But it seems to me that the US needs to intensively examine what critical resources we are presently importing from potential enemies (ie: precursor drug ingredients) that could also be manufactured or sourced here, or from a friendly alternate backup location.
Again, an observation that comes laden with a lot of issues.
Precursor? I'm guessing you are referring to active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs).
Critical? An input ("precursor") to something downstream (final product) would seem to be critical only if at least one of its final product were critical. As an example of a final, non-critical product, it is hard to think of Zantac (old formulation) as a critical drug.
Friendly? If a nation is a potential enemy but is currently friendly, what then? Is India friendly? Can't help but think of Tom Leher's line from Who's Next in the early 1960s about France: "they're on our side, I believe". (For context: "Franco–American antagonism of the 1960s ... culminated with France's partial withdrawal from NATO in 1966")

On a nation by nation basis, India supplies about half of all APIs. (I believe this pie chart represents unweighted percentages of all APIs, not weighted by volume produced.) Of course this doesn't mean that for any given API there is any source outside of China.
Another graphic can be found here (use arrows to move to slide 2). I believe this represents percentages by amounts produced ("global market share"); China is at 40%, India at 20%, US at 10%.

Source: https://qualitymatters.usp.org/geographic-concentration-pharmaceutical-manufacturing
From your description of the precursor risk, I'm guessing that you're talking about active ingredients tainted with nitrosamines.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2022-08-17/a-threat-of-contaminated-drugs-persists-four-years-later
Here's a good, short piece, admittedly commentary, from Science:
https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/sartan-contamination-story
The writer reports that a related contaminant was found in a drug using an API manufactured by a company in India. (See also here.) He goes on to speculate that based on the chemistry, it looks like the industry changed its process for producing these APIs around 2012. Thus, there was a problem that wasn't caught for years, and to address your point, sourcing domestically wouldn't have changed anything.
I may have less faith in the FDA than you. The FDA is the organization keeping us safe from Canadian certified drugs. Did you know that if you want to mail order drugs from Canada you have to use Amex because the government has pressured MC and VISA to refuse to process these sales?

In March [2004], Visa and MasterCard announced that they will not service Canadian mail order pharmacies because they have been under pressure from the FDA to cease their support of payment processing. They cited pressure from the FDA and have warned their member financial institutions to avoid so-called ``illegal'' transactions.

https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-108shrg93889/html/CHRG-108shrg93889.htm

Following is the complete text from a current newsletter by Matt Levine, who writes the "Money Stuff" column for Bloomberg. The newsletter is free, so there should be no issue with it's reproduction here.
If you would kike to subscribe to this free newsletter from Matt Levine, here is the link.
Oh Wells Fargo
I think often about the time I wrote:

If you have U.S. dollars in a bank account at JPMorgan Chase & Co., and I have U.S. dollars in a bank account at JPMorgan Chase & Co., and I want to send you 100 of my dollars, what we do is I tell JPMorgan to subtract 100 from the number of dollars in my bank account and add 100 to the number of dollars in your bank account. This gets dressed up in a lot of procedures, because it would be bad if JPMorgan got the math wrong or if it moved money from one account to another without getting the proper authorizations, but as a matter of, like, computer science, it is dead easy. JPMorgan keeps a list of people and how many dollars they have, and you and I both trust JPMorgan to keep that list (that’s what it means that we bank there!), and so we just tell JPMorgan to update the list to reflect the transaction between us.

And lots of computer engineers tweeted and emailed to be like “no, actually, it is a hard problem of computer science to have a big database of who has what, and to update it instantly and reliably to reflect transactions from many different sources.” And I was like, sure, fine, I guess. I still feel like I was entitled to be right: A bank is, at its heart, a computer for keeping track of who has money, and for updating its ledger as people send and receive money. And at a high level you and I could describe how we’d expect that computer to work — “if I deposit $100 in an ATM, the bank will increase the number in my account by $100,” that sort of thing — and we will be disappointed if it doesn’t work that way, if the bank loses track of who has the money or how much they have, or if it doesn’t update its ledger promptly or process transactions in the right order. If the bank messes up and says “look I am sorry but keeping track of money is a hard job and you can’t expect us to do it with 100% accuracy,” we will say things like “yes we can” and “that is literally exactly what we expect of you” and “if keeping track of the money is too hard for you then maybe you should not be a bank” and “now you have to pay an enormous fine.” And yet, sure, empirically, banks do sometimes mess it up. It’s not as easy as it sounds.
Wells Fargo, for instance, messes it up a lot:

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is ordering Wells Fargo Bank to pay more than $2 billion in redress to consumers and a $1.7 billion civil penalty for legal violations across several of its largest product lines. The bank’s illegal conduct led to billions of dollars in financial harm to its customers and, for thousands of customers, the loss of their vehicles and homes. Consumers were illegally assessed fees and interest charges on auto and mortgage loans, had their cars wrongly repossessed, and had payments to auto and mortgage loans misapplied by the bank. Wells Fargo also charged consumers unlawful surprise overdraft fees and applied other incorrect charges to checking and savings accounts. Under the terms of the order, Wells Fargo will pay redress to the over 16 million affected consumer accounts, and pay a $1.7 billion fine, which will go to the CFPB's Civil Penalty Fund, where it will be used to provide relief to victims of consumer financial law violations.

Here is the CFPB’s consent order from yesterday, which is basically just a litany of “Wells Fargo’s computers messed up.” For instance:

Respondent also assessed borrowers erroneous fees and interest because of technology, audit, and compliance failures. As an example, from at least 2011 until at least March 2019, Respondent sometimes incorrectly entered the effective date of a payment deferment in, or omitted it from, its servicing system-of-record, which resulted in $26.5 million in erroneously assessed late fees to more than 688,000 borrower accounts.

If you owe Wells Fargo money on a car loan, and you don’t pay it, and you have a payment deferment, they won’t charge you a fee, but if you don’t have a payment deferment they will. But if you have a payment deferment, but they don’t write it down in the right place, they will also charge you the fee, and then they will get in trouble. In some sense this is profit-maximizing behavior by Wells Fargo: If they agree to defer payments, and then charge you the fees anyway, they will make more money in fees. But it doesn’t seem intentional, and the CFPB doesn’t think it was. (Why say you agree to the deferment, and then charge the fees?) It seems like a failure of systems, of “technology, audit and compliance”: Wells Fargo did not do a good job of keeping track of deferments, so it sometimes charged fees by mistake.

Or:
From at least 2011 through 2022, Respondent experienced other types of servicing errors, which had the potential to contribute to a borrower’s delinquency, and in some cases led to improper repossessions. For example, Respondent repossessed vehicles despite the borrower having made a payment or entering into an agreement to forestall the repossession.

(Continued)

Following are lightly edited excerpts from a current report by the Associated Press:

WASHINGTON (AP) — Consumer banking giant Wells Fargo agreed to pay $3.7 billion to settle charges that it harmed customers by charging illegal fees and interest on auto loans and mortgages, as well as incorrectly applying overdraft fees against savings and checking accounts.
Wells was ordered to repay $2 billion to consumers by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which also enacted a $1.7 billion penalty against the San Francisco bank Tuesday. It’s the largest fine ever leveled against a bank by the CFPB and the largest yet against Wells, which has spent years trying to rehabilitate its image after a series of scandals tied to its sales practices.
Regulators made it clear, however, that they believe Wells Fargo has further to go on that front. “Put simply: Wells Fargo is a corporate recidivist that puts one out of three Americans at risk for potential harm,” said CFPB Director Rohit Chopra, in a call with reporters.
The bank’s pattern of behavior has made it necessary for regulators to take additional actions against Wells Fargo that go beyond the $3.7 billion in fines and penalties, Chopra said.
The violations impacted more than 16 million customers, the bureau said. In addition to improperly charging auto loan customers with fees and interest, the bank wrongfully repossessed vehicles in some cases. The bank also improperly denied thousands of mortgage loan modifications for homeowners.
Wells Fargo has been sanctioned repeatedly by U.S. regulators for violations of consumer protection laws going back to 2016, when employees were found to have opened millions of accounts illegally in order to meet unrealistic sales goals. Since then, executives have repeatedly said Wells is cleaning up its act, only for the bank to be found in violation of other parts of consumer protection law, including in its auto and mortgage lending businesses.
Wells paid a $1 billion penalty in 2018 for widespread consumer law violations, the largest against a bank for such violations at the time. Wells remains under a Federal Reserve order forbidding the bank from growing any larger until the Fed deems that its problems are resolved. That order, originally enacted in 2018, was expected to last only a year or two.
CEO Charles Scharf said in a prepared statement Tuesday that the agreement with the CFPB is part of an effort to “transform operating practices at Wells Fargo and to put these issues behind us.”
While Wells Fargo tried to frame the agreement with the CFPB as a resolution of established bad behavior, CFPB officials said some of the violations cited in Tuesday’s order took place this year.
“This should not been seen as Wells Fargo has moved past its problems,” Chopra said.

(Text emphasis added)

@larryB- Larry, if you've been monitoring MFO for any length of time you are fully aware that my personal feelings on all of this are very much the same as yours.
However, MFO is primarily dedicated to financial and investment discussions, and you asked if discussing political instability was an appropriate subject for the financial and investment forums.
As I noted, it certainly can be, if it remains as a general discussion and does not degenerate to heated political accusatory and inflammatory commentary.
For discussions which do not fit that description, MFO has, for very good reasons based on the expressed preferences of the great majority of MFO posters, established the Off-Topic arena. Like the rules generally observed for deciding elections, that majority opinion should be honored.
Frequently I also would prefer it to be otherwise, but as long as we are guests here we have an obligation to honor the rules established for this community.

@larryB, instability like the debt ceiling crisis of 2011 (and again in 2013)? The Wiki article on the 2011 version characterizes the effect on markets this way:

The crisis sparked the most volatile week for financial markets since the 2008 crisis, with the stock market trending significantly downward. Prices of government bonds ("Treasuries") rose as investors, anxious over the dismal prospects of the US economic future and the ongoing European sovereign-debt crisis, fled into the still-perceived relative safety of US government bonds.

And that was a crisis that was resolved before any default took place.

One more reason to like Roths ….. ISTM
Excerpt: IRMAA is short for income-related monthly adjustment amount. It frequently surprises retirees because it is tacked on to standard Medicare premiums for people with incomes above certain cutoff points. Although it is aimed at higher-income retirees, “you don’t have to be rich to fall into the penalty box,” notes Denver financial planner Phil Lubinski.
This year, IRMAAs hit individuals with modified adjusted gross incomes of more than $91,000, and for couples, more than $182,000. Instead of paying the standard annual Medicare premium of $2,041.20, higher-income individuals are paying from $3,006 to $7,874.40. Couples can pay double that.
Each year, Medicare charges are reset based on the income that people reported two years earlier. Even retirees who never had a problem can be blindsided by an IRMAA after an unusually high-income year.
Ignorance isn’t bliss in such cases. People can often make income adjustments before year end to dodge an IRMAA threshold, such as selling losing investments to offset capital gains. Cutting income by as little as a penny can slice almost $1,000 off an individual’s annual Medicare premiums at the lowest levels, and thousands at higher levels.
Source / Barron’s https://www.barrons.com/articles/medicare-premiums-taxes-irmaa-51671059739
(Link may or may not work.)
Disclaimer - Not an expert on this - or even well informed. Highly recommend the article.

"It is a good chance that US is entering a recession"
Of course the SF Bay Area is more exposed to technological layoffs than most other areas, but I'm also seeing lots of layoff commentary on non-tech business such as DHL logistics, for example. San Francisco is really going to be a ghost of it's recent self before this is over. Between the pandemic and now an approaching recession things are not looking good at all. Municipal tax revenue is already seriously compromised, with city government already instructed to curtail the filling of open job positions and prepare for future personnel cuts.
A significant number of financial commentators that I follow are suggesting that we are already in a "rotating" recession, as layoffs cascade from business to business.

@sven
I think it is possible for a hacker to impersonate your phone SIM card and break the two factor authentication.
I use LastPass but not for financial sites.
Does anyone knw any more about LastPass hack? second time this year but company says no passwords were compromised.
Anybody think 1Password etc any better? Anyone other than @Observant1 have experience with KeePass?

I neglected to mention that KeePass is used only on my PC.
I do not use KeePass (or any password manager) on my mobile devices.

@sma3, unless your phone is compromised with malware, the unique IMEI # associates with your phone/SIM card could be at risk. Breaking the 2FA is not that trivial as it made out to be. The user gets to choose what the other factor is in order to identify themselves.
For security, I seldom use cell phones for financial transaction. I much prefer to use my Mac and Linux computers with a VPN service. No i have not use any of those apps you mentioned.

@sven
I think it is possible for a hacker to impersonate your phone SIM card and break the two factor authentication.
I use LastPass but not for financial sites.
Does anyone knw any more about LastPass hack? second time this year but company says no passwords were compromised.
Anybody think 1Password etc any better? Anyone other than @Observant1 have experience with KeePass?

Come on, don't deflect, and don't project. Email and sim hacks and all that are trivially easy to prevent. Send me $500 and I will explain. I will post the explanation here, too.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/14/brokerage-log-ins-for-sale-on-dark-web-robinhood-sees-highest-prices-.html is inexcusably weak, detail-free, fright reporting.
Like so much of the financial press.
So ... Robinhood alone has pisspoor access and authentication control? That alone is a major story.
Inside job? But that would not meet your scare criteria.
I am going to google to see if I can find out what actually happened w poor old Nate Heard.
The last six CNBC paragraphs are shocking, writer-firable for their slop and laziness. Also preposterous as factual narrative reporting.
And while I expect that you are not a working editor, did you notice that CNBC leads with speaking to 4 people but then can list only 3? yoohoo, editors!?
Again, can you recount for all of us the steps for a bad actor to, out of nowhere and without operator error, access and drain a Vanguard (or ML or Fidelity or Schwab ...) investment account?

I have own this fund Long term... off nearly 20% YTD... 10% of my portfolio.
So here the deal. Buy into this fund a little at a time and monitor its performance. It has under performed for the last 5 years so pay close attention. If its performance reverts to it's 10 and 15 year performance you will be in a good position long term.
On a one year basis, I would suggest PRNHX in a better fund to take advantage of the '22 swoon.
My question for buyers, when have we bottomed?
The financial markets still seem attached at the hip with the Fed so until they stop raising rates we will just attempt at guessing how far prices will revert.

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1124459/000174177322004196/c497.htm
497 1 c497.htm FGT3 P1 121522
FGT3 P1 12/22
SUPPLEMENT DATED DECEMBER 15, 2022
TO THE PROSPECTUS DATED DECEMBER 1, 2022
OF FRANKLIN INTERNATIONAL SMALL CAP FUND
(a series of Franklin Global Trust)
The prospectus is amended as follows:
The following paragraphs are added to the beginning of the “Fund Summaries – Franklin International Small Cap Fund” and “Fund Details – Franklin International Small Cap Fund” sections of the prospectus:
On December 14, 2022, the Board of Trustees of Franklin Global Trust, on behalf of Franklin International Small Cap Fund (the “Fund”), approved a proposal to liquidate and dissolve the Fund. The liquidation is anticipated to occur on or about February 22, 2023 (Liquidation Date); however, the liquidation may occur sooner if at any time before the Liquidation Date there are no shares outstanding in the Fund. The liquidation may also be delayed if unforeseen circumstances arise.
At the close of market on January 17, 2023, the Fund will be closed to new investors, except as noted below. Existing investors who had an open and funded account on January 17, 2023 can continue to invest in the Fund through exchanges and additional purchases after such date. The following categories of investors may continue to open new accounts in the Fund after the close of market on January 17, 2023: (1) clients of discretionary investment allocation programs where such programs had investments in the Fund prior to the close of market on January 17, 2023, and (2) Employer Sponsored Retirement Plans or benefit plans and their participants where the Fund was available to participants prior to the close of market on January 17, 2023. The Fund will not accept any additional purchases after the close of market on or about February 17, 2023. The Fund reserves the right to change this policy at any time.
Shareholders of the Fund on the Liquidation Date will have their accounts liquidated and the proceeds will be delivered to them. For those shareholders with taxable accounts and for Federal, state and local income tax purposes: (a) any liquidation proceeds paid to such shareholder should generally be treated as received by such shareholder in exchange for the shareholder’s shares and the shareholder will therefore generally recognize a taxable gain or loss; (b) in connection with the liquidation, the Fund may declare taxable distributions of its income and/or capital gain; and (c) an exchange out of the Fund prior to the Liquidation Date may be considered a taxable transaction and such shareholders may recognize a gain or loss. Shareholders should consult their tax advisers regarding the effect of the Fund’s liquidation in light of their individual circumstances. Participants in an Employer Sponsored Retirement Plan that is a Fund shareholder should consult with their plan sponsor for further information regarding the impact of the liquidation. In considering new purchases or exchanges, shareholders may want to consult with their financial advisors to consider their investment options.
Please keep this supplement with your Prospectus for future reference.

LewisBraham I think you pointed out the main issue. In Ford's time, the US was still a major manufacturing nation, so raising workers salaries created demand for manufactured products. Hedge fund managers don't produce anything-they just shuffle papers and maximize financial engineering to create profits that only benefit their small group. Todays too many greedy CEOs think they can extract all the profits and then just move to Switzerland, Liechtenstein or Singapore when the US society collapses !

I have not seen anyone post on this forum anything that could be called "far left". Far Left is Stalin. Far Left is Mao.

Nah old Joe. Do respect your comments but disagree. I've read many many left comments on the financial boards here I feel you are calling me out because of my views are not in alignment with a far left political perspective.
Respectfully submitted
Baseball fan

If anyone is really interested here is the most complete list of SBF contributions that I know of. Lots of GOP guys and girls including $ 3,500,000 to Mitch.
Porkers really lined up at the trough
While we all know that "money talks" it is always instructive to see how politicians say one thing and take money from another.
It is unclear what SBF thought he was getting from all this, and what he wanted in terms of Crypto regulations.
https://popular.info/
Judd at Popular information is an incredibly insightful investigative reporter a who has daily emails about where dark money is going, and who is behind various trends in politics etc.
24 politicians and one PAC pledge to donate or return money from FTX execs
1. Representative Josh Harder (D-CA) received $2,900 from Bankman-Fried. A spokesperson for Harder told Popular Information that he plans to donate the funds to the Stockton Food Bank. 
2. Senator Tina Smith (D-MN) received $5,800 from Bankman-Fried. Her campaign said she “has already donated the campaign contributions from Mr. Bankman-Fried to Planned Parenthood North Central States.”
3. Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) received $5,800 from Bankman-Fried and $2,900 from Salame. Her campaign said that both donations were given to “Storyknife Writers Retreat in Homer, Alaska.” 
4. Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) received $5,800 from Bankman-Fried. Sam Runyon, a spokesperson for Manchin, told Popular Information that Manchin donated the money to Mountaineer Food Bank in West Virginia, and that he “hopes this donation can provide some relief to those who need it most.” 
5. Senator John Boozman (R-AR) received $5,800 from Bankman-Fried. His campaign said he has “donated those funds to charity.”
6. Senator-elect Peter Welch (D-VT) received $2,900 from Bankman-Fried. In a statement to Popular Information Welch said, “On November 16th, after serious public allegations against Sam Bankman-Fried, I donated the $2,900 contribution my campaign received from Mr. Bankman-Fried to the Warmth Support Program to help Vermonters keep their homes warm this winter.”
7. Representative-elect Morgan McGarvey (D-KY) received $2,900 from Bankman-Fried. McGarvey’s campaign told Popular Information, “We have donated that amount of money to Family Scholar House, a nonprofit in Louisville that provides a range of services, including financial education for disadvantaged single parents and their children in Louisville.”
8. Representative-elect Valerie Foushee (D-NC) received $2,900 from Bankman-Fried. Foushee told Popular Information in a statement, “The situation with FTX is both distressing and unsettling. When I accepted a $2,900 donation from Mr. Bankman-Fried, I was unaware of his illegitimate business dealings. In light of recent developments, I cannot, in good conscience, retain his donation to my campaign, and have since donated these funds to a nonprofit in Chapel Hill, EMPOWERment Inc., whose mission is to serve the community through their steadfast work to provide affordable housing and foster economic development. I sincerely hope that anyone who may have been wronged in this situation will be made right." 
9. Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA) received $5,800 from Bankman-Fried. He pledged to donate the amount to “an appropriate cause.” 
10. Representative Ritchie Torres (D-NY) received $2,900 from Bankman-Fried. Torres donated the amount to “a local charity to assist with holiday food distributions to families in need.” 
11. Representative Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) received $5,800 from Bankman-Fried. Jeffries donated the amount to the American Diabetes Association.
12. Representative Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) received $5,800 from Bankman-Fried. A spokesperson for Gottheimer said he is donating the amount to charity. 
13. Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) received $5,700 from Bankman-Fried. Booker’s campaign told Popular Information that he “donated the $5,700 contribution from [Bankman-Fried] to a New Jersey-based charity.” 
14. Representative Dave Joyce (R-OH) received $2,900 from Salame. Joyce’s office told Popular Information that he plans to donate the money to the Greater Cleveland Food Bank. 
15. The American Patriots PAC, a group “dedicated to electing conservative heroic veterans,” received $150,000 from FTX. The group told Popular Information that the donation has been returned.
16. Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) received $20,800 from Bankman-Fried. According to Bloomberg, Stabenow plans to “donate the money to a charity in her state.”
17. Representative-elect Becca Balint (D-VT) received $2,900 from Bankman-Fried. According to the VTDigger, Balint plans to donate the funds to “the Vermont-based Committee on Temporary Shelter.”
18. Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) received $2,900 from Bankman-Fried. The Wall Street Journal reported that a representative for Collins said that the funds would be donated to charity. 
19. Beto O’Rourke, the former Democratic candidate for governor of Texas, received $1 million from Bankman-Fried. According to Bloomberg, O’Rourke had already returned the donation to Bankman-Fried before FTX announced its bankruptcy. 
Popular Information previously reported that Representatives Kevin Hern (R-OK), Chuy Garcia (D-IL), and Salud Carbajal (D-CA) donated campaign contributions received from FTX executives. Senator John Hoeven (R-ND), who received $5,800 from Bankman-Fried, also pledged to “give the contribution to whatever reimbursement fund is set up by the bankruptcy court.” Representative David Schweikert (R-AZ) and Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) also told the Daily Beast they would be donating the funds received from FTX executives.
Largest recipients of FTX cash stay quiet
Many candidates and PACs that received donations from FTX executives did not return requests for comment. This includes some of the top recipients of donations, including the House Majority PAC, which received $6 million from Bankman-Fried; Mitch McConnell’s Super PAC, the Senate Leadership Fund, which received $1 million from FTX and $2.5 million from Salame; the Democratic National Committee, which received $865,000 from Bankman-Fried; the NRCC, which received $184,800 from FTX executives; and the DCCC, which received $156,400 from FTX executives. 
Other major recipients that did not respond to requests for comment include Senator Maggie Hassan (D-NH) ($20,600), Representative Alex Mooney (R-WV) ($11,600), and Representative Ronny Jackson (R-TX) ($10,000). The campaign for Jake Auchincloss (D-MA) ($5,800) declined to comment on the record. 

[snip]
Hell LastPass recently got hacked, in effect LastPass is the equivalent of an account aggregator but much worse since it has a lot more confidential stuff than just financial accounts.

That's why I'm wary of cloud-based password managers.
I use KeePass (free, open-source) which stores credentials locally on my PC.

If an account aggregator is breached and your account incurs losses as a result,
the broker may not reimburse you for these losses.
Fidelity Customer Protection Guarantee
"Also not covered is any activity by an employer/plan administrator, financial intermediary, or third-party who is authorized by you to access your data (or who received your data as a result of that access), or with whom you've shared or provided access to your username, password, or account number, or from malware or a breach of security that affects the systems of any of those parties."
Link

Using Yodlee via Schwab vs. using Yodlee or equivalent directly does not offer any additional security. Yodlee is a cloud based service, it can be hacked directly without needing to hack Schwab.
Note that the account credentials you are providing (either to Schwab or Yodlee directly) are traversing the internet from your machine to Schwab and from Schwab to the aggregator. Yes it is encrypted and all that good stuff but it can be hacked including from bad apple insiders (this is how Capital One was hacked)
In a cloud based world, hacking is a lot easier than the pre-cloud world because of the distributed nature of all services. In the age of the internet, security and privacy are not realistically possible. Over the last 5-7 years at least 5+ of my accounts with large corporations have been hacked -- Target, Capital One, Home Depot, Experian, etc..
Hell LastPass recently got hacked, in effect LastPass is the equivalent of an account aggregator but much worse since it has a lot more confidential stuff than just financial accounts.

@davidrmoran- Well, Yodlee is just one of the "aggregators", and stayCalm was referring, in a way, to the explanation that I made above. If you are using a downloaded financial app that involves an aggregator, a hacker could presumably go directly to your account information at Yodlee.
Again, I'm just trying to sort through all of this along with everyone else. The lack of transparency on the part of all players in this setup isn't helpful. The suggestion seems to be that if you have asked Schwab (for example) to aggregate your accounts, then that account information is somehow safer than if you regularly interact directly with the aggregator. Again, this is why I started this thread- maybe between all of us we can learn a bit more about the risk/benefit ratio involving aggregators.