Credit reports weren’t

Credit reports weren’t designed to be job-screening tools. But about half of employers now use them when making hiring decisions, according to a 2012 study by the Society for Human Resource Management. The practice cuts across all sectors of the economy, from high-level management to office assistants, home health-care aides, and people who work the counter serving frozen yogurt.

That’s troubling, because the information contained in a credit report doesn’t necessarily say much about a person’s ability to perform at work. The progressive think tank Demos, which published a report on employer credit checks in May, found that people who have bad credit are more likely to have somebody in their household who is out of work, lacks health insurance, or has unpaid medical debt. Demos argues that difficult economic circumstances aren’t a good—or fair—reason to deny a job to a qualified person.

A growing number of states and cities are starting to buy that argument. Last month, Nevada became the 10th state—joining California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington—to ban employers from running a credit check on a prospective hire. Nevada’s law, which goes into effect in October, allows applicants who find out their prospective employers used their credit information to deny them a job to sue the company and force it to hire them.

The companies named

The companies named as participants in the Prism spying program have been pushing the government to allow them to release more information about their level of cooperation, presumably to counter reports that they believe have been blown out of proportion. Earlier in the week, Google said it received between 0 and 999 national security letters related to between 1,000 and 1,999 accounts in all of 2012.

On All Things D, Google argued that the information released by Facebook was inadequate. A company spokesperson told the blog:

We have always believed that it’s important to differentiate between different types of government requests. We already publish criminal requests separately from National Security Letters. Lumping the two categories together would be a step back for users. Our request to the government is clear: to be able to publish aggregate numbers of national security requests, including FISA disclosures, separately.

Both Google and Twitter have released transparency reports in the past, but they have not discussed national security letters. Still, these reports have gone further than Friday’s disclosures in one key way: they’ve said how often the companies have complied with the government’s requests for information. In 2012, Google says it complied with 88 percent to 90 percent of government requests for user data from the United States; Twitter says it did so between 69 percent and 75 percent of the time.

While Facebook’s statement did not include anything on this, the Wall Street Journal reported that the company had shared at least some information 79 percent of the time.

Both companies stressed

Both companies stressed that even the overall numbers of requests were tiny in comparison to their user bases. The number of national security-related requests likely make up a relatively small proportion of these requests. According to Ted Ullyot, Facebook’s general counsel:

With more than 1.1 billion monthly active users worldwide, this means that a tiny fraction of one percent of our user accounts were the subject of any kind of U.S. state, local, or federal U.S. government request (including criminal and national security-related requests) in the past six months. We hope this helps put into perspective the numbers involved, and lays to rest some of the hyperbolic and false assertions in some recent press accounts about the frequency and scope of the data requests that we receive.

John Frank, Microsoft’s deputy general counsel, wrote that what the government had asked for was far more modest than the general monitoring program described by the Guardian and Washington Post last week.

“We have not received any national security orders of the type that Verizon was reported to have received that required Verizon to provide business records about U.S. customers,” he wrote.

Following reports that

Following reports that they have complied with a broad government spying program, technology companies have begun releasing more information about the national security-related requests for user information made by the federal government.

Facebook published a statement on its blog late Friday which gave a general idea of how many requests for information it received from the government in the second half of last year. Including national security letters, the total number of requests was between 9,000 and 10,000, relating to between 18,000 and 19,000 accounts.

Later on Friday Microsoft posted a similar statement, saying it received between 6,000 and 7,000 criminal and national security warrants, subpoenas and orders affecting between 31,000 and 32,000 consumer accounts in the U.S. The company said it was forbidden from saying whether any of these were FISA orders, but if any were, they would be included in that total.

Both companies stressed that even the overall numbers of requests were tiny in comparison to their user bases. The number of national security-related requests likely make up a relatively small proportion of these requests. According to Ted Ullyot, Facebook’s general counsel:

Poor materials can cause problems

Poor materials can cause problems: The collapse of school buildings in the wake of the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake was due in part to the use of low-quality cement, resulting in so-called tofu buildings. “When cement is mixed inadequately or when other materials are mixed in, it’s not very strong, so any major storm or stress on a building could make it fall down,” says Francis Cheung, author of brokerage firm CLSA’s 2012 report, China’s Infrastructure Bubble. In 2011 the government issued guidelines on materials. “There is a movement toward compliance with international building codes and standards,” says MIT’s Hammer. “But implementation and oversight remain extremely variable.”

Cutting corners won’t be a sound long-term economic strategy for China if its buildings, bridges, and roads degrade rapidly and require fairly frequent replacement. Says Patrick Chovanec, an associate professor at Tsinghua University’s School of Economics and Management: “If you have an asset that lasts for 20 or 30 years instead of twice as long, it has a much shorter earning life before you have to refurbish or tear it down.” Robert Blohm, an economist and consultant for Keen Resources Asia in Beijing, says China could get “stuck”: “Will China still be able to pay for another round of infrastructure development—or will its cities become landscapes of dilapidated buildings?” he asks.

For now, the cash spigot is open. In early September, China announced plans to build more than 1,200 miles of roads, nine sewage-treatment plants, five ports, and 25 subway and intercity rail projects. “In an economic slowdown, the government has to take some countercyclical measures,” Xu Lin, head of the planning department at the National Development and Reform Commissions, told reporters.

The bottom line: Chinese buildings last 25 to 30 years, while U.S. commercial buildings are expected to stand for 70 to 75 years.

001

The federal government recently announced a new Start-Up Visa Program geared toward recruiting innovative immigrant entrepreneurs who will help create new jobs and support economic growth.

Start-Up Visa Program

Beginning April 1, 2013, the new program will link immigrant entrepreneurs with private sector organizations that have experience working with start-ups.  These relationships will be created to help entrepreneurs navigate the Canadian business environment and launch innovative companies that employ people in Canada.

What is Required?

Foreign entrepreneurs will require the support of a Canadian angel investor group, venture capital fund or a business incubator before they can apply to the Start-Up Visa Program. They must also meet the language proficiency and educational requirements of the program.

Initially, Canada’s Venture Capital & Private Equity Association and the National Angel Capital Organization will be partners in the program, and only members of these organizations will be able to participate in the program at its outset. These partner associations will help the federal government ultimately determine which of their members should be eligible for the visa program.

How to Apply

Applications open on April 1, 2013 with the pilot program running up to five years. Those interested in applying should visit the Citizenship and Immigration Canada website for more details.