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Daily Archives: August 18, 2011

The Impact of Fuel Surcharges on the Producer Price Index

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BLS – Current Price Topics: The Impact of Fuel Surcharges on the PPI

  • “Recent news reports indicate that rising fuel costs effect all segments of the United States economy.[1] Industry experts agree, noting that consumers are affected by higher transportation costs passed on by shippers to their customers.[2] Although many consumers experience high gasoline prices at the pump, few realize the degree to which high fuel costs also influence prices paid for other goods and services; fuel surcharges drive up shipping costs and often are passed on to buyers in the form of higher prices.[3] For transportation service providers, shipping prices are typically set using a combination of a base rate along with surcharges or discounts. Base rates can vary by mode of transportation, but generally they are a contractual amount to move freight from origin to destination on the basis of mileage and volume. In addition to fuel surcharges, other common surcharges pass on the cost for deadheading (making a return trip without passengers or freight), insurance, and security. The Producer Price Index (PPI) measures the average change over time in the selling prices received by domestic producers for their output, and fuel surcharges can have a significant impact on the prices received by various transportation companies. This was evident during the turbulent business cycles of 2008 to 2011, including the commodity price surge through mid-2008, the subsequent recession in 2009, and the economic recovery that followed.”

    • Trends in Circumventing Web-Malware Detection

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    Trends in Circumventing Web-Malware Detection. Moheeb Abu Rajab, Lucas Ballard, Nav Jagpal, Panayiotis Mavrommatis, Daisuke Nojiri, Niels Provos, Ludwig Schmidt. Google Technical Report rajab-2011a, July 2011 “Malicious web sites that compromise vulnerable computers are an ever-present threat on the web. The purveyors of these sites are highly motivated and quickly adapt to technologies that try… Continue Reading

    President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology report on Sustaining Environmental Capital: Protecting Society and the Economy

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    Report to the President – Sustaining Environmental Capital: Protecting Society and the Economy, Executive Office of the President – President’s Council of Advisors, on Science and Technology, July 2011. “The central messages of this report are two. First, the economic and environmental dimensions of societal well-being are both indispensable, as well as tightly intertwined. Second,… Continue Reading

    Is There a Human Right to Democracy? Beyond Interventionism and Indifference

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    Benhabib, Seyla, Is There a Human Right to Democracy? Beyond Interventionism and Indifference (2011). APSA 2011 Annual Meeting Paper. “There is wide-ranging disagreement in contemporary discourse about the justification as well as the content of human rights. On the one hand, the language of human rights has become the public vocabulary of a conflict-ridden world… Continue Reading

    Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization – G.17

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    Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization: Summary, August 16, 2011 “Industrial production advanced 0.9 percent in July. Although the index was revised down in April, primarily as a result of a downward revision to the output of utilities, stronger manufacturing output led to upward revisions to production in both May and June. Manufacturing output rose 0.6… Continue Reading

    Report: Gains for Children – Increased Participation in Medicaid and CHIP in 2009

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    Gains for Children – Increased Participation in Medicaid and CHIP in 2009, Genevieve M. Kenney, Victoria Lynch, Jennifer Haley, Michael Huntress, Dean Resnick and Christine Coyer, August 2011 “Nationally, the number of children eligible for Medicaid/CHIP [Children’s Health Insurance Program] increased by an estimated 2.5 million between 2008 and 2009, from 40.2 million to 42.7… Continue Reading

    What can SBA do for your small business? Meet the SBA 100

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    “SBA 100 features one hundred businesses that have created at least 100 jobs since receiving SBA assistance. The 100 companies are from across America and do business in a variety of industries, from manufacturing, to food and beverage, to shipping. Each business received SBA support in the form of capital, contracting, counseling or investment before… Continue Reading

    NIST Disaster and Failure Studies Repository – World Trade Center Disaster Investigation Materials

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    Disaster and Failure Studies Repository – World Trade Center Disaster Investigation Materials “The collected materials available on this site were accumulated with the assistance of the media, public agencies and individual photographers. Materials are available in the following categories: Organized Photos and Video; Original Video from Tapes; Other Photos and Video; Final Reports from the… Continue Reading

    Disaster and Failure Studies Repository – World Trade Center Disaster Investigation Materials

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    Disaster and Failure Studies Repository – World Trade Center Disaster Investigation Materials “The collected materials available on this site were accumulated with the assistance of the media, public agencies and individual photographers. Materials are available in the following categories: Organized Photos and Video; Original Video from Tapes; Other Photos and Video.” Continue Reading

    Federal Times: Postal Service plans to close about 300 mail processing plants

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    Federal Times: “The U.S. Postal Service intends to close more than 60 percent of its mail processing plants by the end of next year, potentially displacing thousands of employees. From the current inventory of 508 plants, the agency wants to go to fewer than 200, Dave Williams, vice president of network operations, told participants at… Continue Reading

    UK: Single middle-aged female on a low income – and struggling to pay their mortgage

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    News release: “New figures from national debt charity Consumer Credit Counselling Service (CCCS) show which of its clients are in arrears on their mortgages. Over 20,000 (20,717) of the people seeking the charity’s help in the first six months of this year have been in arrears, with 43,540 last year and 30,291 in 2009. The… Continue Reading