Via Jennifer Manning on GovDoc – “Starting Tuesday, November 19, the main URLs for THOMAS [http://www.thomas.gov, http://thomas.gov and http://thomas.loc.gov] will be redirected to the new beta congress.gov system [ http://beta.congress.gov ]. Permanent links (e.g. “handles”) and links to subpages (for example: http://thomas.loc.gov/home/nomis.html), will not be affected. THOMAS will remain fully operational and updated, and available at the following URL: http://thomas.loc.gov/home/thomas.php These changes will remain in effect until late… Continue Reading
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Author Archives: Sabrina I. Pacifici
New GAO Reports – TSA, DHS Financial Management, Federal Employees, Aviation Security, Defense Logistics, Info Tech
AVIATION SECURITY- TSA Should Limit Future Funding for Behavior Detection Activities, GAO-14-158T, Nov 14, 2013 DHS FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT – Additional Efforts Needed to Resolve Deficiencies in Internal Controls and Financial Management Systems, GAO-13-561, Sep 30, 2013 FEDERAL EMPLOYEES – Opportunities Exist to Strengthen Performance Management Pilot, GAO-13-755, Sep 12, 2013 GOVERNMENT SUPPORT FOR BANK HOLDING COMPANIES – Statutory Changes to Limit… Continue Reading
Boosting Adult Educational Skills Can Grow the Middle Class
“An educated workforce is one of the bedrocks of not only the American middle class but also the U.S. economy as a whole. Our economy is the most productive in the world because of the investments workers make in their own skills and civil society makes in education. However, anew report from the Organisation for Economic… Continue Reading
McKinsey – QE and ultra-low interest rates: Distributional effects and risks
“A new report from the McKinsey Global Institute examines the distributional effects of these ultra-low rates. It finds that there have been significant effects on different sectors in the economy in terms of income interest and expense. From 2007 to 2012, governments in the eurozone, the United Kingdom, and the United States collectively benefited by… Continue Reading
New Reports TracK Financial Health of U.S. Largest Law Firms
Patrick J. Lamb: “Just days apart, Wells Fargo and Citibank released their commentary on the financial performance of the Am Law 200 law firms. The news was not pretty. Characterizations like “underproductivity” and “anemic” and “margins squeezed” littered the two reports. What do we learn from these two reports? We learn that demand from clients is dropping, there is compression… Continue Reading
Europe’s budgetary surveillance moves into full gear
News release: “The European Commission today presented a major package of budgetary surveillance announcements, covering 13 euro area Member States and 3 non-euro Member States, with a special focus also on the euro area as an economic entity in its own right. For the first time, the Commission has issued opinions on euro area Member… Continue Reading
Twitter News Consumers: Young, Mobile and Educated
Amy Mitchell and Emily Guskin – “Nearly one-in-ten U.S. adults (8%) get news through Twitter, according to a new report by the Pew Research Center, in collaboration with the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Compared with the 30% of Americans who get news on Facebook, Twitter news consumers stand out as younger, more mobile and more educated. In… Continue Reading
Measuring Internet Activity: A (Selective) Review of Methods and Metrics
“Internet Monitor is delighted to announce the publication of Measuring Internet Activity: A (Selective) Review of Methods and Metrics, the second in a series of special reports that focus on key events and new developments in Internet freedom, incorporating technical, legal, social, and political analyses. Measuring Internet Activity, authored by Robert Faris and Rebekah Heacock, explores current efforts to… Continue Reading
Google Report Shows Growing Government Demands for User Data, Highlights Need for ECPA Reform
CDT – “Today’s Transparency Report from Google, which shows a sharp increase in government demands for user data, provides the latest in a long list of reasons why Congress should act now to update the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), to make it clear that government officials must obtain a warrant in order to access email and other communications stored… Continue Reading
EFF – Court Upholds Legality of Google Books
“It’s a good day for fair use and sane copyright law. After years of litigation, Judge Denny Chin has ruled that the Google Books project does not infringe copyright. Readers, authors, librarians and future fair users can rejoice. For years, Google has been cooperating with libraries to digitize books and create massive, publicly available and searchable books database.… Continue Reading
Agency MBS Transaction Summary
Federal Reserve Bank of New York: “On September 13, 2012, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) directed the Open Market Trading Desk (the Desk) at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to begin purchasing additional agency MBS at a pace of $40 billion per month. The FOMC also directed the Desk to maintain its… Continue Reading
GAO Report – Government Support for Bank Holding Companies
Statutory Changes to Limit Future Support Are Not Yet Fully Implemented, GAO-14-18, Nov 14, 2013 “During the 2007-09 financial crisis, the federal government’s actions to stabilize the financial system provided funding support and other benefits to bank holding companies and their subsidiaries. Agencies introduced new programs with broad-based eligibility that provided funding support to eligible institutions,… Continue Reading
