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“The largest U.S.-based bank holding companies continue to build their capital levels and to strengthen their ability to lend to households and businesses during a period marked by severe recession and financial market volatility, according to the results of supervisory stress tests announced by the Federal Reserve on Thursday. The most severe hypothetical scenario projects …
POGO – “This week, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) released a supplement to its January 2015 quarterly report to Congress. The supplement comes after the Pentagon’s change of heart about keeping secret a large quantity of data about the Afghan military and police. As SIGAR reported in January, the U.S. has spent …
Pew – Partial Recovery Seen in Jobs, Household Incomes: “The public makes sharp distinctions about which groups have benefited – and which have not – from the economic policies the government has put in place since the start of the recession. Majorities say that large banks, large corporations and the wealthy have been helped a …
“The U.S. Census Bureau released figures today from the Economic Census showing that the value of shipments for the nation’s crude petroleum and natural gas extraction (NAICS 211111) industry climbed 28.9 percent between 2007 and 2012, despite only an 8.5 percent increase in the number of establishments over the same period. Value of shipments rose …
Defense Science and Technology: Further DOD and DOE Actions Needed to Provide Timely Conference Decisions and Analyze Risks from Changes in Participation, GAO-15-278: Published: Mar 4, 2015. Publicly Released: Mar 4, 2015. Drug Shortages: Better Management of the Quota Process for Controlled Substances Needed; Coordination between DEA and FDA Should Be Improved, GAO-15-202: Published: Feb …
Beige Book – “Reports from the twelve Federal Reserve Districts indicate that economic activity continued to expand across most regions and sectors from early January through mid-February. Six Districts noted that the local economy expanded at a moderate pace since the prior reporting period. Activity rose modestly in Philadelphia and Cleveland, while it increased slightly …
WSJ.com – “Federal Reserve officials spent 2009 worrying about the worst U.S. economic downturn they had seen in their lives, the weakness of the nascent recovery and the uncertainties surrounding their policy options. The transcripts released Wednesday of their policy meetings that year add some interesting new details to this picture, though no big surprises. We pored through them so …
“The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has released today the Government Finance Statistics Manual 2014 (GFSM 2014), providing updated international guidance for the compilation, reporting, and analytical use of government finance (fiscal) statistics (GFS). The GFS guidelines are the basis for fiscal analysis, and play a vital role in the development and monitoring of sound fiscal …
“Public spending—spending by federal, state, and local governments—on transportation and water infrastructure totaled $416 billion in 2014. Most of that spending came from state and local governments: They provided $320 billion, and the federal government accounted for $96 billion. This report provides information on spending for six types of transportation and water infrastructure: Highways, Mass …
Balmford A, Green JMH, Anderson M, Beresford J, Huang C, et al. (2015) Walk on the Wild Side: Estimating the Global Magnitude of Visits to Protected Areas. PLoS Biol 13(2): e1002074. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1002074 – “How often do people visit the world’s protected areas (PAs)? Despite PAs covering one-eighth of the land and being a major focus …
News release: “The U.S. military may be weaker than you think. All but one branch of America’s military and nuclear forces are currently operating at “marginal” strength levels. The exception is the Air Force, which is rated as “strong” in the “Index of U.S. Military Strength,” released today by The Heritage Foundation. A first-of-its-kind report, …
Legislation to Facilitate Cybersecurity Information Sharing: Economic Analysis. N. Eric Weiss, Specialist in Financial Economics. February 23, 2015. “Data breaches, such as those at Target, Home Depot, Neiman Marcus, JPMorgan Chase, and Anthem, have affected financial records of tens of millions of households and seem to occur regularly. Companies typically respond by trying to increase …
