Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Len Boselovic’s Heard Off the Street column
The colonel's warning didn't help the members of the
Nor did his accounts of various cyber exploits, including last year's federal indictment of five Chinese army officials accused of victimizing U.S. Steel,
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Countries such as
Hackers steal up to
He also had some words of caution about "smart" thermostats that allow users to control their home climate remotely through their smartphones or other electronic devices.
"Those in my business think of the smart grid as the vulnerable grid," he said.
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Sen.
Last week,
"I am concerned that these incentives present a conflict of interest for agents and financial advisers that could result in these agents providing inadequate advice about annuities to investors and selling products that may not meet the retirement investment needs of their buyers," she wrote in the letters.
She said the incentives include cash awards of
She asked for information about the nature of the incentives, how many were awarded, their value, as well as for company policies for disclosing potential conflicts of interest.
In their most basic form, annuities are insurance contracts that provide a guaranteed stream of income over the life of the policyholder. Some offer continued income to a beneficiary after a policyholder dies. There are circumstances in which they make sense. The 2008 crash and other events have increased interest in annuities because of the retirement income they can provide.
However, practices relating to the sale of annuities are typically among the biggest source of investor complaints. Their complexity means some people do not know what they are buying or how much they are paying in fees.
Sometimes, agents convince policyholders to exchange one type of annuity for another, which involves surrender charges that reduce a policyholder's savings and boost the agent's income.
Responding to
In short, whether it is your smart thermostat or your retirement savings, be careful out there.
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