Bank of America Consumer Data Tapes Lost
Bank of America Loses Tapes of Data on 1.2 Million Federal Workers; Potential for ID Theft

Why may it finally lead to action?

Sen. Pat Leahy, D-Vt., is among those senators whose personal information is on the missing tapes, (B of A) spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler said.

Paul Craig Roberts (PCR) first shows us why economists should stick to economics:

Jan. 12, 2005:

“The promised Iraqi election, if held, will settle nothing….
It has greatly damaged US credibility,
while greatly enhancing Osama bin Laden�s credibility.

Uh huh.

He then shows us why certain old economists who write about retirement should consider retirement themselves (From Business Weak, 3/7/2005 issue, not linked due to subscription requirement, excerpt constitutes fair use):

President George W. Bush’s plan to privatize Social Security
is as ill-considered as his “cakewalk” invasion of Iraq.
This is a hard admission for an economist
who has long beat the drums for Social Security privatization.

PCR doesn’t say so explicitly, but by noting elsewhere in the Business Weak column that privatization was a good idea 20 years ago but that it won’t work now, he’s essentially saying it should never happen. He’s as wrong about this as he was on the Iraq election. Of course if privatization’s opponents manage to run out the clock for the next 5 years or so, it WILL be too late, because the conversion cost probably will be too high. Which is why PCR’s inexplicable conversion to wholesale negativism since September 11 is so unfortunate (see his Lew Rockwell column archive here).

It’s hard to believe now that this guy was with the Reagan Administration, and was once an important conservative writer for the Wall Street Journal.

The national dialogue would improve if HE would retire.

Fact: The Commerce Department reports that 4th Quarter GDP grew at a 3.8% annualized rate, revised upward from 3.1%. Anyone with a functioning brain would headline this along the lines of “Economy Stronger Than Expected in 4th Quarter.”

Washington Post (WaPo) web headline (requires registration): Economic Growth Estimated at 3.8%

WaPo to reader: Please yawn and move on. (It wouldn’t kill you to acknowledge that this is a good thing, would it, WaPo?)

But the 4th quarter isn’t even the real news, it’s the 2004 full-year result, which you won’t find until the eighth paragraph of the WaPo story:

For all of 2004, the economy expanded by 4.4 percent, the best showing in five years.

How good is 4.4%? Not only is it the best in 5 years, it’s the third-best year in the last 20.

Now you know something most WaPo readers probably don’t: The economy is rippin’ right along.

Wizbang reports that the Department of Homeland Security’s Privacy Advisory Board now includes experienced privacy violator and spyware purveyor Claria (formerly Gator). I would add my concerns about panel members from:
- Intel, the company that wanted to put a unique “fingerprint” identifier on each and every Pentium III computer (until public pressure caused them to back off).
- Nationwide Insurance, whose industry thinks it’s perfectly all right to classify drivers as high-risk simply because they have bad credit.

Wizby also wonders why someone from ChoicePoint wasn’t selected. After all, a privacy panel should only have people who don’t give a rip about privacy. Zheesh.

In that vein, I hereby nominate Scott (”You have no privacy. Get over it”) McNealy of Sun Microsystems. He’d be right at home.