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Category Archives: Financial System

Zillow introduces First Street’s comprehensive climate risk data on for-sale listings across the US

“Zillow® is introducing climate risk data, provided by First Street, the standard for climate risk financial modeling, on for-sale property listings across the U.S. Home shoppers will gain insights into five key risks—flood, wildfire, wind, heat and air quality—directly from listing pages, complete with risk scores, interactive maps and insurance requirements. With more than 80%… Continue Reading

Flood Risk Outside Flood Zones – A Look at Mortgage Lending in Risky Areas

Liberty Street Economics. September 25, 2024. Flood Risk Outside Flood Zones — A Look at Mortgage Lending in Risky Areas Kristian Blickle, Evan Perry, and João A.C. Santos. In support of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) creates flood maps that indicate areas with high flood risk, where mortgage… Continue Reading

Young women are starting to leave men behind

FT.com – Men’s education deficit is increasingly becoming an employment, earnings and outcomes gap, with significant repercussions: “Across the developed world, girls and young women have been pulling ahead of boys and young men in education for several decades, with much larger proportions going on to attend university than their male counterparts. This trend has… Continue Reading

Are you in the American middle class? Find out with our income calculator

“About half of U.S. adults (52%) lived in middle-income households in 2022, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of the most recent available government data. Roughly three-in-ten (28%) were in lower-income households and 19% were in upper-income households. Our calculator below, updated with 2022 data, lets you find out which group you are in,… Continue Reading

Flooded Again: Visualizing Repeated Flooding Across the U.S.

NRDC: “For communities across the country, flooding is an all-too-frequent experience—and, often, one with devastating consequences.  Over 250,000 properties in the United States have had multiple claims under the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). These “repetitive loss properties” are found in every U.S. state as well as Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, and… Continue Reading

How Opus Dei Conquered D.C.

Intelligencer via MSN – “A new book shows just how much sway the mysterious right-wing Catholic group has — and might have over Trump’s next term… Details of the Opus Dei network in the American capital are a significant part of a new, deeply researched book by British financial journalist Gareth Gore, Opus: The Cult… Continue Reading

Your tax dollars are funding a $64 billion scam

Raw Story: “…Medicare Advantage is not Medicare. These plans are private health insurance provided by private corporations, who are then fully reimbursed by the Medicare trust fund regardless of how much their customers use their insurance. Thus, the more they can screw their customers and us taxpayers by withholding healthcare, the more money they make.… Continue Reading

Big publishers think libraries are the enemy

citation needed, Molly White – Big publishers think libraries are the enemy. The recent Second Circuit decision in Hachette v. Internet Archive is only the latest battle in the war on libraries and the freedom to read: “I’ve seen quips to the effect of “if public libraries were invented today, they’d be outlawed.” The joke… Continue Reading

FBI Publishes 2023 Cryptocurrency Fraud Report

“The FBI on September 9 released its Cryptocurrency Fraud Report for 2023. In 2023, the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center received more than 69,000 complaints from the public regarding cyber-enabled crime and financial fraud involving the use of cryptocurrency, with over $5.6 billion in reported losses. Criminal actors exploit cryptocurrencies for all schemes, to include tech… Continue Reading

One of the Nation’s Largest Auto Lenders Told Customers We’re Here to Help Then It Took Their Money and Their Cars

ProPublica: “…Exeter is one of the largest auto lenders in the nation, specializing in high-interest loans to people with histories of not paying bills or defaulting on debt, a practice known as subprime lending. The company, which has more than 500,000 active loans and a partnership agreement with CarMax, the country’s largest used car retailer,… Continue Reading

Society at a Glance 2024 OECD Social Indicators

Society at a Glance 2024: OECD Social Indicators, the tenth edition of the biennial OECD overview of social indicators, addresses the growing demand for quantitative evidence on social well-being and its trends. The report features a special chapter on fertility trends which discusses evidence from recent OECD analysis on the effect of labour market outcomes,… Continue Reading