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Daily Archives: December 1, 2014

Text of the Presidential and Federal Records Act Amendments of 2014

NARA – “On November 26, 2014, President Barack Obama signed into law H.R. 1233, the Presidential and Federal Records Act Amendments of 2014. This new law modernizes records management by focusing more directly on electronic records, and complements efforts by the National Archives and the Office of Management and Budget to implement the President’s 2011 Memorandum on Managing Government Records. Major updates to the Presidential and Federal Records Acts include:

  • Strengthening the Federal Records Act by expanding the definition of Federal records to clearly include electronic records. This is the first change to the definition of a Federal record since the enactment of the act in 1950.
  • Confirming that Federal electronic records will be transferred to the National Archives in electronic form.
  • Granting the Archivist of the United States final determination as to what constitutes a Federal record.
  • Authorizing the early transfer of permanent electronic Federal and Presidential records to the National Archives, while legal custody remains with the agency or the President.
  • Clarifying the responsibilities of Federal government officials when using non-government email systems.
  • Empowering the National Archives to safeguard original and classified records from unauthorized removal.
  • Codifying procedures by which former and incumbent Presidents review Presidential records for constitutional privileges. Formerly, this process was controlled by an Executive Order subject to change by different administrations.”

New GAO Reports – Private Health Insurance, Regional Missile Defense

Private Health Insurance: Concentration of Enrollees among Individual, Small Group, and Large Group Insurers from 2010 through 2013, GAO-15-101R: Published: Dec 1, 2014. Publicly Released: Dec 1, 2014. Regional Missile Defense: DOD’s 2014 Report Generally Addressed Required Reporting Elements, but Excluded Additional Key Details, GAO-15-32: Published: Dec 1, 2014. Publicly Released: Dec 1, 2014. Continue Reading

International Journal of Central Banking

International Journal of Central Banking (IJCB), December 2014 issue – Cover and contents Monetary and Labor Interactions in a Monetary Union  by Vincenzo Cuciniello Financial Stability and Central Bank Governance by Michael Koetter, Kasper Roszbach and Giancarlo Spagnolo The Aggregate Demand Effects of Short- and Long-Term Interest Rates by Michael T. Kiley Introducing Funding Liquidity Risk in a Macro… Continue Reading

Individual Account Retirement Plans: An Analysis of the 2013 Survey of Consumer Finances

November 2014 EBRI Issue Brief #406 “The percentage of all families with an employment-based retirement plan from a current employer decreased from 38.8 percent in 1992 to 36.2 percent in 2013, according to the most recent data from the 2013 Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF), the Federal Reserve Board’s triennial survey of wealth. While retirement… Continue Reading

What Do Banks Do with All that “Fracking” Money?

Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Matthew Plosser: “Banks play a crucial role in the economy by channeling funds from savers to borrowers. The ability of banks to accomplish this intermediation has become an important element in understanding the causes and consequences of business cycles. In a recent staff report, I investigate how a positive deposit… Continue Reading

Growth in DoD’s Budget From 2000 to 2014

“The Department of Defense’s (DoD’s) base budget grew from $384 billion to $502 billion between fiscal years 2000 and 2014 in inflation-adjusted (real) terms—an increase of 31 percent and an annual average growth rate of 1.9 percent (see figure below). Several factors contributed to that growth. The largest rate of growth was in the costs for military… Continue Reading

Thinking the unthinkable – doing away with the library catalogue

Thinking the unthinkable – doing away with the library catalogue, Based on a paper presented by Simone Kortekaas at the 37th UKSG Annual Conference, Harrogate, April 2014. Insights: the UKSG journal, published online Monday, November 03, 2014. “In this article we will first explain how we came to our decision to focus on delivery instead of worrying about discovery.… Continue Reading