As introduced in the House of Representatives on January 6, 2015 – “H.R. 30 would change how penalties are imposed under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) on employers that do not offer insurance (or offer insurance that does not meet certain criteria) and that have at least one full-time employee receiving a subsidy through a… Continue Reading
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Monthly Archives: January 2015
Subsidizing Traffic Congestion: The Multibillion-Dollar Tax Subsidy That’s Making Your Commute Worse
“The commuter parking benefit results in $7.3 billion in forgone revenue annually while also increasing traffic congestion in our most congested cities, according to a new report, Subsidizing Traffic Congestion: The Multibillion-Dollar Tax Subsidy That’s Making Your Commute Worse, released by the civic organizations TransitCenter and Frontier Group. The report also found that the $1.3… Continue Reading
The Decoupling Effect of Digital Disruptors
The Decoupling Effect of Digital Disruptors by Thales S. Teixeira and Peter Jamieson, November 21, 2014. Harvard Business School Working Paper. “While the Internet’s first wave of disruption was marked by the unbundling of digital content, the second wave, decoupling, promises to generate more casualties in an even broader array of industries. Digital start-ups are disrupting… Continue Reading
Contract as Automaton: The Computational Representation of Financial Agreements
Flood, Mark D. and Goodenough, Oliver R., Contract as Automaton: The Computational Representation of Financial Agreements (December 16, 2014). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2538224 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2538224 “We show that the fundamental legal structure of a well written financial contract follows a state-transition logic that can be formalized mathematically as a finite-state machine (a.k.a. finite-state automaton). The automaton… Continue Reading
Minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee, December 16-17, 2014
“The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) authorizes the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to conduct a series of overnight reverse repurchase operations involving U.S. government securities for the purpose of further assessing the appropriate structure of such operations in supporting the implementation of monetary policy during normalization. The reverse repurchase operations authorized by this resolution shall be (i) conducted at an offering rate that… Continue Reading
DHS IG Report – Border Patrol Use of Drones Ineffective
U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Unmanned Aircraft System Program Does Not Achieve Intended Results or Recognize All Costs of Operations, December 24, 2014 OIG-15-17. “Although CBP’s Unmanned Aircraft System program contributes to border security, after 8 years, CBP cannot prove that the program is effective because it has not developed performance measures. The program has also not achieved the expected results. Specifically, the unmanned aircraft… Continue Reading
Freedom on the Net 2014
Freedom on the Net 2014 – the fifth annual comprehensive study of internet freedom around the globe, covering developments in 65 countries that occurred between May 2013 and May 2014 –finds internet freedom around the world in decline for the fourth consecutive year, with 36 out of 65 countries assessed in the report experiencing a negative… Continue Reading
FTC Chair Warns About Risks of Connected Devices
EPIC: “In a speech at the CES conference this week, FTC Chair Edith Ramirez warned of the privacy risks of connected home devices. “In the not-too-distant future, many, if not most, aspects of our everyday lives will be digitally observed and stored,” Ramirez said. EPIC has written extensively on interconnected devices, known as the “Internet… Continue Reading
Improved Search and QuickFacts Enhance Census Bureau’s Website
“As a direct result of customer feedback, the U.S. Census Bureau recently updated two key tools oncensus.gov with new features to make accessing statistics easier than ever before. With an improved search feature generating better results on census.gov, users can discover a wealth of information and visualizations just by typing key words, such as “median income,”… Continue Reading
CDC – Alcohol poisoning kills six people in the US each day
“More than 2,200 people die from alcohol poisoning each year in the United States – an average of six deaths each day – according to a new Vital Signs report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Three in four alcohol poisoning deaths involve adults ages 35-64 years, and most deaths occur among men and… Continue Reading
Challenges at the Intersection of Cyber Security and Space Security
“This research paper is part of Chatham House’s Project on Cyber Security and Space Security, a multiyear research project within the International Security Department examining the security challenges at the intersection of cyber security and space security. The paper aims to identify and raise awareness of the challenges common to both domains through a compilation of articles by… Continue Reading
Sales by largest arms companies fell again in 2013 but Russian firms’ sales continued rising
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute: “This is the third consecutive year of decline in the total arms sales of the 100 largest arms producers and military services providers. With a decrease in sales of 2 per cent in real terms compared to 3.9 per cent in 2012, the pace of the decline has slowed slightly.… Continue Reading
