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Daily Archives: September 25, 2012
FTC Action Halts Computer Spying by Illinois Companies
News release: “Seven rent-to-own companies and a software design firm have agreed to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that they spied on consumers using computers that consumers rented from them, capturing screenshots of confidential and personal information, logging their computer keystrokes, and in some cases taking webcam pictures of people in their homes, all without… Continue Reading
Kaiser – Visualizing Health Policy
“The latest infographic in the Visualizing Health Policy series examines health costs in the United States, including how costs have changed, how they compare to some other countries, and how they impact American families.” Health Care Costs Continue Reading
Audit of the Digitization of the Federal Acquisition Services Multiple Award Schedule Contract Files
Audit of the Digitization of the Federal Acquisition Services Multiple Award Schedule Contract Files, Office of Inspector General, General Services Administration, September 25, 2012. “As part of its push towards green business practices, the General Services Administrations (GSA) Federal Acquisition Service (FAS) established a goal of achieving an end-to-end electronic contracting environment. This effort includes… Continue Reading
New GAO Reports – Grants to State and Local Governments, International Food Assistance
Grants to State and Local Governments, An Overview of Federal Funding Levels and Selected Challenges, GAO-12-1016. Sep 25, 2012 International Food Assistance, Improved Targeting Would Help Enable USAID to Reach Vulnerable Groups, GAO-12-862, Sep 24, 2012 Continue Reading
CRS – The Unemployment Trust Fund: State Insolvency and Federal Loans to States
The Unemployment Trust Fund (UTF): State Insolvency and Federal Loans to States, Julie M. Whittaker, Specialist in Income Security. September 20, 2012 “During some recessions, current taxes and reserve balances were insufficient to cover state expenditures for unemployment compensation (UC) benefits. UC benefits are an entitlement, and states are legally required to pay benefits even… Continue Reading
CRS – Medigap: A Primer
Medigap: A Primer. Carol Rapaport, Analyst in Health Care Financing. September 19, 2012 “Medicare is a nationwide health insurance program for individuals aged 65 and over and certain disabled individuals. The basic Medicare benefit package (termed Original Medicare in this report) provides broad protection against the costs of many, primarily acute, health care services. However,… Continue Reading
Principles for the supervision of financial conglomerates – final report
“The Joint Forum’s final report on Principles for the Supervision of Financial Conglomerates provides a set of principles which supersedes the compendium of principles on this topic developed in 1999 and published in 2001 by the Joint Forum (‘the 1999 Principles’). These updated principles are a broader and more consolidated set of internationally agreed principles.… Continue Reading
Freedom House – Freedom on the Net 2012
Freedom on the Net 2012: “This report is the third in a series of comprehensive studies of internet freedom around the globe and covers developments in 47 countries that occurred between January 2011 and May 2012. Over 50 researchers, nearly all based in the countries they analyzed, contributed to the project by researching laws and… Continue Reading
Agencies Release a Regulatory Capital Estimation Tool
“The federal banking regulatory agencies on [September 24, 2012] announced the availability of a regulatory capital estimation tool to help community banking organizations and other interested parties evaluate recently published regulatory capital proposals. The tool will assist these organizations in estimating the potential effects on their capital ratios of the agencies’ Basel III Notice of… Continue Reading
