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“The U.S. Census Bureau announced today that real median household income increased by 3.2 percent between 2015 and 2016, while the official poverty rate decreased 0.8 percentage points. At the same time, the percentage of people without health insurance coverage decreased. Median household income in the United States in 2016 was $59,039, an increase in …
Who owns the Wealth in Tax Havens? Macro Evidence and Implications for Global Inequality. Annette Alstadsæter, Niels Johannesen, Gabriel Zucman. NBER Working Paper 23805 “Drawing on newly published macroeconomic statistics, this paper estimates the amount of household wealth owned by each country in offshore tax havens. The equivalent of 10% of world GDP is held …
eSecurity Planet: “The massive Equifax breach that recently affected 143 million consumers would have led to hugely significant fines if the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which takes effect in May 2018, had already been in place. Under the new rules, organizations that fail to protect sensitive data can be fined up to …
Congressional Primer on Responding to Major Disasters and Emergencies, updated September 8, 2017 – “While the disaster response and recovery process is fundamentally a relationship between the federal government and the requesting state or tribal government, there are roles for congressional offices. For instance, congressional offices may help provide information to survivors on available federal …
“…Politicians have intentionally set tax rates on wages much higher than those on long-term investment returns. The U.S. has a progressive tax system in the sense that well-paid workers sacrifice much more than poor workers on their “ordinary income.” But Americans with so-called unearned income—qualified dividends and long-term capital gains—get a break. A billionaire investor …
The Economist: “…Technology is rapidly catching up with the human ability to read faces. In America facial recognition is used by churches to track worshippers’ attendance; in Britain, by retailers to spot past shoplifters. This year Welsh police used it to arrest a suspect outside a football game. In China it verifies the identities of …
Fortune places JPMorgan Chase at the top of the latest Change the World List – doing well by doing good: “More companies than ever are using the profit motive to solve a multitude of societal problems. Here’s our third annual list of the best of them. Click here to read more about the list and …
The Value of Coastal Wetlands for Flood Damage Reduction in the Northeastern USA. Scientific Reports 7, Article number: 9463 (2017). “As exposure to coastal hazards increases there is growing interest in nature-based solutions for risk reduction. This study uses high-resolution flood and loss models to quantify the impacts of coastal wetlands in the northeastern USA …
Via FAS [many thanks as always to Steven Aftergood] – a complement of new and recent applicable critical CRS resources on subject matter pertinent to Hurricane Harvey, including flood response and recovery, oils and chemical spills, flood insurance, disaster assistance and housing, and dam safety. These documents are especially important in light of this report …
World Economic Forum – Beyond Fintech: A Pragmatic Assessment Of Disruptive Potential In Financial Services – Part of the Future of Financial Services series | Prepared in collaboration with Deloitte August 2017. “Consistent with the World Economic Forum’s mission of applying a multistakeholder approach to address issues of global impact, creating this report involved extensive …
“…A Washington Post analysis shows just how broad tech companies’ interests have become in the nation’s capital. According to corporate disclosures that were submitted to the Senate Office of Public Records and screened by the Center for Responsive Politics, some of these tech giants are regularly setting records in their spending on lobbying and are …
ProPublica report [note – the site launched a terrific redesign that helps to highlight the strength of their investigative reporting] “President Donald Trump has left hundreds of government jobs unfilled that require a vote by the Senate. Yet his administration has installed more than 1,000 people through political appointments at every major federal agency, handing …
