Monthly archives: October, 2013

Fitch Places United States’ ‘AAA’ on Rating Watch Negative

Fitch Ratings has placed the United States of America’s (U.S.) ‘AAA’ Long-term foreign and local currency Issuer Default Ratings (IDRs) on Rating Watch Negative (RWN). “The ratings of all outstanding U.S. sovereign debt securities have also been placed on RWN, as has the U.S. Short-term foreign currency rating of ‘F1+’. The Outlook on the Long-term …

Subjects: Economy, Financial System

Federal Reserve Board – Beige Book – October 16, 2013

Summary of Commentary on Current Economic Conditions by Federal Reserve District: “Prepared at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and based on information collected on or before October 7, 2013. This document summarizes comments received from business and other contacts outside the Federal Reserve and is not a commentary on the views of Federal Reserve …

Subjects: Economy, Financial System, Government Documents

Analysis Provides State-by-State Estimates of Poor Uninsured Adults Who Fall Into the “Coverage Gap” Under the Affordable Care Act

“A new analysis from the Kaiser Family Foundation provides state-level data showing how many impoverished uninsured adults fall into the Affordable Care Act’s “coverage gap” — those who will be ineligible to enroll in Medicaid and also will not qualify for financial assistance to buy private health insurance in the new marketplaces in states that …

Subjects: Government Documents, Health Care

Report – The Cost of Crisis-Driven Fiscal Policy

“Even as Congressional leaders and the president discuss a potential temporary solution to the current stalemate over the government shutdown and the debt ceiling, the repeated cycle of lurching from crisis to crisis has significant and real costs to the U.S. economy A new report, prepared by Macroeconomic Advisers, LLC for the Peter G. Peterson …

Subjects: Economy, Financial System, Government Documents

Mortgage Market Conditions and Borrower Outcomes

Mortgage Market Conditions and Borrower Outcomes: Evidence from the 2012 HMDA Data and Matched HMDA–Credit Record Data, Neil Bhutta and Glenn B. Canner “This article describes mortgage lending activity in 2012 based on newly available data reported under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act of 1975 (HMDA). In addition, we present the results of a first …

Subjects: Economy, Financial System, Legislation

Poll – The New American Center

“An exclusive Esquire-NBC News survey [rendered in a series of infographics that accompany the data for each respective question/answer] shows us that everything we are told about politics in America today—that there is no middle ground between left and right, blue and red, us and them—is wrong. The data, compiled by the Benenson Strategy Group …

Subjects: Blogs, Civil Liberties, Congress, Economy, Education, Energy, Free Speech, Government Documents, Legal Research

Congressional Notification for Authorized Public Disclosure of Intelligence Information

Steven Aftergood/Secrecy News: “A new Department of Defense directive requires the Pentagon to notify Congress whenever a DoD official discloses classified intelligence to a reporter on an authorized basis, or declassifies the information specifically for release to the press. The new directive on “Congressional Notification for Authorized Public Disclosure of Intelligence Information” applies to all …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Congress, Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Patriot Act, Privacy

WaPo – NSA challenged by data overcollection from e-mail address books, buddy lists

Barton Gellman, Ashkan Soltani, Julie Tate: “The National Security Agency is harvesting hundreds of millions of contact lists from personal e-mail and instant messaging accounts around the world, many of them belonging to Americans, according to senior intelligence officials and top-secret documents provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. The collection program, which has not …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, E-Government, E-Mail, E-Records, Free Speech, Internet, Privacy, Search Engines