Z.1 – Financial Accounts of the United States, Fourth Quarter 2013: “The net worth of households and nonprofits was $80.7 trillion at the end of 2013, about $3 trillion more than at the end of the third quarter. For 2013 as a whole, net worth increased $9.8 trillion, or 14 percent, driven largely by a $5.6 trillion increase in… Continue Reading
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Author Archives: Sabrina I. Pacifici
The National Atlas Will Be Removed from Service September 30, 2014
“This year we are combining the National Atlas of the United States withThe National Map to provide a single source for geospatial and cartographic information. This transformation is taking place to streamline access to information from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Geospatial Program. USGS budget austerity has compelled our organization to prioritize its civilian mapping… Continue Reading
Volkswagen: Big Data Doesn’t Have to Mean Big Brother
Ina Fried: “Given the vast amounts of data that will be collected by the cars of the future, strict protections are needed to prevent government intrusion, the chairman of Volkswagen Group said on Sunday. “The car must not become a data monster,” Martin Winterkorn said, at the start of the CeBit trade show in Germany. Car makers… Continue Reading
Cross-Agency Priority Goals
“Cross-Agency Priority goals address the longstanding challenge of tackling horizontal problems across vertical organizational silos. 15 Cross-Agency Priority Goals were announced in the 2015 Budget, these include 7 mission-oriented and 8 management-focused goals with a 4-year time horizon. To establish these goals, OMB solicited nominations from Federal agencies and several Congressional Committees. Established by the GPRA… Continue Reading
The Highly Educated Federal Workforce in Two Charts
“The federal workforce is getting smarter. Or at least it is spending more time in school. In supplementary budget documents released Monday, the White House said federal agencies employ between half to two-thirds more “highly educated workers” than private sector firms, depending on the size of the company. The Obama administration went as far as to note the increase… Continue Reading
Politico – Judge orders NSA to preserve call data
Josh Gerstein: “A federal judge in San Francisco has ordered the National Security Agency to preserve all metadata from its monitoring of U.S. phone traffic, setting up a potential clash with the Washington-based surveillance court which oversees the NSA-run counter-terrorism program. U.S. District Court Judge Jeffrey White issued the order Monday afternoon California time in response to requests… Continue Reading
New GAO Reports – Federal Rulemaking, FY2015 Budget, Nuclear Safety
FEDERAL RULEMAKING: Regulatory Review Processes Could Be Enhanced, GAO-14-423T: Published: Mar 11, 2014. Publicly Released: Mar 11, 2014. FISCAL YEAR 2015 BUDGET REQUEST: U.S. Government Accountability Office, GAO-14-429T: Published: Mar 11, 2014. Publicly Released: Mar 11, 2014. NUCLEAR SAFETY: Countries’ Regulatory Bodies Have Made Changes in Response to the Fukushima Daiichi Accident, GAO-14-109: Published: Mar 6, 2014. Publicly Released: Mar 11, 2014. Continue Reading
Why the Federal Reserve Failed to See the Financial Crisis of 2008
Why the Federal Reserve Failed to See the Financial Crisis of 2008: The Role of “Macroeconomics” as a Sensemaking and Cultural Frame. Neil Fligstein, Jonah Stuart Brundage, Michael Schultz; Department of Sociology, University of California, Berkeley, CA.February 2014. “One of the puzzles about the financial crisis of 2008 is why the regulators were so slow to recognize the impending collapse of the… Continue Reading
‘Seed libraries’ try to save the world’s plants
Kevin Hartnett, Boston.com: “Abasic principle of any library is that you return what you take out. By that standard, the new scheme at Hampshire College’s library is a roll of the dice. Since last November, librarians have been lending out packets of seeds, allowing people to plant them, and checking them back in if—and only if—the… Continue Reading
Gallup: U.S. Uninsured Rate Continues to Fall
“The percentage of Americans without health insurance continues to fall, measuring 15.9% so far in 2014 compared with 17.1% in the fourth quarter of 2013. These data are based on more than 28,000 interviews with Americans from Jan. 2-Feb. 28, 2014, as part of the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index. With only a few weeks remaining in… Continue Reading
Monthly Budget Review for February 2014
“The federal government ran a budget deficit of $379 billion for the first five months of fiscal year 2014, CBO estimates, $115 billion less than the shortfall recorded in the same span last year. Revenues are higher and outlays are lower than they were at this time a year ago. Without shifts in the timing… Continue Reading
Pinterest Posts First Transparency Report
Pinterest Blog: “Every company that stores information — from banks to phone companies to email providers — must respond to requests for that information from folks like law enforcement agencies, courts, and others. We think it’s important that you know about these requests. That’s why we’re publishing our first transparency report, covering the six months… Continue Reading
