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James Estes, professor of finance was featured on WalletHub.com’s “Ask the Experts” feature.
The topic: credit cards.
And, among Estes’ words of advice: “A major pitfall is the simple perception that using a credit card is not spending money. If an individual removes a $20 bill from their wallet and pays for an item, there is a realization that $20 was spent. This is simply not true when a credit card is used, which is why many people can get into trouble if using the card.
Read the complete article at “Ask the Experts.'
It was a busy week for Brian Levin, professor of criminal justice and director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism.
The news website Attn.com interviewed Levin for an article about the prevalence of hate groups in Southern California. 'I don't think there's one hard and fast rule,' he said as to why, in particular, Southern California appears to have a large number of hate groups. 'What I can tell you is, there's a variety of things. First of all, what is going on with regard to demographic change and population density? I think that's important to look at. And has there been demographic change from a particular group that has been precipitous relative to the population change?'
He added: “California has had a long history with regard to hate groups. We’ve had Nazi low-riders, racist skinheads, and indeed, the Aryan Brotherhood started in the California penitentiaries in 1964.”
The article was published Feb. 18, 2017, and can be read at “Why Southern California is a hotbed for hate groups.”
In the wake of federal charges filed against a Missouri man for allegedly aiding what he thought was an Islamic State terror plot, Levin and other experts cautioned that focusing solely on Islamist extremism results in less scrutiny of another source of terrorism that is just as serious a threat: violent domestic extremists.
“For those of us in the analytic community, the focus should be on wherever the heck the threat is,” he said. “And right now, we have a diverse threat matrix of which violent Salafist jihadists are the most prominent, but by no means the only ones.”
He said authorities also are concerned about what’s coming from the far-right and the hard-left, as well as mentally unstable people and copycats.
The article was published Feb. 21, 2017, can be read at “Terror experts applaud Missouri arrest but caution: Don’t ignore domestic extremists.”
And the recent threats against Jewish Community Centers nationwide, and on the Anti-Defamation League’s New York City headquarters, had reporters contacting Levin for his insight.
The Los Angeles Times reported that in just over six weeks, 53 centers in 26 states and one Canadian province have received 68 bomb threats. Though all have been hoaxes, the threats have spread fear among American Jews in a way unseen in recent years.
But some experts said recent alarm could give a false impression of the bigger picture for Jewish Americans.
“These threats and attacks come amid a backdrop of increasing acceptance of Jews” since World War II, said Levin, director of the university’s Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism. Though Jews are among the most commonly targeted minorities for hate crimes, they also rank as one of the most liked religious groups in the country, he said Levin.
A survey released last week by the Pew Research Center asked respondents to rate their feelings on religious communities and found Jews to be the highest ranked, faring better than they did in a similar survey three years ago. Overall, positive feelings about nearly all religious groups, including Muslims, increased.
The article was published Feb. 21, 2017, and may be read at “Trump denounces anti-Semitism after Jewish community centers receive 68 bomb threats in six weeks.'
And Levin was quoted in two separate articles in The Huffington Post, both on the threats to the Jewish Community Centers.
On article examined the impact the threats against Jewish Community Centers have on the larger community. “The person doing this might just feel in their comfort level in making phone calls, where they can disguise the language and make threats ― but propaganda of the deed is a big part of the anti-Semitic neo-Nazi community,” Levin said. “This is not just a message to destabilize Jewish institutions; it’s also a siren call to fellow travelers to do something worse. That’s why we need a big response back.”
More than 150 members of Congress signed onto a letter Wednesday urging the departments of Homeland Security and Justice to take swift action addressing the bomb threats. The lawmakers also requested that the federal agencies advise Congress on what steps are being taken.
“What we do know is hate crimes often occur serially with escalating severity, particularly in a discrete geographic community or if there’s a community that is targeted and there appears to be no pushback from the moral leaders of society,” Levin told HuffPost. “The question is, how sustained will this trend be?”
The article was published Feb. 22, 2017, and may be read at “The Jewish Community Center bomb threats affect you, too.”
In the other article, which focused on the bomb threats against the Anti-Defamation League’s New York City headquarters and Jewish Community Centers nationwide, Levin commented on the role politicians have in denouncing such threats.
“When we’ve seen politicians condone or express anti-Semitism or simply not denounce it, it has been a scar on their public record,” Levin said. “I think President Trump, from both a pragmatic political standpoint but more importantly from a socio-historic standpoint, needs to recognize how damaging anti-Semitism in particular is on a society.”
There are real-world consequences if a president doesn’t strongly denounce hate speech, Levin’s research suggests.
The article was published Feb. 22, 2017, and may be read at “Anti-Defamation League’s New York headquarters receives bomb threat.”