If you’re ever feeling down and worthless, take comfort: Somebody out there loves you. Or at least your money. I’m worth $695!

I recently interviewed Enrique Salem, CEO of Symantec, which makes Norton anti-Virus Suite (now updated to its newest edition, Norton Internet Security). I was in a big hurry when I wrote the story that appeared in the Jpost, so there was one really important link I forgot to put in – the Symantec Online Risk Assessor, which will tell you just how highly valued you are – to hackers who trade in identity theft!

We’re all aware of the risks in online shopping and banking, but I think most of us wouldn’t worry too much about supplying a site like Amazon with our credit card information. Similarly, many of us check our bank accounts online, and pay bills at web sites. We all believe (hope) those sites are secure, and that the people running those businesses are taking all the precautions possible to protect our data.

But are we? According to Salem, more people than ever are falling for targeted hacker e-mail, where you respond to a link in a message and are taken to a site where something like a keylogger is installed remotely on your computer. The keylogger sends data back to the hackers, who then analyze your keystrokes looking for the “golden ticket” – your credit card number, Social Security number, or any other bit of information that can help them eventually trick you into revealing that information.

Sooner or later, Salem said, they get what they want, by coming up with a message that is so precise, so suited to your situation, that you really believe it came from your boss, sister in law, or anyone you believe the hackers couldn’t possibly know about. Of course they couldn’t – unless they were able to peer into your e-mail, instant messages, and so on.

And if you think it’s just not worth their time to pursue your info – why, you’re underestimating your true value. It’s certainly worth a couple of hours of work to get enough information on you; after all, even in these days of the dogged dollar, $695 is nothing to sneeze at! Ask Nikolai (you see this video after the risk assessor finishers analyzing you, so you can get an idea of just who would be interested in buying your identity in an online auction!).

Whether it means something politically or economically, I can’t say – but something fundamental has apparently changed in the  Israeli attitude to the dollar. In the old days, dollars were seen as the ultimate hedge against shekel inflation (many apartment  renters used to have to pay a year’s rent up front, in dollars!), but now, apparently, respect for the greenback is at an all time  low. How else do you explain it when discount supermarkets are using dollars as a sales gimmick?

In Israel, groceries aren’t cheap (although not necessarily overly expensive), but you really don’t want to stock up if you’re  paying full price. So, you wait for a sale, and then you buy in quantity. Each chain has its own sale “style” – buy one or two  items and get one free, coupons, cash back on a credit card, etc. Smart shoppers can sometimes reduce their food bill by 10% – 20% through savvy use of the discounting system, hopping from store to store looking for bargains.

That means there’s little brand loyalty for supermarket chains in Israel, and the stores know it; they realize that price trumps  convenience, prizes, or green stamps for most customers. So, they run a sale when they want to drum up business. And this is the story of one of those sales.

Not far from my house there’s a branch of a chain called Victory. Some chains go for an affluent crowd (they usually open in more affluent neighborhoods), but Victory generally sticks to the “periphery,” catering largely to Russian immigrants and working class Israelis, from what I can tell. No matter – everyone wants a bargain, and since we were in the area, we decided to check out some of their bargains.

The deal this time was unlike any I have ever seen in Israel: On a wide range of goods, you paid full price, but at checkout time, you got a cash refund – in U.S. dollars! Not the dollar equivalent in shekels, but real live actual dollars! With the dollar hovering around NIS 4 these days, that meant a discount of about 4 shekels on the participating products. The photo, for example, says you get a dollar back if you buy three packages of marshmallows. Each package is 6 shekels, so you end up paying 14 shekels for the three – a discount of a little less than 20% on each package, by my reckoning. Not too bad, but there were a lot of really good buys, with some prices halved, taking into account the dollar deal. Altogether, we got $22 U.S. dollars after everything was added up – about 80 shekels – off a total bill of 550 shekels (they didn’t look like phonies, either).

If you ask me, it’s a genius move! Israelis like to travel (especially to Turkey), so you figure some of them are going to use their “earnings” at the duty free on their way out of town this summer, while others who can’t afford to go anywhere get to feel like “big shots,” with a couple of greenbacks in their pocket (they can also take their dollars to one of the numerous currency exchange places and get shekels). It’s certainly a different promotion, at least for supermarkets. Victory probably bought the dollars last week, when the exchange rate was lower, so they aren’t discounting as much in shekels as they would if they were running a straight sale. And those who hold on to their dollars could technically get an even bigger discount long term, if the dollar strengthens to NIS 4.10 or 4.20 again.

But once upon a time, only affluent Israelis – and of course, “rich Americans” – walked around with dollars. A reflection of the power of the word “America,” and all that stands (stood?) behind it. And now dollars have been reduced to a supermarket gimmick, the equivalent of a throwaway coupon. The “American century” may not be over just yet, but is the dollar’s?