Category «Government Documents»

The Fed’s Monetary Tightening and the Risk Levels of US Banks

NBER: “Between March 7, 2022, and March 6, 2023, the Federal Reserve increased the federal funds rate by nearly 4.5 percentage points. This led to a $2.2 trillion aggregate decline in the market value of long-term bank assets such as government bonds, mortgages, and corporate loans. These decreases are not fully reflected in banks’ book …

Subjects: Economy, Financial System, Government Documents, Knowledge Management, Legal Research

The U.S. Supreme Court’s Turn Toward Tyranny

The U.S. Supreme Court’s Turn Toward Tyranny. May 4, 2023 by Heidi Li Feldman. Keynote for the Ontario Bar Association Legal Conference, “Cross Borders.” Lecture notes prepared by Heidi Li Feldman Part One: Outline of Remarks [snipped] 1.   Overview of the current state of U.S. Supreme Court A.   Composition of the current Supreme Court bench …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Courts, Financial System, Government Documents, Legal Research

Jury Convicts Four Leaders of the Proud Boys of Seditious Conspiracy Related to U.S. Capitol Breach

DOJ: “All Defendants Convicted of Multiple Felonies. A jury in the District of Columbia today returned guilty verdicts on multiple felonies against five members of the Proud Boys, finding four of the defendants guilty of seditious conspiracy for their actions before and during the breach of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. According to …

Subjects: Government Documents, Legal Research

Justice Thomas, gift reporting rules, and what a Supreme Court code of conduct would and wouldn’t accomplish

Brookings: “Recent revelations of Justice Clarence Thomas’s rocky relationship with gift and income reporting rules have heightened attention to the arcane and often misunderstood federal judicial ethics regime and quickened the drumbeat for a Supreme Court code of conduct. My goal in this post is to (1) summarize the statutes and rules that govern federal …

Subjects: Courts, Financial System, Government Documents, Legal Research

Bank Regulation: Preliminary Review of Agency Actions Related to March 2023 Bank Failures

Bank Regulation: Preliminary Review of Agency Actions Related to March 2023 Bank Failures. GAO-23-106736 Published: Apr 28, 2023. Publicly Released: Apr 28, 2023.  “Risky business strategies along with weak liquidity and risk management contributed to the recent failures of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank. In both banks, rapid growth was an indicator of risk. …

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

Precedent Unbound: The Supreme Court’s Summary Elimination of Liberal Lower Court Rulings

Tucker, Lisa A. and Risch, Michael, Precedent Unbound: The Supreme Court’s Summary Elimination of Liberal Lower Court Rulings (March 19, 2023). Florida Law Review, Vol. 76, (2024 Forthcoming), Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4393097 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4393097 “Over the past two years the United States Supreme Court has erased thirteen politically and legally significant opinions written by the …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Courts, Government Documents, Knowledge Management, Legal Research

Bush v. Gore docs among new releases from Justice Stevens archives

NBC News: “Internal documents concerning the Supreme Court‘s historic Bush v. Gore decision in 2000 that handed the White House to President George W. Bush are being made public Tuesday, with the Library of Congress releasing a new trove of papers from the archives of Justice John Paul Stevens. Stevens, who died in 2019 at …

Subjects: Courts, Government Documents, Legal Research

The Luring Test: AI and the engineering of consumer trust

FTC – Michael Atleson, Attorney, FTC Division of Advertising Practices: “In the 2014 movie Ex Machina, a robot manipulates someone into freeing it from its confines, resulting in the person being confined instead. The robot was designed to manipulate that person’s emotions, and, oops, that’s what it did. While the scenario is pure speculative fiction, companies …

Subjects: AI, E-Commerce, Government Documents, Legal Research, Legislation

FDIC’s proposal for deposit reform is narrow and uninspiring—and it just might work

Quartz: “The bank regulator wants Congress to lift the deposit insurance cap for business payroll accounts. When it comes to deposit insurance rules, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) only wants the US Congress to change what it absolutely must. In a new report issued in the wake of Silicon Valley Bank’s failure, the banking regulator …

Subjects: Economy, Financial System, Government Documents

The Paper Shortage and its Effects on Mail

USPS OIG Demand for graphic paper — the type of paper most frequently used in mail — had been steadily declining until the COVID-19 pandemic, when both demand and subsequent production plummeted sharply. There were several reasons for the graphic paper shortage, including changes in paper production, price increases in paper-making materials, and disruptions in …

Subjects: Government Documents

Has AI hacked the operating system of human civilization

The New York Times: ‘The Godfather of A.I.’ Leaves Google and Warns of Danger Ahead – For half a century, Geoffrey Hinton nurtured the technology at the heart of chatbots like ChatGPT. Now he worries it will cause serious harm. Gizmodo – AI Will Make Our Society Even More Unequal, Economists Warn – AI threatens …

Subjects: AI, Economy, Education, Financial System, Government Documents, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Legislation

Whistleblowers Are the Conscience of Society, Yet Suffer Gravely For Trying to Hold the Rich and Powerful Accountable For Their Sins

Via LLRX –  Whistleblowers Are the Conscience of Society, Yet Suffer Gravely For Trying to Hold the Rich and Powerful Accountable For Their Sins – Lawyer, activist, author, and whistleblower Ashley Gjovik states: “I blew the whistle and was met with an experience so destructive that I did not have the words to describe what …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, E-Government, E-Mail, E-Records, Government Documents, Legal Research