"How Visa Predicts Divorce"

[Peter Gibbons]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-04-06/how-mastercard-predicts-divorce/full/

...

"Why would Visa care that your marriage is on the rocks? Yale Law School Professor Ian Ayres, who included the Visa example in his book Super Crunchers, says “credit card companies don't really care about divorce in and of itself—they care whether you're going to pay your card off." And because people who are going through a divorce are more likely to miss payments, your domestic troubles are of great interest to a company that thrives on risk management. Exactly how the credit industry does it—through sophisticated data-mining techniques—is a closely guarded secret."

...

"Last year, American Express began offering  select cardholders $300 simply to close their accounts and walk away—individuals who the company clearly felt were too much of a risk to keep on its books. And the factors that go into such a calculation have become considerably more sophisticated than the simple matter of whether cardholders have paid their bills on time."

...

I am wondering if all the 'points' that I collect by using credit cards are worth it. There is so much info these companies are collecting about me.

[DarkHumour]

My friend refuses to use a grocery club card because of the tracking they supposedly do.  I heard that certain grocery combinations (glycerin, mothballs, etc)  would get you flagged (because you could make some sort of basic chemical weapon from them).  That might be on snopes.com though.

I've heard of people buying crap that intentionally does not make sense to thwart this algorithm.  Heh, like I start buying expensive stuff at Victoria's Secret - either I've become a cross dresser or got a new gf when neither is true.   

Or I buy lots of duct tape, a shovel, and suddenly buy or rent property in obscure locations. 

I'm planing to go get a Popeyes spicy wrap sandwich in an hour.  Do they know this?  

I'd like to know if there is an algorithm for appealing more to the opposite sex..well, other than the obvious "BE LESS WEIRD".

I currently do NOT have an active credit card.  In spite of the significant debt to earnings ratio I still get those offers in the mail all the time.  Of course the only qualifier for those are - are you a carbon based life form?

I've wondered about a futuristic corporacry/totalitarian future where your actual ally in avoiding getting drafted into military service are the various credit cards/banks you owe money.  If you have no assets to speak of and there is a chance you could die then they'll go to bat to keep you out of the fire.    In this future no one dies owing money, e.g. you're kept "alive" (as they define it legally) on machines paid for by someone else (externality) while whatever other assets (or replenishable human tissues) are harvested to pay the debt.

I have not seen that supposedly bad movie "repo men" yet.  Seems like a drive in flick to me. If it sucks, the drive in makes it suck less.

The "bodybanks" of the old Micronauts comic books made me wonder if their dark fictional concepts will become a blueprint of the future after everyone who makes more than minimum wage and less than 10 million a year disappears...

Hmm.  Kind of a dark note.  (Link to kittens playing banjoes...)   

DarkHumour
 
I had a minor freakout when I started getting a magazine subscription at my home that I never signed up for.  Turned out to be a freebie for entering an online Vodka contest. (I emailed to find out).  Wish it was something better than "Spin" though.

[Richardk]

Still have to read the story but I've seen the trailers for "repo man" and I'm waiting for some reviews.

As for selling body parts, I thought people already do that in some countries so the future may already be here.

[benali72]

Data mining --

My belief is that we're heading into a world where organizations (companies, governments, etc) will make decisions about you based on your permanent digital record or "digital dossier."   You won't know what data was used, whether or not it's accurate, or whether the data mining correlations even make sense.   You may not even know what decisions have been made about you or when.

These practices shift power to organizations at the expense of individual rights.  Instead of a "your papers please" society, we will be one where your unseen digital records determine your fate.