossil-Fuel Extraction
Posted by Brad Johnson Fri, 17 Jan 2014 20:10:00 GMT
Obama's new top climate adviser rebuked environmental leaders who challenged the president to dump his "all of the above" energy strategy as incompatible with needed climate action. In a letter obtained by the Washington Post's Juliet Eilperin, John Podesta questioned why the climate advocates criticized the president for his support of increased fossil-fuel extraction.
Making reference to Obama's "bold Climate Action Plan" announced in June 2013, Podesta cited "significant decreases in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions" despite "opposition to key components of the plan" from Republicans in the House and Senate. Podesta noted that the plan "commits to additional steps to cut the emissions of carbon pollution, prepare the United States for the impacts of climate change, and lead international efforts to combat global climate change," claiming that the "breadth of the plan makes it impossible to detail those steps in this letter."
Podesta's only reference to President Obama's "all of the above" energy strategy of increased fossil-fuel extraction came in his criticism of the environmentalists:
Given this context, I was surprised that you chose to send your January 16 letter to President Obama. The President has been leading the transition,[sic] to low-carbon energy sources, and understands the need to consider a balanced approach to all forms of energy development, including oil and gas production.
Podesta did not reply to the environmentalists' mention of the Keystone XL tar-sands pipeline, which he has previously criticized. Upon taking the White House job, Podesta said he would not weigh in on the decision of whether the construction of the pipeline would be in the national interest, a determination to be made by the State Department and President Obama.
Under Podesta's direction, the Center for American Progress offered divergent views on Obama's "all of the above" policy:
Center for American Progress Director of Climate Strategy Daniel Weiss testified in 2012 and in 2013 in support of Obama's "all of the above" strategy.
Center for American Progress Senior Fellow Joseph Romm, editor of Climate Progress, bluntly said in 2012 that the "all-of-the-above energy strategy" is what defines Obama's "failed presidency." He later excoriated Obama's "big wet kiss to oil and gas."
The text of the letter, typos included, is below:
Wm. Robert Irvin, American Rivers, President and CEO
Robert Wendelgass, Clean Water Action, President
Jamie Rappaport Clark, Defenders of Wildlife, President and CEO
Trip Van Noppen, Earthjustice, President
Maura Cowley, Energy Action Coalition, Executive Director
Margie Alt, Environment America, Executive Director
Fred Krupp, Environmental Defense Fund, President
Eric Pica, Friends of the Earth, President
Gene Karpinski, League of Conservation Voters, President
David Yarnold, National Audubon Society, President and CEO
Larry J. Schweiger, National Wildlife Federation, President & CEO
John Echohawk, Native American Rights Fund, Executive Director
Frances Beinecke, Natural Resources Defense Council, President
Andrew Sharpless, Oceana, Chief Executive Officer
Catherine Thomasson, MD, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Executive Director
John Seager, Population Connection, President
Michael Brune, Sierra Club, Executive Director
Sandy Newman, Voices for Progress, President
I am writing in response to your January 16 letter to President Obama regarding climate change. President Obama understands that climate change poses a significant threat to our environment, to public health and to our economy. He believes it is imperative that we act to address these threats, and that doing so provides an opportunity for the United States to lead in the development and deployment of clean energy technologies needed to reduce emissions. For these reasons, the President has taken steps to address the climate change challenge throughout the last five years, including a issuing a bold Climate Action Plan in June of 2013.
The Climate Action Plan builds on major progress during the President's first term, including: historic fuel economy and greenhouse gas emissions standards for light-duty vehicles that will cut 6 billion tons of carbon dioxide pollution, cut oil consumption by 12 billion barrels of oil, and save consumer $1.7 trillion over the lifetime of the program; energy efficiency standards for appliances that will cut pollution and save consumers and businesses hundreds of billions of dollars in the coming decades; historic support for renewable energy that has helped to drive down technology costs and more than doubled generation of electricity from wind and solar. These steps by the Obama Administration have contributed to significant decreases in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions; 2012 emissions of carbon dioxide were at their lowest level the lowest [sic] in nearly twenty years.
The Climate Action Plan outlined by President Obama in a historic speech at Georgetown in June of 2013 builds on these measures, and commits to additional steps to cut the emissions of carbon pollution, prepare the United States for the impacts of climate change, and lead international efforts to combat global climate change. The breadth of the plan makes it impossible to detail those steps in this letter, but key commitments to continue to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions include establishing the first-ever carbon pollution standards for power plants, a multi-sector strategy to reduce methane emissions, action to limit the use of HFCs and promote the use of more climate-friendly alternatives, additional DOE energy efficiency standards, and additional fuel economy and greenhouse gas emissions standards for heavy duty vehicles.
We have made significant progress in implementing the plan in the last seven months, and I attach for your review a recent report that details this work. However, significant work lies ahead in meeting the commitments outlined in the Climate Action Plan. In addition, opposition to key components of the plan remains. Last week, the White House had to fight off anti-environmental Appropriations riders, including ones that would have prevented the EPA from implementing regulations to reduce carbon pollution from existing power plants under section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act, and would have prevented the Administration from moving forward with Tier 3 vehicle and fuel standards. On the day your letter arrived, the Senate Minority Leader filed a Congressional Review Act resolution to overturn rules to regulate CO2 emissions from new power plants.
With respect to meeting the threats posed by a rapidly changing climate, implementation of the Climate Action Plan must and will remain the focus of our efforts. In the meantime, we will continue to welcome your advice, based on your very long experience on how to convince the American public of the need and opportunity to transform dirty energy systems to ones that are cleaner and more efficient.
John D. Podesta
Tags EAC, Earthjustice, EDF, Environment America, LCV, NRDC, Obama, Podesta, PSR, Sierra Club
The Podesta, Pickens, and Pope Power Summit 5
Posted by Wonk Room Wed, 27 Aug 2008 22:02:00 GMT
At the Big Tent in Denver, Center for American Progress President and CEO John Podesta, Sierra Club executive director Carl Pope, and oil billionaire T. Boone Pickens engaged in a discussion about our energy future. Pickens, who believes that our global oil production is at its peak and will soon inexorably decline, discussed his "Pickens Plan" for a massive increase in wind and solar electricity production and a shift for trucking fleets from diesel to natural gas. Podesta noted that the climate crisis is evident today, in the flooding in Florida and the increasing threat of powerful hurricanes. "The cost of doing nothing," Podesta said, "is extremely substantial."
This panel of three highly powerful individuals from the environmental, progressive, and conservative energy industry communities represented a remarkable confluence of priorities, in recognizing the energy crisis and the need to get off oil. As Carl Pope described:
If our politics was even vaguely functional, anything that all three of us agree on would have happened long ago. We have some very deep profound political problems. Our politics are broken.
Pickens himself, a highly influential fundraiser for right-wing politicians, described how his money has gotten him access in Washington but that he had learned that his contributions don't translate to policy. He expressed his enthusiasm for the ability of the Pickens Plan campaign to reach millions on the Internet and mobilize hundreds of thousands of people. He argued, "I'm not doing this to make money. My entire estate will go to charity when I go. We are now importing almost 70 percent of our oil. It's too much. We're not talking about my generation—we can make it to the finish line."
Pope explained what Newt Gingrich and other conservatives are really trying to do with their drill-drill-drill agenda, when they know that lifting the offshore drilling moratorium won't deliver new oil to this country.
What is it about? It's about distracting us from the conversation we ought to be having. As long as we're talking about drill drill drill, it distracts Americans from the fact there's a chasm between the two candidates. It's a huge headfake by Karl Rove.
At the end of the conversation, Podesta and Pickens talked about their political differences. Pickens – who helped sponsor the Big Tent – admitted he is inclined to defend oil companies, who work for their shareholders and are run by his friends. When challenged by Podesta for having given significant contributions to "the gang on Capitol Hill who have been blocking the renewable production tax credit," Pickens, with resignation apparent in his face, said, "I grind on them . . . I don't have the time." He argued that he is now trying to act on behalf of the American people, to avoid being partisan, to move past the old politics—the politics that he has spent millions to sustain.
Tags DNCC, enviros, natural gas, Pickens, Podesta, renewables, Sierra Club


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AxonVR Brings Lifelike Touch to Virtual Reality
Jake Rubin has dreamed of recreating the "Star Trek" holodeck.
Patrick Marshall
AxonVR
Jake Rubin
Axon VR. PICTURED: AxonVR's HaptX Skeleton applies "force feedback" to represent the shape or weight of virtual objects.
Ever since his school days on Mercer Island, Jake Rubin has dreamed of creating a holodeck like the one on the Star Trek television series — a virtual reality experience so immersive that it is perceived as real.
Four and half years ago, Rubin dropped out of Washington University in St. Louis so he could put the money he'd saved for college to work building that dream. And this year, his Seattle-based company, AxonVR, expects to ship its first product, which is rumored to be a glove that allows users not only to manipulate objects, but also feel them.
"We have developed the core technologies required to make our vision a reality," says Rubin, though he adds that it will take two to three years of further development to bring those technologies together to deliver a full-body VR experience.
The core technologies Rubin refers to are HaptX and HaptX Skeleton. HaptX is a thin, flexible material with an embedded net of "microfluidic actuators," tiny devices that can be programmed to deliver both physical pressure and varying temperatures. Wearing a glove made of HaptX, a user could, for example, feel the shape and weight of a virtual snowball as well as its coldness.
The HaptX Skeleton, which is in prototype stage, is a suspended exoskeleton that allows the user to move in nearly every direction with full range of motion. In addition, it offers force feedback so one feels, say, pressure on the bottom of the foot when walking or the sudden resistance when one chops wood with a virtual ax. "You can run, you can jump, you can climb, you can cartwheel," says Rubin. "You can reach out and touch virtual objects and feel their size, their shape, their temperature. That's our long-term vision, which is nothing less than building a holodeck."
"Within two to three years, we expect this all to come together to become a full-body experience," says Rubin. "In the near term, we do have some smaller-scope products that we are developing in cooperation with some Fortune 500 companies. We do expect to be shipping products next year. I can't talk in detail about those products."
Although rubin is only 25, his path to developing haptic VR devices has already been a long one. "When I was in high school, I started to read literature and play with the idea of how you actually would build a system like this," he explains. At first, he thought the answer was a direct brain-computer interface. That led him to Washington University to study biomedical engineering. His studies soon convinced him that such a connection was "just not going to be a practical way to achieve my vision."
As Rubin saw the rapid progress in development of VR headsets, he turned his attention to delivering what he decided was a missing piece of the VR puzzle — touch. "The audiovisual pieces of the puzzle had been pretty well taken care of," he notes. "Smell and taste, those are things that are not really essential for immersive experience. That left touch, which is something that no one had come up with a good solution for."
After more research, Rubin thought he had some good ideas about how to create a touch-sensitive, or haptic, experience. At that point, he says, "I realized I needed to reach out to someone with engineering chops to help make my vision reality, to bring it to life."
Rubin made a pitch to Robert Crockett, chair of the biomedical engineering department at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo. Crockett was convinced Rubin was on to something and the two founded AxonVR in February 2012.
Rubin believes AxonVR's initial primary markets will be entertainment enterprises, including theme parks and arcades, as well as military, medical and industrial organizations using the technologies for training simulations and in manufacturing for prototyping products.
But Rubin says the company is also intent on bringing costs down sufficiently to reach consumer markets.
Jake Rubin wants AxonVR to build a product that lets customers "reach out and touch virtual objects and feel their size, their shape,
their temperature."
From its initial launch in 2012, AxonVR has grown to 30 employees, with eight employees at the Seattle headquarters and 21 software and hardware engineers working at the firm's lab in San Luis Obispo.
In December, AxonVR announced it had secured $5.8 million in seed funding, which the company says is the largest investment to date in a virtual reality haptics company. The round was led by NetEase, an internet technology company in China, and Dawn Patrol Ventures, a Los Angeles VC firm managed by Amit Kapur and backed by AOL and Verizon. Former Twitter CEO Dick Costolo also participated in the round.
AxonVR does have some competitors developing haptic VR technologies, though the only product that has gone public offers much less resolution. Gloveone, a haptic glove made by NeuroDigital Technologies, has only 10 actuators in the fingers and palm.
"There are a lot of companies doing so-called symbolic haptics but we haven't seen anyone doing haptics anywhere near as realistic as ours," says Joe Michaels, AxonVR's chief revenue officer.
Rubin says the team had three questions when it started out: Could the technologies be created at all? If so, could they be created in a reasonable time frame? The answer to those two questions was, he says, "a resounding yes." The final question was whether the technologies could be produced at a price to be made available to a broad consumer market.
"We're still working on that," says Rubin.
Coding Boot Camps Took Off During the Pandemic
How three Seattleites learned the language of computers and changed the course of their careers
Coding Dojo, Coding Boot Camp, Career Change
Amazon Starts Delivering Groceries
Program launches in five cities, including Seattle
Amazon, Delivery, COVID-19
Washington Technology Industry Association Launches Ambitious 'Anti-Racism in Tech Pact'
Nationwide effort seeks to promote diversity and overhaul hiring practices
tech, Diversity, equity, Inclusion, Anti-racism
TheWMarketplace highlights women-owned businesses
Longtime friends Kate Isler and Susan Gates encourage consumers to shop with purpose
marketplace, E-commerce, Gender Equity


These devices promise to inform you highly particular health particulars about yourself — similar to your muscle quality or fat-burning potential — so you can higher obtain the best physique But few are clear about what you are imagined to do with that info, neither is it clear the way it relates to no matter objective you're making an attempt to realize — and what is the aim? This gadgets are for those who think about simplicity to be the new complexity and for those who do not like hi tech and adopt very exhausting new objects. Some medical doctors fear that applied sciences that make it easier to trace all our steps and log our calorie consumption fuel harmful consuming problems They make it a lot easier to obsess over every minute detail about a person's physique and health routines. Well to problem these theories, Lexus has posted one more video detailing the science behind the Lexus Hoverboard and how its magnetic levitation works.
Whether you are a bit of a gadget head your self, otherwise you're looking out for these tech gifts for family and friends the coolest gadgets , geeky devices and new technology is right right here at Yellow Octopus. Your Sherlock Holmes-kind geek of a pal would drastically respect cheap, safety-type toy gadgets equivalent to laser trip wires or movement-activated gizmos. It's tremendous enjoyable and the perfect gift for science loving foodies and curious chefs!
Today folks store staggering quantities of information on devices no larger than the snub-nosed detective's wrist radio. Find out about Curiosity, Cassini, New Horizons, and more at a special Science on a Sphere presentation at 2:10pm. If you're a type of people who starts to really feel down when the sun turns into scarce, health science could now have a handy solution to the issue.
Plants make perfect topic for science truthful tasks, as crops, soil, seeds, and other required materials are easily accessible, inexpensive, and the procedures are additionally easy to be carried out. Size didn't need to be actual; I did, nonetheless, encourage them to ensure the paper was one layer thick and did not included a fold. Last week was a particularly busy week for gadgets information, notably in relation to the release of recent phones.
Then we have got the super critical finest gadgets and absolute must have devices for that special particular person in your life. Students are invited to explore, engage and uncover science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Morgridge Institute for Research. Infrastructure within the society has grown with the help of science and expertise. We might find the numerous suppliers for charging the batteries of various gadgets that are Trickle charger, Fast charger, Inductive charger, solar charger, pulse charger, clever charger, and many others. If you love science kits, experiments, and science toys then open your thoughts and let the fun start.


Here at Cascade Healthcare Solutions, you can find the very best power wheelchairs and scooters on the market from the top manufacturers in the industry, including Drive Medical, Invacare Corporation, Pride Mobility, Golden Technologies and more. We stock a variety of power wheelchairs and scooters for sale, all conveniently categorized below, allowing you to shop by type, brand or price. You also have access to some great accessories for customizing your scooter with handy upgrades like baskets, O2 caddies, backpacks plus replacement batteries/chargers.
Electric wheelchairs and scooters have come a long way in the past years, and with the fantastic price discounts we�re offering, you have the ability to find a power chair that fits your needs and budget, too. Choose from a nice lineup of maximum performance chairs in the $1300-$1400 range for premium affordability.
If you should need any assistance in finding the items you are shopping for, don�t hesitate to contact our team of experts for assistance.


The need to look good when you're riding is universal, whether you're getting ready to purchase your first road bike or you've got a garage full of Harley-Davidsons. In addition to choosing from hundreds of flashy motorcycle jerseys, you'll also need to decide if you want a one-piece riding suit or if you prefer separates. Here are the benefits and drawbacks of each option.
If you want other riders to take you seriously, wearing a one-piece is a great way to achieve your goal (as long as you've got the skills to back up your impressive look).
A final note worth mentioning is that one-piece suits are generally made to fit tighter, which doesn't give you a lot of leeway if you want to eat a few extra donuts over the weekend.
Separates can also be easily mixed-and-matched to find the perfect fit for your body.
Ultimately, it's up to you to decide what type of riding gear you want to buy. Try on multiple pairs of one-piece suits and separates to figure out which type you prefer.
What Is The Cost Of My Mobile App?
What is the Right POS System/Cash Register Software?


Candidates' recruitment is to be done as Officers on special duty, at the level of Deputy General Manager / Assistant General Manager / Chief Manager / Senior Manager. The appointment will be made on contract basis for a period of one year, which can be extended further for another period of one year, on the basis of candidate's performance.
For paying the application fees, candidates should obtain a DD for Rs 400, drawn in favor of "Indian Bank-Engagement of Retired Executives / Officers", payable at Chennai.
Application Form, duly complete in all respect, along with recent passport size photograph, DD, and copies of all required certificates, should be submitted to The Deputy General Manager (HRM), Indian Bank, Corporate Office, HRM Department, 254 - 260, Avvai Shanmugam Salai, Royapettah, Chennai (Tamil Nadu) - 600014, by post on or before May 11, 2013.
For more information regarding the applying format, candidates can visit the aforementioned Indian Bank website.


>> Used a spell checker (codespell) to wipe out several typos.
>by this patch is a typo.
>any changes to texinfo.tex should be made there first.
writing to imply "if and only if" is standard practice.
alternative is to use the entire phrase which gets too long and  unwieldy.


New to the yard in December 2018. French-bred mare who showed modest bumper form in 2016. She made a great start for the yard when running for the first time in 842 days to finish a close up 3rd in a staying maiden hurdle at Bangor (13th April).


text:
The Resource Bare hands and wooden limbs
Bare hands and wooden limbs
The item Bare hands and wooden limbs represents a specific, individual, material embodiment of a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in Austin Public Library.
In 1975 Khmer Rouge forces kidnapped and tortured Chhem Sip, aged 14. He managed to escape, until he reached a refugee camp in Thailand. Eventually he was adopted by an American minister, became a U.S. citizen and turned to activism to help other Cambodian immigrants. Yet, he never felt at peace. However much he assisted other Cambodians who had made to the U.S., he felt he owed even more to those he had left behind. In 1970 Touj Soeurly became a Khmer-Rouge soldier, rising to the rank of Commander. He is a charismatic leader who trained his men in all the required military activities, including the laying of landmines. In 1989 he stepped on a landmine and lost a leg. He decided to leave the military and do something for former soldiers and civilians who had also become amputees, many of whom end up as beggars in the streets. Soeurly works out of a strong sense that he has miss-spent his life, that the Khmer Rouge vision for Cambodia was the wrong vision, and now he needs to work for a different vision, to compensate for his past. The result is the village of Veal Thom, formed in 2000. The mission of Veal Thom is simple: to give at least some of the amputees of Cambodia, who are shunned outcasts in their society, a place where they can live and work that is, can be self-sufficient, productive members of society. The film alternates between the point of view of Chhem Sip, who fled to the US after years of torture, forced labor, and witnessing the death of multiple family members, and that of former Khmer Rouge Commander Touj Souerly. Each of them is up front about the horrors they suffered, the guilt they feel, the strong drive they have to help bring about change in their country. They tell this to us and they discuss it with each other. The film spends time with a handful of individual villagers: a double-leg amputee who is now a rice farmer, a woman who lost her leg now raising pigs, a man who lost an eye who is now a blacksmith, and others.--Kanopy
1 online resource (1 video file, 52 min.)
http://austinpl.kanopystreaming.com/node/74524
Amputees -- Rehabilitation
trueParty of Democratic Kampuchea
trueParti communiste du Kampuchea
Cambodia -- History | Civil War -- 1970-1975
Refugees -- Cambodia
NZEN
Director/Producer: Alison McMahan
Originally produced by Galloping Films in 2010
Parti communiste du Kampuchea
Party of Democratic Kampuchea
Amputees
digital, stereo., sound, color

 Data from Bare hands and wooden limbs - Austin Public Library

Data Citation of the Item Bare hands and wooden limbs
http://link.library.austintexas.gov/portal/Bare-hands-and-wooden-limbs/DiUix64mnbg/
http://library.link/portal/Bare-hands-and-wooden-limbs/DiUix64mnbg/