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To: David who wrote (12381)	2/5/1999 6:18:00 PM
From: jean	Respond to of 26039

David...Thanks for the post on MCard. Fits into my incessant whining abt. the retail sector and its capacity for encouraging every type of fraud known. One of the historical problems with the major credit card co.'s has been the lack of incentive to change the way they do business. Fraud losses = tax write-offs and justification for usury. Why spend money on system upgrades if it's going to cost you a part of your write-off and take away part of the reason you use to justify the high interest rates? They seem to be moving now because of the changes in the laws regarding I.D. theft as well as having the DOJ snooping around their business practices. Remember Reno's big announcement awhile back?? The other thing we're beginning to see is some competition on those interest rates. To wit: I have a friend who had 2 kids in college (the 30K/year type) at the same time. He found that by moving money around from one teaser rate card to another, he actually paid a lower interest rate than he would have paid on govt. and/or home equity loans. Clever, yes? The point is that credit card co.'s may now think it's smarter to spend money on security to avoid scrutiny, to reduce interest rates, and to decrease turmoil in the customer base. I have a great plan for all credit transactions that would eliminate fraud AND protect privacy. But it's Friday, so I'll spare you. Jean P.S. Rob...I love you, too. Wish I could have afforded to take all of your suggestions. Tell me you're the 4:00 man and I'm yours forever. P.P.S. John...sorry to have mixed up one Philips with another. Unintentionally useless post on my part.

To: David who wrote (12381)	2/5/1999 7:47:00 PM
From: R. Jaynes	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 26039

David, I like the possibilities of using biometrics for voter related activities (specifically, voter registration and the act of voting itself). But I've got to tell you, as one who lives in California, I have come to loathe the initiative process. The initiative process may have started out with good intentions (to get around the big money influence of state legislatures) but now it has become the tool of the special interest groups. In the last election we had something like 15 initiatives and I was fed up trying to understand and make informed decisions about all of them - and we seem to have more and more initiatives on each new ballot. It's takes a MAJOR effort and LOTS of time to plow thru all of the initiatives. If things keep up like this we will soon have 100 initiatives on a ballot!! Who needs it!!?? It's better to make our representatives do their jobs and then vote to keep them in or boot them out!! Rick