Category «Economy»

How plastic bags came to rule our lives, and why we can’t quit them.

Via TOPIC: “The story of the plastic bag—the kind that is so ubiquitous in grocery stores, in gutters, in the branches of trees—is a story of persuasion, one that began with a battle between paper and plastic in the hearts of the American people. “People are fond of the old paper bag,” Peter Bunten explained …

Subjects: Climate Change, Economy, Environmental Law, Food and Nutrition

Tech Industry Pursues a Federal Privacy Law, on Its Own Terms

The New York Times: “In recent months, apparently, Facebook, Google, IBM, Microsoft and others have aggressively lobbied officials in the Trump administration and elsewhere to start outlining a federal privacy law. The law would have a dual purpose, they said: It would overrule the California law and instead put into place a kinder set of …

Subjects: Congress, Economy, Financial System, Legal Research, Privacy, Social Media

White Collar Prosecutions Fall to Lowest in 20 Years

White Collar Prosecutions Fall to Lowest in 20 Years – “The latest available data from the Justice Department show that during April 2018 the government reported 494 new white collar crime prosecutions. According to the case-by-case information analyzed by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University, this number is down 14.4 percent over …

Subjects: Courts, Economy, Financial System, Legal Research

Hundreds of Researchers From Harvard, Yale and Stanford Were Published in Fake Academic Journals

Motherboard: “…In the so-called “post-truth era,” science seems like one of the last bastions of objective knowledge, but what if science itself were to succumb to fake news? Over the past year, German journalist Svea Eckert and a small team of journalists went undercover to investigate a massive underground network of fake science journals and …

Subjects: Economy, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research

Bill Gates – Not enough people are paying attention to this economic trend

Gates Notes: The Blog of Bill Gates – “The portion of the world’s economy that doesn’t fit the old model just keeps getting larger. That has major implications for everything from tax law to economic policy to which cities thrive and which cities fall behind, but in general, the rules that govern the economy haven’t …

Subjects: Economy, Financial System, Government Documents

New on LLRX – Banks should brace for impact: The Big Techs are coming!

Via LLRX – Banks should brace for impact: The Big Techs are coming! – Data, BI & Analytics expert Siraj Patel discusses the global financial services and products industry in the context of the urgency for existing business models to adapt and innovate in this time of disintermediation, product un-bundling and marketplaces that offer customer …

Subjects: AI, Economy, Financial System, Knowledge Management, Marketing

New on LLRX – Library Acquisition Patterns: Preliminary Findings

Via LLRX – Library Acquisition Patterns: Preliminary Findings – Katherine Daniel, Joseph J. Esposito, Roger C. Schonfeld: Several years ago, we set out to better understand how both library acquisition practices and the distribution patterns of publishers and vendors were evolving over time. Within the academic publishing community, there is a sense that academic libraries are …

Subjects: E-Commerce, Economy, Libraries

How Washington, D.C. residents are tackling rising rents

Christian Science Monitor – “Affordable housing is proving difficult to come by in the nation’s fast-developing capital. But some residents are finding a solution through housing cooperatives where tenants can collectively purchase their building, enabling low-income people to remain within city limits. But resident Linda Leaks pays only about $1,000 a month, half the area’s …

Subjects: Economy, Housing

Trump Administration Just Ended Obama’s Rule For Cleaner Power Plants

BuzzFeedNews: “Coal plants will be able to release more pollution into the air thanks to a new policy revealed Tuesday by the Trump administration, a highly anticipated replacement to Obama’s signature climate rule. Called the Affordable Clean Energy rule, the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposal largely defers to states on how to curb coal plant pollution, …

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

Greater Commitment Needed by Fintech Firms to Ensure Automated Algorithms Protect Against Discrimination in Loan Applications

“Congressman Emanuel Cleaver, II announced today the findings of his investigation into the small business lending practices of Financial Technology (FinTech) companies. Last year, Congressman Cleaver launched an investigation to study the methods that FinTech companies use to protect consumers against discriminatory practices. One of the primary focuses of the survey was the use of …

Subjects: AI, Congress, Economy, Financial System, Government Documents