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Daily Archives: August 22, 2012

St. Louis Fed's economic database announces 50,000 economic time series in its database

FRED, the St. Louis Fed’s economic database, has just surpassed a new milestone, with 50,000 economic time series in its database. More than 6,000 series from Eurostat’s harmonized indices of consumer prices were added this month. The Eurostat data offers users the ability to compare inflation rates for different European countries. In addition, FRED recently added gold prices, more consumer credit data, and vehicle miles traveled data. FRED data can be accessed many ways–through search, by category, by source, by tags, via a data release calendar, and more.” [Katrina Stierholz, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis]

SEC Adopts Rule for Disclosing Use of Conflict Minerals

News release: “he Securities and Exchange Commission today adopted a rule mandated by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act to require companies to publicly disclose their use of conflict minerals that originated in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) or an adjoining country. The regulatory reform law directed the Commission to… Continue Reading

Fiscal Tightening in 2013 and Its Economic Consequences – Infographic

“Under current law, a sharp reduction in the federal budget deficit between 2012 and 2013 will cause the economy to contract, the Congressional Budget Office projects, but will also put federal debt on a path more likely to be sustainable over time. To illustrate the effects of fiscal tightening, CBO compared its projections under current… Continue Reading

JP Morgan Trading Losses: Implications for the Volcker Rule and Other Regulation

CRS report – JP Morgan Trading Losses: Implications for the Volcker Rule and Other Regulation, August 16, 2012 “On May 10, 2012, JP Morgan disclosed that it had lost more than $2 billion by trading financial derivatives. Jamie Dimon, CEO and chairman of JP Morgan, reported that the bank’s Chief Investment Office (CIO) executed the… Continue Reading

Building public trust in uses of Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act de-identified data

Building public trust in uses of Health Insurance – Portability and Accountability Act de-identified data, Deven McGraw, Center for Democracy & Technology “The aim of this paper is to summarize concerns with the de-identification standard and methodologies established under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) regulations, and report some potential policies to address… Continue Reading

CRS Report – Pipeline Cybersecurity: Federal Policy

Pipeline Cybersecurity: Federal Policy, by Paul W. Parfomak, Specialist in Energy and Infrastructure Policy, August 16, 2012 “The vast U.S. network of natural gas and hazardous liquid pipelines is integral to U.S. energy supply and has vital links to other critical infrastructure. While an efficient and fundamentally safe means of transport, this network is vulnerable… Continue Reading