Category «Economy»

Clarence Thomas’ 38 Vacations

ProPublica continues its stellar investigative reporting on SCOTUS and the Money Train – The Other Billionaires Who Have Treated the Supreme Court Justice to Luxury Travel. “During his three decades on the Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas has enjoyed steady access to a lifestyle most Americans can only imagine. A cadre of industry titans and ultrawealthy …

Subjects: Congress, Courts, Economy, Financial System, Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Legal Research

Colleges Spend Like There’s No Tomorrow. ‘These Places Are Just Devouring Money.’

WSJ (free to read): “The nation’s best-known public universities have been on an unfettered spending spree. Over the past two decades, they erected new skylines comprising snazzy academic buildings and dorms. They poured money into big-time sports programs and hired layers of administrators.  Then they passed the bill along to students. The University of Kentucky …

Subjects: Economy, Education, Financial System

Federal Reserve communications

Jeremy Singer-Vine, Data is Plural: Agam Shah et al. have compiled a corpus of key communications by the US Federal Reserve’s Federal Open Market Committee, which “controls the three tools of monetary policy — open market operations, the discount rate, and reserve requirements.” Gathered from the Fed’s website, the corpus includes all meeting minutes and …

Subjects: E-Government, E-Mail, E-Records, Economy, Financial System, Legal Research

GAO – Blockchain in Finance

GAO Report via YouTube: “Blockchain creates and records tamper-resistant transactions by multiple parties without a central authority, such as a bank, when used for financial transactions. Recent price crashes, bankruptcies, and fraud involving crypto assets, such as bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, raised concerns about regulation and the risks consumers face. Regulatory gaps may limit regulators’ …

Subjects: Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, Economy, Financial System, Government Documents, Legal Research

Practical AI for Teachers and Students

Wharton School – 5 Part Course on YouTube for Students and Instructors/Teachers – Description of the Introduction: “In this introduction, Wharton Interactive’s Faculty Director Ethan Mollick and Director of Pedagogy Lilach Mollick provide an overview of how large language models (LLMs) work and explain how this latest generation of models has impacted how we work …

Subjects: AI, Economy, Education, Financial System, Search Engines

Health Care’s Intertwined Colossus

American Prospect magazine: How decades of policy failures led to the ever-powerful UnitedHealth Group – “…Today, United is the fifth-largest public company in the U.S., bigger than JPMorgan Chase. Its insurance products serve 50 million members, more than the population of Spain, and its $186 billion health services division, Optum, has 103 million patients, more …

Subjects: Economy, Financial System, Health Care, Legal Research

Ponzitracker

The Ponzi Scheme Authority: “Ponzi Scheme Discoveries Skyrocketed In 2022, With One In Four Schemes Involving Crypto  – February 10, 2023 (As a disclaimer, these statistics are presented for educational purposes only, have not been independently verified, and were primarily compiled through articles on Ponzitracker and internet reporting by various sources including Kathy Phelps’ monthly …

Subjects: Economy, Financial System, Legal Research

Your résumé isn’t the only thing popular job sites evaluate

Washington Post: “…Job seekers…say they’re increasingly struggling to find positions and cut through the hundreds of applications targeted at one job on popular sites like Indeed, ZipRecruiter and LinkedIn. Many are convinced that job-matching features powered by artificial intelligence on these sites don’t always work in their favor. In some instances, AI recommendation systems are …

Subjects: AI, Economy, Internet, Knowledge Management, Marketing, Privacy, Search Engines, Social Media

The Problem With Plastics

Information is Beautiful: Why plastic recycling does not work. Sources: Geyer at al, “Production, use, and fate of all plastics ever made” (Sci Adv 2017) Credits: Research & design: David McCandless Data: View the data Source: “Production, use, and fate of all plastics ever made” Geyer et al., Sci Adv, 2017 (data) n.b. These numbers …

Subjects: Climate Change, Economy, Environmental Law, Government Documents, Health Care, Legal Research

IRS Launches Paperless Processing Initiative

“Taxpayers will have the option to go paperless for IRS correspondence by 2024 Filing Season, IRS to achieve paperless processing for all tax returns by Filing Season 2025. IRS Paperless Processing Initiative will eliminate up to 200 million pieces of paper annually, cut processing times in half, and expedite refunds by several weeks. Paper-based processes …

Subjects: Economy, Financial System, Government Documents