Industry-Friendly State Disclosure Rules May Shield Far Broader Use. “Previously unpublicized information unearthed by Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) shows that since at least 2013, oil and gas companies have used more than 21 tons (43,000 pounds) of a class of extremely toxic and persistent chemicals known as PFAS in hydraulic fracturing of oil and… Continue Reading
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Category Archives: Economy
Executive Order on Prohibition on Use by the United States Government of Commercial Spyware that Poses Risks to National Security
March 27, 2023 – “By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows: Section 1. Policy. Technology is central to the future of our national security, economy, and democracy. The United States has fundamental national security and foreign… Continue Reading
Banks, Financial Industry Hit by Rising Ransomware Attacks
Bloomberg via Wealth Management: “Ransomware gangs didn’t come out with any big new innovations last year, but “what 2022 lacked in innovation it made up for in volume,” according to a report by a financial services group. In its annual outlook on cyber threats, the Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center, or FS-ISAC, reported that… Continue Reading
Consumer Help Center and FDIC Resource Guide
San Francisco Fed: “Consumer Help Center and FDIC Resource Guide – If you have questions about a business or personal bank account, please visit the Federal Reserve’s Consumer Help Center at www.federalreserveconsumerhelp.gov, or contact the center at 1-888-851-1920 or [email protected]. Information about the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) can be found at www.fdic.gov. For questions… Continue Reading
Alexander Skarsgård Explains the Answer to Everything
The New York Times – (It Involves Doing Some Math – Opinion / Video) “Partha Dasgupta is a Cambridge University economist who in 2021 prepared a more than 600-page report for the British government about the financial value of nature. Not your average bedtime reading. But believe us when we say his report, the culmination… Continue Reading
How to recognize AI snake oil
Much of what’s being sold as “AI” today is snake oil — it does not and cannot work. Why is this happening? How can we recognize flawed AI claims and push back? Presentation by Arvind Narayanan Associate Professor of Computer Science, Princeton University Center for Information Technology Policy. Continue Reading
The Four Quadrants of American Politics
The Atlantic: “Control of the House of Representatives could teeter precariously for years as each party consolidates its dominance over mirror-image demographic strongholds. That’s the clearest conclusion of a new analysis of the demographic and economic characteristics of all 435 congressional districts, conducted by the Equity Research Institute at the University of Southern California in… Continue Reading
LocalView
LocalView is a database co-created by Soubhik Barari and Tyler Simko to advance the study of local government in the United States. “We introduce LocalView: a comprehensive dataset of over 100,000 real-time U.S. local government public meeting videos from 1,000+ localities (and counting). If the last few years have taught us anything, it’s that attention,… Continue Reading
New report from OpenAI finds that higher-income jobs are most exposed to GPT
Working Paper – GPTs are GPTs: An Early Look at the Labor Market Impact Potential of Large Language Models, March 27, 2023. “We investigate the potential implications of large language models (LLMs), such as Generative Pre- trained Transformers (GPTs), on the U.S. labor market, focusing on the increased capabilities arising from LLM-powered software compared to… Continue Reading
Loose Monetary Policy and Financial Instability
Via NBER – Loose Monetary Policy and Financial Instability. Maximilian Grimm, Òscar Jordà, Moritz Schularick & Alan M. Taylor “Do periods of persistently loose monetary policy increase financial fragility and the likelihood of a financial crisis? This is a central question for policymakers, yet the literature does not provide systematic empirical evidence about this link… Continue Reading
Nearly 200 Other Banks Vulnerable To SVB-Style Collapse
Jiang, Erica Xuewei and Matvos, Gregor and Piskorski, Tomasz and Seru, Amit, Monetary Tightening and U.S. Bank Fragility in 2023: Mark-to-Market Losses and Uninsured Depositor Runs? (March 13, 2023). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4387676 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4387676 “We analyze U.S. banks’ asset exposure to a recent rise in the interest rates with implications for financial stability. The… Continue Reading
What Really Broke the Banks
The Atlantic – “The Fed, among others, is blameworthy. But the ultimate culprit is COVID-19…After COVID-19 hit the U.S., bank deposits soared. The pandemic-relief measures—including stimulus payments, expanded unemployment insurance, and Paycheck Protection Program funds—put more money in people’s hands, even as consumer spending fell. At the same time, businesses cut back sharply on spending… Continue Reading
