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This investment climate analysis reviews the experiences of over 3000 surveyed business owners in 26 states of Nigeria about the aspects of the business climate that affect their businesses. It complements a similar study in 2007 that covered 11 other Nigerian states. The survey asks business owners about both their perceptions and the actual costs of selected constraints. The analysis benchmarks Nigeria against comparator countries, and provides detailed data for each state. Nigerian firms have low productivity, as measured by their output in relation to their labor and capital inputs. Firms in Kenya are about 40 percent more efficient, firms in Russia almost twice as productive, and firms in South Africa almost four times as productive. Nigerian firms that export are about 90 percent more productive than non-exporters. Although labor in Nigeria is inexpensive, it is not inexpensive enough to compensate for this low productivity. The poor performance of Nigerian firms reflects many factors. This study focuses on constraints in the business climate and the serious costs they impose on Nigerian firms. Taken together, the total indirect costs of poor quality infrastructure, crime and security, and corruption amount to over 10 percent of sales for Nigerian firms. This is twice as high as in South Africa, Brazil, Russia and Indonesia. Microenterprises firms with fewer than five workers face similar constraints as larger firm's unreliable power, limited access to finance, corruption, and transportation bottlenecks. But the consequences for their businesses are far more severe. For instance, most microenterprises cannot afford generators, so power outages are more likely to shut down their operation. Lacking collateral, almost no microenterprises have access to formal external financing.

Brett Stephens gave a great commencement speech (NYT link, HT Luis Garicano) at the University of Chicago. One part stood out to me, and worthy of comment. Bret starts with the problem of Groupthink:Why did nobody at Facebook — sorry, Meta — stop Mark Zuckerberg from going all in on the Metaverse, possibly the worst business idea since New Coke? Why were the economists and governors at the Federal Reserve so confident that interest rates could remain at rock bottom for years without running a serious risk of inflation? Why did the C.I.A. believe that the government of Afghanistan could hold out against the Taliban for months but that the government of Ukraine would fold to the Russian Army in days? Why were so few people on Wall Street betting against the housing market in 2007? Why were so many officials and highly qualified analysts so adamant that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction? Why were so many people convinced that overpopulation was going to lead to catastrophic food shortages, and that the only sensible answers were a one-child policy and forced sterilizations?Oh, and why did so many major polling firms fail to predict Donald Trump's victory in 2016?Conspicuous institutional failures are the question of our age We could add the SBV regulatory fiasco, the 2007 financial regulatory failure, the CDC FDA and numerous governments under Covid,  and many more.  Systemic incompetence doesn't just include disasters, but ongoing wounds from the Jones act to California's billions wasted on obviously ineffective homeless spending. The list is a bit unfair, of course. Selection bias: These are the grand failures, but large organizations occasionally produce some successes. For every Metaverse there is an iPhone, which I certainly thought a dumb idea at the time. And it's always easy to see idiocy with hindsight, but it's a lot harder in real time. De-growthing our economies and spending trillions in the name of carbon reduction will be seen, 20 years from now, either as a farsighted visionary move that saved civilization, or a grand collective delusion. Which is it? Who is the naked emperor and who is the little girl on the sidelines of the parade? Remember too that the gadflies are usually wrong. But the question on my mind is this: How do you structure large organizations to avoid such catastrophic mistakes? As an economist, and a macroeconomist at that, it's something I don't know anywhere near enough about. Bret: ... Why is it that, when you bring together a lot of smart people in a room, their collective intelligence tends to go down, not up? Why do they always seem to press the mute button on their critical faculties when confronted with propositions that, as an old colleague of mine liked to say, ought to vanish in the presence of thought? It's not obvious people's critical faculties are impaired, but their incentives to speak out about them are. First, the problem isn't that people aren't smart. It's that they are scared.To yell stop when everyone else says go — or go when everyone else says stop — takes guts, and guts aren't part of any kind of normal college curriculum. In my generation, the hardest people to say "no" to were the people who had professional power over us. In your generation, I think, it's the people who are in your own ideological tribe. Whatever it is, how many of us, if we're honest with ourselves, really have that kind of courage?Second, there is the problem of rationalization — of smart people convincing themselves, and others, of some truly dumb things.Robert McNamara, one of the original "Whiz Kids" and probably one of the brighter bulbs in 20th-century American public life, was one of the fathers of the Vietnam War when he was at the Pentagon, and of the Third World debt crisis when he was at the World Bank. Somehow, he always managed to convince the other smart people in the room that he was right. Will you be able to notice the underlying flaw in an idea when the arguments for it sound so persuasive? Or, he convinced them to silence their doubts and go along. Third, there is the psychological dimension.Some people are inveterate truth seekers. They are almost congenitally willing to risk rejection, ostracism, even hatred for the sake of being right. But most people just want to belong, and the most essential elements of belonging are agreeing and conforming. ...the usual emotional companion to intellectual independence isn't pride or self-confidence. It's loneliness and sometimes crippling self-doubt.This is insightful, but it's not getting us to the question on my mind: Why do some institutions seem more prone to groupthink disasters than others? Bret's final insight gets to that: here's a fourth factor, maybe the most crucial. It's culture. Does the culture of a society, or of an institution, encourage us to stand out or to fit in; to speak up or to bury our doubts? Does it serve as a conduit to groupthink, or as an obstacle to it?I mentioned a moment ago that all of us like to think of ourselves as independent thinkers, even if comparatively few of us really are. There's an institutional corollary. Nearly every American institution outside of certain religious orders claims to encourage open debate and — that awful cliché — thinking "outside the box." Apple's famous slogan, "Think Different," was one of the most successful ad campaigns of my lifetime...But, at least in my experience, very few institutions truly welcome it, at least when it exposes them to any sort of pressure or criticism, much less loss of social capital or potential revenue...But this doesn't always have to be the case. Institutions can, in fact, practice what they preach. They can declare principles, set a tone, announce norms and expectations — and then live up to their principles through regular practice. They can explain to every incoming class of students or new employees that they champion independent thinking and free expression in both word and deed. They can prove that they won't cave to outrage mobs and other forms of public pressure, either by canceling invited speakers or by never inviting controversial speakers in the first place.There's a way this is done. It's called leadership. You have one magnificent example of it right on this stage, in the person of John Boyer. And you have had a historic example of it in the person of Bob Zimmer. I want to say a few words about him.That's as far as Bret goes, appropriately for a graduation speech at Chicago. So we have one answer to my question: Some institutions have cultures that welcome emperor is naked commentary, and most do not. Leaders can set cultures. I think this just scratches the surface. A college's free speech culture is nowhere near as consequential as a government making a decision to go to war, or any of Bret's other examples. Institutions eventually have to have mechanisms for coming to a decision, closing ranks and pursuing it. If you're going to go to war or not, you have to make a decision and not keep arguing about it forever. If you've ever participated in any group decision you know there are gadflies bringing up stupid points over and over, and if you have too much discussion you're never going to get anywhere. I think institutions in today's government are in CYA mode for good political reasons. The Fed doesn't have a groupthink culture because it wants to, but because in today's Washington admitting mistakes would lead to a completely ineffective institution under constant attack. Again, the gadflys are also mostly wrong too! I do think there are additional institutional structures that could help to promote good decision making. An official devil's advocate to big decisions, and making sure that isn't a career dead end is one useful concept I've heard of. But the larger question of just what those are remains something I'd like to know more about. 

The current global economic crisis is exposing a concomitant yet deeper governability crisis in the developed world. As anti-incumbent sentiment sweeps Europe, Americans are recovering from a relentlessly destructive Republican primary season is over and bracing themselves for the upcoming election season, which may arguably be the most important in our lifetime. The federal government is paralyzed by deep and irreconcilable views on how to solve the problems of huge sovereign debt, a gaping budget deficit, the cost of health care and immigration reform, to name some of the most salient issues. Controversial federal and state legislation aimed at solving these problems is increasingly being challenged at the Supreme Court, where nine unelected judges will determine their constitutionality. Globalization has produced a special set of challenges: an open world economy has forced governments to maintain fiscal stability over the long term in order to maintain the value of their currencies and stock markets, as well as access to credit. At the same time, advanced democracies are facing the limits of the welfare state, as well as demographic pressures as baby boomers retire; and immigrants (who could provide part of the solution to some of those problems) are less welcome today than ever. Trust in politicians, elected officials and major institutions, has declined steadily over the last twenty-five years; it is not by coincidence that this spreading disillusionment with the democratic order affects not only Europe but also the United States. The recent turnover of governments in Europe, and the polarization of American politics reveal an alarming lack of confidence in democracy and its institutions. This cynicism is growing: indeed, the question is no longer whether the government is sufficiently responsive to the demands and interests of citizens, but whether, in a context of global pressures, it is in fact capable of effectively solving the current problems. In the United States, widespread skepticism now extends to all formal institutions of governance, not only elected ones but even unelected ones. This sentiment is especially problematic and indicative of a very entrenched distrust that will not be easily dispelled. Only ten years ago, political scientists found that in spite of disenchantment with politicians and elected officials, Americans still had a strong respect for the Armed Forces, the Federal Reserve Bank and the Supreme Court. They had concluded that this was due to the fact that these bodies were insulated from populist pressures and the omnipresent poll. More recently, however, studies by Ronald Inglehart and others have found a severe decrease in public confidence in the Armed Services, the Judiciary, police, civil service and state legislatures. It is one thing for people to blame the current government for economic crisis; it is quite different if this skepticism extends beyond incumbents to the formal institutions of governance. Today, Americans are challenging the very constitutional premises on which the country was founded, namely, diffusion of power and checks and balances. The perceived (and factual) decline in capacity of political agents to act on behalf of citizens' interests and demands is due mostly to the forces of globalization and interdependence which have led to reduced effectiveness in public policy. Incongruence between the diktat of international markets and domestic needs has put constraints on political agents' actions. But there are other factors that need to be considered as well, namely, failure in political leadership, bad judgment on the part of voters and elected officials, the deterioration of social capital and a media that provokes rather than informs. How are politicians and political parties responding to this rising trend of dissatisfaction and anger? By following every poll, seeking lobbyists' approval and changing their positions daily to adapt them to the latest voters' opinions. This is weakening representative democracy and distorting the democratic process. Congressional inability to compromise and solve the problems results in the judicialization of politics as the two ideological camps increasingly rely on judicial review as the alternative. This is turn leads inevitably to the politicization of the Judiciary. The whole Constitutional architecture that was built around diffusion of power, checks and balances and fear of accumulation of power in any one branch of government is now being challenged by the protections given to individual interest groups and by ceding too much power to unelected, nominally non-ideological Supreme Court judges. Unfortunately, the current Supreme Court under Chief Justice Roberts has made its mark on politics early on by its Citizens United v. Federal Electoral Commission decision, which has allowed indirect, unlimited political contributions by corporations and unions, thereby further entrenching corporate power into the political system. Another good example of the judicialization of politics is the bitter debate surrounding the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act passed by Congress in 2010, before the legislative election deprived Democrats of the ability to pass any other significant piece of legislation. In a cumbersome process that involved hundreds of lobbies from the grassroots as well as health insurance companies, hospitals and doctors, the administration was able to hammer out a compromise that met some of the basic requirements of patients and consumer groups, as well as the market-based method preferred by the rest o the coalition. The result was a law that was passed in spite of the negative vote of all Republicans in both Houses. It is based on a central pillar to reduce national health care costs: every citizen not covered by an employer or government plan must buy health insurance (so as to avoid the free rider problem of consuming without paying). The constitutionality of this law, main parts of which have not yet entered into force, was immediately challenged by 27 states as well as other organizations and individuals, and is now under Supreme Court review. The complexity of the issue and the polarized atmosphere surrounding it may well sway judges to exert their (ideological) "will" rather than their (objective) "judgment", to paraphrase Hamilton's warning, thus delivering an important political victory for Republicans this summer, at the height of the presidential campaign season. Conversely, a virulent anti-immigrant law passed by the state of Arizona is also being challenged before the Supreme Court. In this case it was the other side, the Justice Department, which sued over the right of states to pass immigration legislation, which is generally construed as a federal policy. Immigration will be a central issue in the coming presidential election, so the Court's ruling will again inevitably have political ramifications.In the XIX and XX centuries, The Leviathan state managed the process of modernization and industrialization and represented a shift from culturally- based decentralized institutions, whose legitimacy emanated from tradition, to state institutions deriving their authority from rational-legal instruments. Today we are experiencing a decline of state authority in a new context of globalization and open societies, and the trend is again toward decentralization of authority, focus on individual rights and less hierarchical, more market-oriented societal practices, that have yet to produce a new political order. Unfortunately, the "intermediary associations" of civil society that Alexis de Tocqueville identified as the main repository of democracy in America, are becoming less active, due to the increased post-modern individualism, itself reinforced by the technological revolution and by a cultural anarchy that demands the "democratization of everything"(think Wiki leaks, hacking, intellectual property piracy). An authority system linked to a stable culture which in turn is anchored on a moral code, breeds trust and generates internalized support. The current economic crisis, in the context of the highest income inequality in the history of the United States, has led to a revival of ideological rhetoric and endless partisan conflict, which erodes faith in the system as a whole. It is in moments like this that civil society becomes most relevant. Extreme capitalism has led to extreme individualism and lack of societal solidarity. Abundant resources allowed the social balance to tilt in favor of individual rights and entitlements and away from social responsibility. The present crisis may help restore that balance as individuals realize that the state has exhausted its capability for further entitlements and that society will have to rebuild its social capital to fill the void.

The approach taken by authorities in the oversight and supervision of FMIs is important in promoting and maintaining financial stability in Moldova. While well-functioning FMIs can greatly improve the efficiency, transparency, and safety of financial systems, they can also concentrate systemic risk, which requires effective oversight and supervision to achieve public policy objectives. In the context of Moldova, the authorities are confronted with a national decision to create a single CSD that has good governance, robust risk management practices, and financial soundness. Vulnerabilities in FMIs could potentially undermine the implementation of monetary policy, or generate systemic disruptions in the financial markets, and more widely across the economy. A problem may be initiated by the inability of a participant to settle its obligations, or by operational failures of the system as a whole. The resulting default may be passed on to other participants, and get transmitted across financial systems and markets, threatening their stability. This note reviews the oversight and supervisory framework for FMIs in Moldova. In this note, FMIs cover payment systems, central securities depositories, and securities settlement systems. Payment systems were assessed in the 2008 Republic of Moldova FSAP Update and are not covered in this note. Securities registrars, which play a key role in the capital markets, are not FMIs and are assessed under principle 11 on CSDs of the PFMIs. The analysis was based on the authorities' answers to the IMF's questionnaire, IMF and World Bank technical assistance reports, and background documentation. The mission met with representatives from the NBM, NCFM, MSE, NSD, and independent registrars. This note was prepared based on the information available in February 2014. The note includes (i) an overview of the FMIs and description of past and ongoing reforms, and (ii) an assessment of the main issues at stake.

Despite decades of war and instability, Iraq's abundant natural resources, strategic geographic location and cultural history endow Iraq with tremendous potential for growth and diverse economic development. Driven by windfall oil revenues in recent years, the Government of Iraq has invested heavily in rebuilding the infrastructure of the country, and its abundant oil reserves ensure that progress can continue steadily. This report was initiated at the request of the Iraqi government to assess the local investment climate and identify those high priority factors which most significantly impede private sector development in Iraq, in an effort to prioritize the recommended investments, institutional and regulatory reforms which would most significantly contribute to sustainable private sector growth and increased productivity.

Doing business sheds light on how easy or difficult it is for a local entrepreneur to open and run a small to medium-size business when complying with relevant regulations. It measures and tracks changes in regulations affecting 10 areas in the life cycle of a business: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts and resolving insolvency. In a series of annual reports doing business presents quantitative indicators on business regulations and the protection of property rights that can be compared across 183 economies, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, over time. This economy profile presents the doing business indicators for East Asia Pacific Islands. To allow useful comparison, it also provides data for other selected economies (comparator economies) for each indicator. The data in this report are current as of June 1, 2011 (except for the paying taxes indicators, which cover the period January-December 2010).

Transformational engagements are a critical pillar of the World Bank Group's strategy for achieving its twin goals of extreme poverty elimination and shared prosperity. This learning product uses evaluative evidence from the Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) to understand the mechanisms and conditions for transformational engagements and the implications for the World Bank Group if it seeks to rely on such engagements to more effectively pursue its goals.

This Systematic Country Diagnostic (SCD) is designed to assess the key constraints and opportunities facing Mozambique as it strives to sustain robust growth and macroeconomic stability while accelerating poverty reduction and promoting greater economic inclusiveness. The SCD is organized into six chapters. Chapter two describes the evolution of poverty and inequality, explores their regional and demographic dimensions, and identifies strategies for accelerating poverty reduction. Chapter three analyzes key economic constraints and opportunities, identifying the drivers of recent growth, describing developments in the real sector and assessing emerging challenges associated with the rise of the extractive industries. Chapter four examines the inclusiveness of growth, presenting an in-depth analysis of the labor market, the social sectors and the ongoing urbanization process. Chapter five discusses fiscal, institutional, political, social and environmental risks to the sustainability of growth and poverty reduction. Chapter six completes the analysis by identifying a set of priority objectives for accelerating progress on the World Bank's twin goals of eliminating extreme poverty and promoting shared prosperity.

What are the socioeconomic impacts of resource abundance? Are these effects different at the national and local levels? How could resource booms benefit (or harm) local communities? This paper reviews a vast literature examining these questions, with an emphasis on empirical works. First, the evidence and theoretical arguments behind the so-called resource curse, and other impacts at the country level, are reviewed. This cross-country literature highlights the importance of institutions. Then, a simple analytical framework is developed to understand how resource booms could impact local communities, and the available empirical evidence is examined. This emerging literature exploits within-country variation and is opening new ways to think about the relation between natural resources and economic development. The main message is that others factors, such as market mechanisms and local spillovers, are also relevant for understanding the impact of resource abundance. Finally, the paper discusses issues related to fiscal decentralization and provides ideas for future research.

Doing business sheds light on how easy or difficult it is for a local entrepreneur to open and run a small to medium-size business when complying with relevant regulations. It measures and tracks changes in regulations affecting 10 areas in the life cycle of a business: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts and resolving insolvency. In a series of annual reports doing business presents quantitative indicators on business regulations and the protection of property rights that can be compared across 183 economies, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, over time. This economy profile presents the doing business indicators for United States. To allow useful comparison, it also provides data for other selected economies (comparator economies) for each indicator. The data in this report are current as of June 1, 2011 (except for the paying taxes indicators, which cover the period January December 2010).

This tenth edition of Doing Business sheds light on how easy or difficult it is for a local entrepreneur to open and run a small to medium-size business when complying with relevant regulations. It measures and tracks changes in regulations affecting eleven areas in the life cycle of a business: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts, resolving insolvency and employing workers. Doing Business presents quantitative indicators on business regulations and the protection of property rights that can be compared across 185 economies, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, over time. The indicators are used to analyze economic outcomes and identify what reforms have worked, where and why. This economy profile presents the Doing Business indicators for the United States. To allow useful comparison, it also provides data for other selected economies (comparator economies) for each indicator. The data in this report are current as of June 1, 2012 (except for the paying taxes indicators, which cover the period January - December 2011).

After surveying the facts and distilling the voluminous literature on the transition to market economies, the author arrives at several conclusions: with hindsight, the old debate - Big Bang versus gradualism - was really a problem of feasibility, although many of the arguments in favor of the Big Bang have now been proven right. Once more, inflation has been found to be incompatible with growth and the importance of a good microeconomic structure - especially an effective banking system - has been confirmed. The decline of the state in transition economies is both spectacular and puzzling - combining features that are both desirable and dangerous. Among useful lessons learned: 1) It has paid to start early and move fast. The Big Bang is highly desirable but impractical, and gradualism is unavoidable but ought to be compressed as much as possible. The countries that bit the bullet early and hard have done better over the past decade. 2) Stabilize first; growth next. Macroeconomic stabilization is a prerequisite for growth. The budget deficit need not be eliminated, but the link between deficits and money growth must be severed. 3) Structural reform is important, and microeconomic policies, often overlooked, should be started as soon as possible. This means establishing property rights, hardening budget constraints, building a healthy banking system, and ensuring true domestic competition. 4) The choice of an exchange rate regime, another early controversy, is apparently less important than adherence to a strict monetary policy. The floaters have tightly managed their exchange rates, while the fixers have repeatedly devalued and have often ended up floating. Some form of monetary targeting is needed, but it matters little which target is chosen so long as it is adhered to. 5) Creating irreversibilities early on allows governments to change without seriously affecting the transition. The less stable the economy, the more politics matters. A shaky economic basis is fertile ground for policy reversals that set the clock back several years (Bulgaria, Romania, Russia).

Congressional leaders stripped a measure from this year's defense policy bill that would have expanded compensation for victims of U.S. nuclear testing, drawing condemnation from lawmakers who had spearheaded the initiative and bitter disappointment from activists who hoped the blockbuster film "Oppenheimer" would bolster support for their efforts.
"This is a grave injustice," Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who led the charge in favor of the expansion, said Thursday. "This bill turns its back on the people of the United States in defense of the lobbyists and the suits and the corporate entities who are going to get paid."
The initiative had passed as an amendment to the Senate version of the National Defense Authorization Act, earning bipartisan support in a 61-37 vote. The measure would have significantly expanded the 1990 Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA), which gave financial relief to some uranium miners and victims living downwind of the Nevada Test Site, where the U.S. carried out most of its nuclear experiments.
The original law is set to expire in May of next year, a deadline that will end benefits for those who have been receiving compensation. Activists hope that, in the short term, lawmakers will find a way to push that deadline back in order to keep the program alive.
"Downwinders" have long reported unusually high rates of cancer and other radiation-related diseases. One activist who spoke with RS earlier this year said 21 members of her family had gotten cancer, and seven had died from it. The explosions disproportionately impacted poor Latino communities and Native American Pueblos, leaving many victims trapped under a mountain of medical debt.
The amendment would have expanded RECA to include downwinders in New Mexico, where the first nuclear test took place, as well as a wider swathe of uranium miners and people living in Missouri who were exposed to waste from the Manhattan Project. The expansion would have also covered people in Montana, Idaho, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and Guam.
In a statement to RS, Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez (D-N.M.) blamed the decision to kill RECA expansion on Republican House leaders, who quietly oppose the measure due to its projected cost of nearly $15 billion per year — a sharp increase from the $2.3 billion that RECA has paid out to date.
"Downwinders and uranium workers suffer from debilitating and deadly diseases related to building and testing nuclear bombs," Leger Fernandez argued. "Our bipartisan coalition will not give up — we will fight to pass RECA and secure justice for our beloved New Mexico communities who unknowingly sacrificed so much for our nation's security."
Activists note that the cost of RECA expansion, while large on its face, pales in comparison to the broader military budget, which the 2024 NDAA sets at roughly $874 billion. More than $30 billion of that budget came from programs that the Biden administration had not requested, and backers of the initiative suggested specific offsets for the increased cost, according to Hawley.
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget argued in October that "any increase in expense should be fully paid for with higher revenue, lower spending, or some combination."
"If lawmakers are committed to expanding benefits for deserving individuals, they should be equally committed to paying for those expansions," the group said in a blog post.
So far, Hawley is the only lawmaker who has said he will vote against the NDAA in protest of the "backroom deal" to remove RECA expansion. Sen. Ben Ray Lujan (D-N.M.), who blames his father's death on radiation exposure from work at Los Alamos, recently tweeted that "[a]ll options are on the table" for getting the initiative signed into law.
RS reported in July that the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium had attempted to contact "Oppenheimer" director Christopher Nolan and ask him to include a message about the downwinders in his film, but activists were unable to secure a meeting. Despite the rejection, supporters of RECA expansion hoped that the movie would create an opportunity for a public discussion of the impacts of nuclear testing.
Hawley's amendment passed in late July, roughly a week after the film's release. Activists stepped up their advocacy efforts in September and sent a group of advocates from throughout the west and Missouri to the Capitol to lobby lawmakers.
The decision to strip the bill from the NDAA was both surprising and "shockingly immoral," argued Tina Cordova of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium in an interview with RS.
"There have been so many people that I've spoken to in the last 24 hours that were so emotional, so heartbroken because they had such high hopes for this Congress," Cordova said.
As Cordova mentioned, many of those who would receive compensation from RECA live in Republican states and House districts. "When the Republicans in the House refuse to acknowledge their responsibility for this, they're voting against their constituents," she argued.
"I wouldn't be allowed to recklessly harm other people and walk away from responsibility for that," she continued. "It's like driving drunk and plowing into a van full of people and injuring them, and then telling the court that I simply don't have the resources to take care of the mess I've made."
Cordova said that, in the near term, activists will need time to process their disappointment after having come so close to success. But she and her allies are prepared to keep fighting until RECA expansion is finally passed.
"We all need time to dust ourselves off," she said. "But we will come back. We have developed a very broad coalition of people from all across this country from one coast to the other, and we will come back stronger than we were before."Sen. Lujan, who has introduced RECA-related legislation every year since 2008, said Thursday that he will continue pushing for expansion despite the setback. "I am not giving up on justice for New Mexicans and all those deeply impacted by radiation exposure and nuclear testing," he said in a statement. "Over the course of this process, our support has only grown and the fight doesn't end here."

The introduction of the legal design of trust property as a way of ensuring the fulfi llment of the obligation in the civil law of Ukraine was carried out to fulfi ll the obligations assumed by Ukraine under the Association Agreement between Ukraine, on the one hand, and the European Union, the European Commonwealth for Atomic Energy and their member States, on the other, in particular – the Implementation of the Directive 2002/47/ЕU of the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union, which defi nes fi nancial security arrangements that are based on the full transfer of ownership of fi nancial security.Taking into account the European integration aspirations of Ukraine, the consolidation in Chapter 49 of the Civil Code of Ukraine, which has the name «Enforcement of the Obligation» of such a method of enforcement of the obligation as the trust property law is certainly an important event. However, in terms of civil law theory in general and compulsory law in particular, the feasibility of such an institution raises some doubts, and the fact of the institution raises questions, the answers to which are being sought within the framework of the study. The purpose of the article is to defi ne the characteristics of the trust property law as one of the ways to ensure compliance with the obligation in the Civil Law of Ukraine.In order to achieve this goal, the authors analyze the legal design of trust property from the point of view of the public teaching on real and binding rights, study the specifi cs of legal relations that arise in the case of the conclusion of a contract on the establishment of trust property (in accordance with the requirements of § 8 of Chapter 49 of the Civil Code of Ukraine), and identify problematic aspects of the legal regulation of the relevant social relations.In the article it is proved the conclusion that individual pricing of sale of an object of confi dential property will not be coordinated with the provisions of the Law of Ukraine «On the Assessment of Property, Property Rights and Professional Estimated Activity in Ukraine» (regarding instructions of rather obligatory evaluating property). It is also noted that the implementation of the provisions of article 5978 of the Civil Code of Ukraine may lead to violation of the debtor's rights in terms of non-conformity with the sale price of the actual value of the asset, as the creditor is interested in selling the asset more quickly at a price that is equal to the debt, because everything that is above that, it will have to return the debtor.In addition, the article deals with issues related to the mechanism of enforcement by the trustee of the claim on the object of trust. In particular, the content of article 5978 of the Civil Code of Ukraine is analyzed, according to which condition of acquisition by the debtor of the right of overwhelming purchase of the object of trust is payment of a monetary amount to the deposit account of the notary. The establishment of such a rule in the Civil Code of Ukraine causes an unequal position of the debtor with respect to any other buyers who can acquire property and choose any other method of calculation than the deposit amount in the deposit account of the notary.The situation is complicated by the fact that the debtor is granted only 5 days (from the date of receipt of the message on sale of the object of trust) to pay the amount to the deposit account of the notary. ; Введение юридической конструкции доверительной собственности в качестве способа обеспечения исполнения обязательства в гражданское право Украины было осуществлено во исполнение обязанностей, принятых на себя Украиной в рамках Соглашения об ассоциации между Украиной, с одной стороны, и Европейским Союзом, Европейским Сообществом по атомной энергии и их государствами-членами, с другой стороны, в частности – относительно имплементации Директивы 2002/47/ ЄС Европейского Парламента и Совета Европейского Союза, в которой определены механизмы финансового обеспечения, базирующиеся на полной передаче собственности на финансовое обеспечение.Учитывая евроинтеграционные стремления Украины, закрепление в главе 49 ГК Украины, которая называется «Обеспечение исполнения обязательств», такого способа обеспечения исполнения обязательств, как право доверительной собственности, является, безусловно, важным событием. Однако, если оценить его с позиций теории гражданского права в целом и обязательственного права в частности, целесообразность введения такого института вызывает определенные сомнения, а сам факт введения порождает вопросы, поиск ответов на которые осуществляется в рамках данного исследования.Целью статьи является определение особенностей права доверительной собственности как одного из способов обеспечения исполнения обязательства в гражданском праве Украины.Для достижения указанной цели авторы анализируют юридическую конструкцию доверительной собственности с позиций цивилистического учения о вещных и обязательственных правах, изучают специфику правоотношений, возникающих в случае заключения договора об установлении доверительной собственности (в соответствии с предписаниями § 8 Главы 49 ГК Украины), определяют проб лемные аспекты правового регулирования соответствующих общественных отношений. ; Запровадження юридичної конструкції довірчої власності як способу забезпечення виконання зобов'язання у цивільне право Украї ни було здійснено на виконання обов'язків, прийнятих на себе Украї ною в рамках Угоди про асоціацію між Украї ною, з однієї сторони, та Європейським Союзом, Європейським співтовариством з атомної енергії і їхніми державами-членами, з іншої сторони, зокрема – щодо імплементації Директиви 2002/47/ЄС Європейського Парламенту і Ради Європейського Союзу, в якій визначені механізми фінансового забезпечення, що ґрунтуються на повній передачі власності на фінансове забезпечення.Враховую чи євроінтеграційні прагнення Украї ни, закріплення у Главі 49 ЦК України, яка має назву «Забезпечення виконання зобов'язання», такого способу забезпечення виконання зобов'язання, як право довірчої власності, безумовно, є важливою подією. Проте, якщо оцінити її з позицій теорії цивільного права в цілому і зобов'язального права зокрема, доцільність запровадження такого інституту викликає певні сумніви, а сам факт запровадження породжує питання, пошук відповідей на які здійснюється в рамках даного дослідження.

The purpose of this article is to identify loopholes in the mortgage law of Ukraine, in particular if the creditor has not properly exercised his or her right to a final court decision to satisfy his / her claims at the expense of the mortgage subject, resulting in violations of subjective rights of the mortgagee. It is noted that in practice, when applying the Law of Ukraine "On Mortgage" of 05.06.2003 № 898-IV outside the sphere of legal regulation of this law there is a question of legal consequences in case the creditor did not use within a certain time his right on the basis of a court decision on satisfaction his claims on the subject of the mortgage, including termination of the mortgage on these grounds. It is noted that the issue is unsettled: whether the debtor has the right to demand termination of the mortgage agreement, if the lender has chosen a way to satisfy his claims precisely by applying the foreclosure for the mortgage through his public auction, which was decided by the court, does not take any action on enforcement of this judgment. It is emphasized that the issue of the possibility of termination of a mortgage obligation as a result of abuse by the creditor of the right to enforce the obligation is important, in particular when the value of the property transferred to the mortgage exceeds considerably the amount of credit debt of the debtor and the mortgagee (the owner of the property) with encumbered property, unable to dispose of it, waiting for a long time to properly execute the court decision. The authors believe that, because of the improper execution of the court decision and the terms of the mortgage agreement, the mortgagee should also bear the burden of liability and certain losses in this case as well. Therefore, to protect the subjective rights of both the mortgagee and the mortgagee, the authors propose to overcome the gap in the Law of Ukraine "On Mortgage" by amending Art. 17. after the second part of the new part reads as follows: "if the mortgagee has not taken any measures to realize the subject of the mortgage for the execution of the judgment". That is, through the introduction of appropriate amendments to the legislation provides legal certainty in the mortgage relationship. ; Целью данной статьи является выявление пробелов в ипотечном законодательстве Украины, в частности в случае, если кредитор не воспользовался должным образом свое право на основании окончательного решения суда об удовлетворении его требований за счет предмета ипотеки, вследствие чего возникают нарушения субъективных прав ипотекодателя. Обращено внимание, что на практике при применении Закона Украины «Об ипотеке» от 05.06.2003 № 898-IV вне сферы правового регулирования этого закона остался вопрос юридических последствий в случае, если кредитор не воспользовался в течение определенного времени своим правом на основании решения суда об удовлетворении его требований за счет предмета ипотеки, в частности прекращение ипотеки из этих оснований. Замечено, что неурегулированным вопрос: имеет ли право должник требовать прекращения договора ипотеки, если кредитор выбрал способ удовлетворения своих требований именно путем обращение взыскания на предмет ипотеки за его продажу на публичных торгах, о чем было вынесено судом соответствующее решение не осуществляет никаких действия по выполнения данного решения суда. Отмечено, что вопрос о возможности прекращения ипотечного обязательства вследствие злоупотребления кредитором права на принудительное исполнение обязательства является важным, в частности тогда, когда стоимость имущества, переданного в ипотеку, значительно превышает размер кредитной задолженности должника, и ипотекодатель (собственник имущества) остается с отягощенным имуществом, не имея возможности распоряжаться им, ожидая длительное время на надлежащее выполнение решения суда. Авторы считают, что, ипотекодержатель из-за ненадлежащего исполнения судебного решения и условий ипотечного договора также в данном случае как и ипотекодатель должен нести бремя ответственности и определенных потерь. Поэтому для защиты субъективных прав как ипотекодателя, так и ипотекодержателя авторы предлагают преодолеть пробел в Законе Украины «Об ипотеке» путем внесения дополнения в ст. 17. после части второй новой частью следующего содержания: «если ипотекодержатель не принял никаких мер по реализации предмета ипотеки на исполнение судебного решения». То есть, через внесение соответствующего дополнения в законодательство обеспечивается правовая определенность в ипотечных правоотношениях. ; Метою даної статті є виявлення прогалини в іпотечному законодавстві України, зокрема у випадку, якщо кредитор не скористався належним чином своїм правом на підставі остаточного рішення суду про задоволення його вимог за рахунок предмета іпотеки, унаслідок чого виникають порушення суб'єктивних прав іпотекодавця. Звернено увагу, що на практиці при застосуванні Закону України «Про іпотеку» від 05.06.2003 № 898-IV поза сферою правового регулювання цього закону залишилось питання юридичних наслідків у випадку, якщо кредитор не скористався протягом певного часу своїм правом на підставі рішення суду про задоволення його вимог за рахунок предмета іпотеки, зокрема припинення іпотеки з цих підстав. Зауважено, що неврегульованим є питання: чи має право боржник вимагати припинення договору іпотеки, якщо кредитор обрав спосіб задоволення своїх вимог саме шляхом звернення стягнення на предмет іпотеки через його продаж на прилюдних торгах, про що було винесено судом відповідне рішення, не здійснює жодних дії щодо виконання даного рішення суду. Наголошено, що питання щодо можливості припинення іпотечного зобов'язання внаслідок зловживання кредитором права на примусове виконання зобов'язання є важливим, зокрема тоді, коли вартість майна, яке передане в іпотеку, значно перевищує розмір кредитної заборгованості боржника, і іпотекодавець (власник майна) залишається з обтяженим майном, не маючи можливості розпоряджатися ним, очікуючи тривалий час на належне виконання рішення суду. Автори вважають що, іпотекодержатель через неналежне виконання судового рішення та умов іпотечного договору також у даному випадку як і іпотекодавець повинен нести тягар відповідальності та певних утрат. Тому для захисту суб'єктивних прав як іпотекодавця, так і іпотекодержателя автори пропонують подолати прогалину у Законі України «Про іпотеку» шляхом внесення доповнення до ст. 17 після частини другої новою частиною такого змісту: «якщо іпотекодержатель не вжив жодних заходів щодо реалізації предмета іпотеки на виконання судового рішення». Тобто, через внесення відповідного доповнення до законодавства забезпечується правова визначеність у іпотечних правовідносинах.