Category «Financial System»

General Motors, Sears and Toys R Us: Layoffs across America highlight our shredding financial safety net

NBC News – Millions of Americans are in danger of entering their final decades unable to afford ballooning medical bills and cost-of-living expenses. “Today’s aging workforce faces an uncertain future. The announcement this week that General Motors will lay off 15 percent of its salaried workforce and shutter multiple plants in North America was a …

Subjects: Economy, Financial System

America’s monopoly problem, in one chart

America’s Concentration Crisis – An Open Markets Institute Report – “Monopoly power is all around us: as consumers, business owners, employees, entrepreneurs, and citizens. When we purchase everything from washing machines to groceries, website domains to medical supplies, and even when we select a coffin for a recently deceased loved one, we are constrained by …

Subjects: Economy, Financial System, Legal Research

Book Review – The unmaking of the steady job

The Nation – Ad Hoc Nation – The unmaking of the steady job. Reviewed – Temp: How American Work, American Business, and the American Dream Became Temporary, By Louis Hyman “…Today’s temps, permalancers, subcontractors, and underemployed do have an advantage that their predecessors didn’t: The effects of the gig economy permeate society more thoroughly and …

Subjects: E-Commerce, Economy, Financial System, Internet, Recommended Books

Fourth National Climate Assessment Volume II

Axios: Fourth National Climate Assessment Volume II: Impacts, Risks, and Adaptation in the United StatesThe National Climate Assessment (NCA) assesses the science of climate change and variability and its impacts across the United States, now and throughout this century. The Black Friday climate report, formally known as the National Climate Assessment, follows a landmark U.N. science …

Subjects: Climate Change, Economy, Environmental Law, Financial System, Government Documents

More companies are chipping their workers like pets

Engadget – “The trend of blundering into the void of adopting new tech, damn the consequences, full speed ahead, continues this week. The Telegraph tells us about “a number of UK legal and financial firms” are in talks with a chip company to implant their employees with RFID microchips for security purposes. Ah, security purposes, …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Economy, Financial System, Legal Research, Privacy

New on LLRX – Blockchain Challenges

Via LLRX – Blockchain Challenges – V. Mary Abraham shares her notes from the new Blockchain in Government conference, part of the KMWorld 2018 Conference, that was held November 7-8, 2018 in Washington, D.C. The program speaker was Marcus Ralphs, CEO, ByzGen Ltd. who shared his real-world challenges, both technical and organizational, as well as …

Subjects: Economy, Financial System

18 topics badly explained by many Finance Professors

Fernandez, Pablo, 18 topics badly explained by many Finance Professors (October 20, 2018). Available at SSRN: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3270268 “This paper addresses 18 finance topics that are badly explained by many Finance Professors. The topics are: 1. Where does the WACC equation come from? 2. The WACC is not a cost. 3. The WACC equation when the …

Subjects: Economy, Education, Financial System

The Geography of Prosperity

The Hamilton Project Framing Paper – The Geography of Prosperity – “Over the last several decades, the fortunes of regions and communities across the United States have stopped converging. Evolving patterns of trade and technology, among other factors, have created concentrated prosperity while leaving many places behind. In order to formulate an effective policy response …

Subjects: Economy, Financial System

America’s largest cities have 72% of post-crisis employment growth

Brookings Report – Countering the geography of discontent: Strategies for left-behind places – “Big, techy metros like San Francisco, Boston, and New York with populations over 1 million have flourished, accounting for 72 percent of the nation’s employment growth since the financial crisis. By contrast, many of the nation’s smaller cities, small towns, and rural …

Subjects: Economy, Financial System

Public Attitudes Toward Computer Algorithms

“Americans express broad concerns over the fairness and effectiveness of computer programs making important decisions in people’s lives. Algorithms are all around us, utilizing massive stores of data and complex analytics to make decisions with often significant impacts on humans. They recommend books and movies for us to read and watch, surface news stories they …

Subjects: Financial System, Internet, Knowledge Management

Why Aren’t U.S. Workers Working?

FRBSF Economic Letter 2018-24 | November 13, 2018. Why Aren’t U.S. Workers Working? Mary C. Daly, Joseph H. Pedtke, Nicolas Petrosky-Nadeau, and Annemarie Schweinert. “The decline in labor force participation of U.S. men and women ages 25 to 54 stands in stark contrast with other industrialized nations, where participation rates for prime-age workers have increased …

Subjects: Economy, Financial System, Knowledge Management