Almanac: George Bernard Shaw on longing
Bipartisan Policy Center – Barriers to Using Government Data: Extended Analysis of the U.S. Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking’s Survey of Federal Agencies and Offices – “Policymakers face many demands from constituents, budgetary processes, and their commitment to providing good services for the American people
Is this the beginning of the World Wide Wall? (related to Emergent Ventures, also). Recommended
Bipartisan Policy Center – Barriers to Using Government Data: Extended Analysis of the U.S. Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking’s Survey of Federal Agencies and Offices – “Policymakers face many demands from constituents, budgetary processes, and their commitment to providing good services for the American people
Gallup: “With the release of the World Bank’s 2017 Global Findex microdata last week, policymakers and researchers — for free — can now dig deeper into how billions of the world’s adults use bank accounts, mobile money, digital payments, savings and credit. In April, the World Bank published its country-level data and released its report on financial inclusion indicators
Australian political strategist Bruce Hawker talks 'Trump's America'
Australian political strategist Bruce Hawker talks 'Trump's America'
Side-Eye Warner Media’s Decision To Shut Down FilmStruck, But Remember That Streaming Isn’t Ownership
Perhaps it was a larger mistake to think that a streaming service, even one as quirkily great as FilmStruck, could in any way replace going to arthouses or buying little-known classic movies. "For what is ownership, when it comes to the cultural products we love? Is a digital file purchased from iTunes owned? Is a DVD owned? And if we are not the ultimate owners, can we depend at all on private companies, even ones with as rich an artistic legacy as Warner Bros., to preserve their culture and keep it available?" … [Read More]
When Fiction Takes On Political News (And The News Is Getting Weirder By The Minute)
A tweet just after Brexit passed in 2016 predicted that 2018 would have a ton of novels set against the backdrop of the vote. Well: "We may not quite have seen the 'slew' of novels predicted, but there have certainly been a number of significant ones, enough to have generated their own literary category – 'Brexlit' – with an academic book on the subject already promised." … [Read More]
We collect data on hundreds of panhandlers and the passersby they encounter at Metrorail stations in Washington, DC. Panhandlers solicit more actively when they have more human capital, when passersby are more responsive to solicitation, and when passersby are more numerous. Panhandlers solicit less actively when they compete. Panhandlers are attracted to Metrorail stations where passersby are more responsive to solicitation and to stations where passersby are more numerous. Across stations, potential-profit per panhandler is nearly equal. Most panhandlers use pay-what-you-want pricing. These behaviors are consistent with a simple model of rational, profit-maximizing panhandling.
That is the new paper by Peter T. Leeson and R. August Hardy.
Thodey panel leaning towards a small list of big ideas
APS REVIEW: Backed by an emerging five-point vision, David Thodey's panel is planning to craft a concise set of big ideas for public service reform rather than a highly prescriptive blueprint.
Cross-sector collaboration successes mark 2018 NSW Premier’s Awards
NSW: Ever since the NSW government restructured its Premier’s Awards for Public Service around the outcomes-based 12 Premier’s Priorities, something interesting has developed from that approach.
◾ Full list of winners: 2018 NSW Premiers Awards for Public Service
Oxford Dictionaries: “Folksonomy, a portmanteau word for ‘folk taxonomy’, is a term for collaborative tagging: the production of user-created ‘tags’ on social media that help readers to find and sort content. In other words, hashtags: #ThrowbackThursday, #DogLife, #MeToo. Because ordinary people create folksonomy tags, folksonomies include categories devised by small communities, subcultures, or even individuals, not merely those by accepted taxonomic systems like the Dewey Decimal System. The term first arose in the wake of Web 2.0 – the Web’s transition, in the early 2000s, from a read-only platform to a read-write platform that allows users to comment on and collaboratively tag what they read. Rather unusually, we know the exact date it was coined: 24 July, 2004. The information architect Thomas Vander Wal came up with it in response to a query over what to call this kind of informal social classification.
Perhaps the most visible folksonomies are those on social-media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Flickr, and Instagram. Often, people create tags on these platforms in order to gather under a single tag content that many different users have created, making it easier to find posts related to that tag. (If I’m interested in dogs, I might look at content gathered under the tag #DogLife.) Because tags reflect the interests of people who create them, researchers have pursued ways to use tags to build more comprehensive profiles of users, with an eye to surveillance or to selling them relevant ads…”
The New Yorker – Digitization promises to make medical care easier and more efficient. But are screens coming between doctors and patients?
“…More than ninety per cent of American hospitals have been computerized during the past decade, and more than half of Americans have their health information in the Epic system.
Tax Wars, Follow-Up Investigations And Who Was Actually In The Paradise Papers? ICIJ
Answering questions relating to the 2017 investigation.
A year on from the Paradise Papers, the lack of progress is worrying ICRICT
China’s challenge to international tax rules and the implications for global economic governance Martin Hearson’s Blog
France wants Swiss bank UBS fined 1.6 billion euros for tax fraud: lawyer France 24
Goldman Sachs Ensnarled in Vast 1MDB Fraud Scandal The New York Times
An investigation into the alleged embezzlement of billions of dollars from a state-run investment fund in Malaysia
Pilatus might be gone but Malta remains a money-laundering haven The Shift
UNESCO launches Truth Never Dies campaign The Shift
UNESCO marks the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists
Billionaire Rybolovlev Charged in Monaco Corruption Probe Bloomberg
‘… in relation to a probe into corruption and influence peddling in his long-running dispute with Geneva art dealer Yves Bouvier… The dispute between the men has been fought in Monaco, Singapore and Switzerland. It last month expanded to the U.S.’
See also: Russian Oligarch Who Bought Trump Mansion Detained by Monaco Police The Daily Beast
Going After the Enablers The American Interest
Read about enablers and intermediaries here
FIFA retains low-tax, non-profit status despite billions swissinfo
U.S.: Post-TCJA, International Corporate Tax System Still Leaking Hundreds of Billions in Profits ITEP
The money at the heart of sea level rise and superstorms The Hill
Shell companies siphon EUR 199 Billion out of Netherlands annually NLTimes
“…More than ninety per cent of American hospitals have been computerized during the past decade, and more than half of Americans have their health information in the Epic system.
Tax Wars, Follow-Up Investigations And Who Was Actually In The Paradise Papers? ICIJ
Answering questions relating to the 2017 investigation.
A year on from the Paradise Papers, the lack of progress is worrying ICRICT
China’s challenge to international tax rules and the implications for global economic governance Martin Hearson’s Blog
France wants Swiss bank UBS fined 1.6 billion euros for tax fraud: lawyer France 24
Goldman Sachs Ensnarled in Vast 1MDB Fraud Scandal The New York Times
An investigation into the alleged embezzlement of billions of dollars from a state-run investment fund in Malaysia
Pilatus might be gone but Malta remains a money-laundering haven The Shift
UNESCO launches Truth Never Dies campaign The Shift
UNESCO marks the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists
Billionaire Rybolovlev Charged in Monaco Corruption Probe Bloomberg
‘… in relation to a probe into corruption and influence peddling in his long-running dispute with Geneva art dealer Yves Bouvier… The dispute between the men has been fought in Monaco, Singapore and Switzerland. It last month expanded to the U.S.’
See also: Russian Oligarch Who Bought Trump Mansion Detained by Monaco Police The Daily Beast
Going After the Enablers The American Interest
Read about enablers and intermediaries here
FIFA retains low-tax, non-profit status despite billions swissinfo
U.S.: Post-TCJA, International Corporate Tax System Still Leaking Hundreds of Billions in Profits ITEP
The money at the heart of sea level rise and superstorms The Hill
Shell companies siphon EUR 199 Billion out of Netherlands annually NLTimes