Running with Scissors

Business Intelligence, like any other technology, has the propensity to be used in ways that may adversely effect people where the action is not deserved. Case in point; The recent number of reports by MSNBC and CNN where poeple are recieving notices from AMEX that thier credit limit has been lowered.

Reason why? Among other explanations given, "“Our credit experience with customers who have made purchases at establishments where you have recently used your card.”

I have the distinct impression that this will not be legally allowed to continue for the reason that people have the right to shop wherever they want to shop without negative impact and also the negative impact upon those merchants identified as places where "at risk" shoppers frequent.

This is funny and too often true...

As with anything I suppose, there are true experts, newbies, and wannabe's. How many of us remember the wannabe web programmers who could do little more than a home page? Or those so called design and user-interface specialists?

Yes, these are real and valuable fields of expertise, but just like anything else there are "posers" as discussed in the following post:

http://darmano.typepad.com/logic_emotion/2009/09/snake.html

Painful as it is, he does put bankers pretty low and I was in the banking field for many years. Although I cannot blame anyone for the lack of distinction between the average bank employee and the true posers who opted for greed over morals in the mortgage lending business and those in our federal government who looked the other way for whatever rea$on.