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PIAW
Several key Republican U.S. Senators — including Sen. Mike Crapo of the PIA Western Alliance state of Idaho — want the Trump administration to change how it labels companies considered too-big-to-fail by the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC).
The group sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin who heads the council.
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PIAW
With the demise of the ObamaCare repeal and replace, President Trump said he's not spending anymore time on the matter. Maybe. While the repeal and replace conversation really isn't over, at the time of the implosion, Trump said he's going to move onto other priorities and a big one is tax reform.
At this point nothing has been formally announced but we do know what Trump said during the campaign. While it evolved a bit during the campaign, the current version is more in line with the Republican platform.
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PIAW
At the time you read this story things may have progressed. Or not. After the ignominious rejection of the ObamaCare repeal and replacement plan pushed by House Speaker Paul Ryan and — in the end — President Trump, Democrats reached out to the president and said they'd work with him on repairing the Affordable Care Act.
But they'll only do it if Trump promises to stop attacking ObamaCare.
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PIAW
A Texas Republican Rep. Will Hurd and an Arizona Democrat, Rep. Ruben Gallego want Congress to pass a law that sets up a cybersecurity system that functions much like the National Guard. Hurd has a computer science background and at one time worked undercover for the CIA and Gallego is a Marine Corps veteran.
As part of the plan Hurd suggests those that serve would have their student loan debt erased. He also notes it would be a nice cross-pollination of government and industry in an area that is growing more critical by the day.
The idea is getting mixed reviews.
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PIAW
The Trump administration has released a chilling document via the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). It says the U.S. government's attempt to secure federal agencies from cyber attacks has been just short of pathetic. In fiscal 2016 there were 30,899 incidents that led to "compromise of information or system functionality."
Of those incidents, 16 were considered major and will likely result in harm to national security, public confidence, civil liberty, foreign relations and the economy. Ten of the 16 involved the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).
The other major target is the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and it had 8,100 attacks.
Business didn't do much better.
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PIAW
There is a growing appetite by larger agencies and brokers to grow the business. It's leading many to purchase smaller ones. A lot of these smaller businesses want to sell for a variety of reasons:
The principals are growing older and wanting to retire;
It's harder to find talent; and,
A succession plan doesn't exist or the owner or owners are unable to implement.
At least that's the conclusion of insurance expert Barry Seigerman who has been an independent insurance agent most of his adult life and who — until a few years ago — built a very successful agency and since selling spends a lot of time writing about his favorite subject — insurance.
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PIAW
Last year people in the U.S. drove a record 3.22 trillion miles. That's a 2.8% jump from 2015 and year number five that the U.S. Department of Transportation has reported an increase. In December alone people in this country drove 263.6 billion miles.
As of now it looks like the U.S. is using 10% of the globe's produced gasoline. However, demand — says the U.S. Energy Information Administration — is dropping. That could cause the now recovering oil industry to sputter.
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PIAW
Amino is a company that compiles data. It took a look at the most unusually common injuries in each state. The info is put together from 244 million health insurance claims. These are injuries that are "disproportionally common or the most distinctive" to each state in the union.
Of the top injuries auto accident is listed quite often as is the unspecified facial injury. Struck by an object is Indiana's top while insect bites top the list of a bunch of states.
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