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SHOCK: Andrew Breitbart Has Passed Away

They are saying he died from “natural causes” at the age of 43. WTF is that supposed to mean? How does one die from “natural causes” at 43?

He was just tweeting 6 hours ago. They said he died shortly after midnight; but these tweets happened after 3am?!

UPDATE: Nevermind, he lived in California. Therefore, he must have died right after that tweet below.

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BofA Would Like to Impose a $9 Checking Account Fee If You Do Not Bank Online

“(Reuters) – Bank of America Corp is planning to introduce a monthly fee for its customers holding checking accounts unless they agree to bank online, buy more products or maintain certain balances, the Wall Street Journal said.

The report on the new fee initiative at the nation’s second-largest bank comes after it had faced a major consumer backlash last year when it disclosed plans for a $5-per-month debit card fee, forcing the bank to drop the plan.

Bank of America pilot programs in Arizona, Georgia and Massachusetts now are experimenting with charging $6 to $9 a month for an “Essentials” account, the paper said.

The options being tested include monthly charges of $9, $12, $15 and $25 but give customers opportunities to avoid the payments by maintaining minimum balances, using a credit card or taking a mortgage with the bank, the Journal said, citing a memo distributed to employees….”

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The Myth of Buy and Hold: Even Buffett is an Active Trader

via Dorsey Wright Money Management

No one can dispute that Warren Buffett is a good investor—he’s made a ton of money over many years and it’s been well-documented.  He holds court periodically and even his public calls have been pretty good, like his “Buy American. I Am.” editorial in the New York Times on October 16, 2008.  (More recently he said bonds should come with a warning label, so take that for what it’s worth.)  You could do worse than trying to emulate Warren Buffett.

So what is St. Warren actually doing?  Well, fortunately some college professors did the heavy lifting.  They analyzed Berkshire Hathaway’s quarterly filings from 2006 all the way back to 1980, 2,140 quarter-stock observations.  CXO Advisory had a nice summary of their work.  In the words of the professors:

…we observe a median holding period of a year, with approximately 20% of stocks held for more than two years. At the other end of the spectrum, approximately 30% of stocks are sold within six months.

Yep, Warren Buffett has 100% turnover.  He blew out 30% of his portfolio selections within six months, and held about 20% of his picks for the longer run.  That is active trading by any definition.

Read the rest here.

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Hers is a Look @ Windows 8

 

“If Windows Vista was Microsoft’s folly – a mish-mash of ideas not fully baked and aimed at multiple constituencies – Windows 8 is Microsoft’s rebirth. To get to ecstatic about it isn’t quite the direction I’d like to take this mini-review, but let’s just say that Microsoft is on the cusp of getting things right.

 

As we said before, Windows 8 will ruffle a lot of feathers. The first and most obvious comparison is with the new Windows Phone interface. The “Start” menu is gone, replaced by what amounts to the entire Metro UI. This UI – the one with the multiple, animated squares, is the one that matters.

Then there’s the Explorer. Every so often – and it will happen more in the beginning of Win8′s life cycle, the OS drops into “original” Windows, the Windows of tiny, uselessly-labeled buttons and overlapping windows and notification screens. Gone are the tiles and gently pulsing images, in comes Windows 95.

Woe betide Microsoft for maintaining ties to the original Windows with this odd accretion of functionality – they’re going to be ripped apart by the blogging masses – but this is the second time I’ve seen the interface and I’m accepting of the compromise. Going from Metro to “Windows” is like going from the Museum of Modern Art to a bodega Across the street. You’ll get more done, but damned if you don’t miss the cool, calm design and attention to detail….”


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The U.S. Justice Department Opens an Investigation Into Large Banks Manipulating LIBOR Rates

“NEW YORK (Reuters) – The Justice Department is conducting a criminal probe into whether the world’s biggest banks manipulated a global benchmark rate that is at the heart of a wide range of loans and derivatives, from trillions of dollars of mortgages and bonds tointerest rate swaps, a person familiar with the matter said.

While the Justice Department’s inquiry into the setting of theLondon interbank offered rate, or Libor, was known, the criminal aspect of the probe was not.

A criminal inquiry underscores the serious nature of a worldwide investigation that includes regulators and law-enforcement agencies in the United States, Japan, Canada and the UK.

Several major global banks, including Citigroup Inc, HSBC Holdings Plc, Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc and UBS AG, have disclosed that they have been approached by authorities investigating how Libor is set.

No bank or trader has been criminally charged in the Libor probes. It wasn’t clear which banks or traders the Justice Department is targeting in its criminal probe.

The Justice Department and the banks declined to comment….”

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Goldman and Wells Fargo Receive Wells Notices From the SEC Over Sales of MBS

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS)Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC) and JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM)are among banks warned by federal regulators that they may face civil claims tied to sales of mortgage-backed securities.

Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo said yesterday that they received Wells notices from the Securities and Exchange Commission, warning that agency staff may recommend enforcement. The SEC has issued such notices to multiple banks including JPMorgan, the nation’s largest, in probes focusing on mortgage securities, said people with knowledge of the matter who asked not to be identified because the communications weren’t public.

“It’s a big deal given the level of anticipation that has been in the markets about whether there would be further actions,” said Jacob Frenkel, a former SEC lawyer now with Shulman Rogers Gandal Pordy & Ecker PA in Potomac, Maryland. “These cases were complicated and time-consuming and the government has said for a long time that its investigations were continuing. These Wells notices are the manifestation of these investigations coming to their conclusion.”

Almost four years after mounting mortgage defaults prompted unprecedented government bailouts of the financial system, regulators are still examining how banks packaged and sold home loans to investors. The SEC is looking for evidence that firms failed to disclose underlying credit weaknesses in mortgage pools and delinquencies, Jason Anthony, special counsel for the agency’s structured products unit, said last week. He didn’t identify companies under scrutiny….”

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Yoga Fans Sexual Flames and Plenty of Scandal

By WILLIAM J. BROAD

Published: February 27, 2012

The wholesome image of yoga took a hit in the past few weeks as a rising star of the discipline came tumbling back to earth. After accusations of sexual impropriety with female students, John Friend, the founder of Anusara, one of the world’s fastest-growing styles, told followers that he was stepping down for an indefinite period of “self-reflection, therapy and personal retreat.”

Mr. Friend preached a gospel of gentle poses mixed with openness aimed at fostering love and happiness. But Elena Brower, a former confidante, has said that insiders knew of his “penchant for women” and his love of “partying and fun.”

Few had any idea about his sexual indiscretions, she added. The apparent hypocrisy has upset many followers.

“Those folks are devastated,” Ms. Brower wrote in The Huffington Post. “They’re understandably disappointed to hear that he cheated on his girlfriends repeatedly” and “lied to so many.”

But this is hardly the first time that yoga’s enlightened facade has been cracked by sexual scandal. Why does yoga produce so many philanderers? And why do the resulting uproars leave so many people shocked and distraught?

One factor is ignorance. Yoga teachers and how-to books seldom mention that the discipline began as a sex cult — an omission that leaves many practitioners open to libidinal surprise.

Hatha yoga — the parent of the styles now practiced around the globe — began as a branch of Tantra. In medieval India, Tantra devotees sought to fuse the male and female aspects of the cosmos into a blissful state of consciousness.

The rites of Tantric cults, while often steeped in symbolism, could also include group and individual sex. One text advised devotees to revere the female sex organ and enjoy vigorous intercourse. Candidates for worship included actresses and prostitutes, as well as the sisters of practitioners.

Hatha originated as a way to speed the Tantric agenda. It used poses, deep breathing and stimulating acts — including intercourse — to hasten rapturous bliss. In time, Tantra and Hatha developed bad reputations. The main charge was that practitioners indulged in sexual debauchery under the pretext of spirituality.

Early in the 20th century, the founders of modern yoga worked hard to remove the Tantric stain. They devised a sanitized discipline that played down the old eroticism for a new emphasis on health and fitness.

B. K. S. Iyengar, the author of “Light on Yoga,” published in 1965, exemplified the change. His book made no mention of Hatha’s Tantric roots and praised the discipline as a panacea that could cure nearly 100 ailments and diseases. And so modern practitioners have embraced a whitewashed simulacrum of Hatha.

But over the decades, many have discovered from personal experience that the practice can fan the sexual flames. Pelvic regions can feel more sensitive and orgasms more intense.

Read the rest here, you perverts.

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Royal Dutch Shell Asks U.S. Supreme Court to Pardon Any Suit Involving Crimes Against Humanity

Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSA) asked the U.S. Supreme Court to rule that the company can’t be sued by Nigerians seeking damages for torture and murders committed by their government in the early 1990s.

The high court in Washington is considering whether companies are exempt from two statutes imposing liability for human-rights violations. Shell, Europe’s biggest oil company, argued today that the Alien Tort Statute, which dates to 1789, can’t be used to sue corporations. The Nigerian plaintiffs claim there’s nothing in the law that limits liability to individuals.

“We do not urge a rule of corporate impunity here,” said Kathleen Sullivan, a lawyer for Shell. “Corporate officers are liable for human-rights violations and for those they direct among their employees. There can also be suits under state law or the domestic laws of nations. But there may not be ATS federal common-law causes of action against corporations.”

The case, Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., was filed in 2002 by 12 Nigerians claiming they were harmed by “widespread and systematic human rights violations” committed by the regime of the former military dictator Sani Abacha, including torture, executions, illegal detentions and indiscriminate killings in the Ogoni region of the Niger Delta.

‘No Claim’

Paul Hoffman, who represents the Nigerian plaintiffs, criticized Shell’s position, arguing that “even if these corporations had jointly operated torture centers with the military dictatorship inNigeria to detain, torture, and kill all opponents of Shell’s operations in Ogoni, the victims would have no claim.”

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Yahoo Threatens Patent Lawsuits Against Facebook

“(Reuters) – Yahoo has demanded licensing fees from Facebook for use of its technology, the companies said on Monday, potentially engulfing social media in the patent battles and lawsuits raging across much of the tech sector.

Yahoo has asserted claims on patents that include the technical mechanisms in the Facebook’s ads, privacy controls, news feed and messaging service, according to a source briefed on the matter.

Representatives from the two companies met on Monday and the talks involved 10 to 20 of Yahoo’s patents, said the source, who was not aware of what specific dollar demands Yahoo may have made for licenses.

Yahoo did not elaborate in an emailed statement on details of its discussions with Facebook, but indicated it would not flinch at taking the social networking giant to court over its patents.

Yahoo said other companies have already licensed some of the technologies at issue, and that it would act unilaterally if Facebook refused to pay for a patent license.

“Yahoo has a responsibility to its shareholders, employees and other stakeholders to protect its intellectual property,” the company said…”

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The FBI is Building Insider Trading Cases Against 120 People

Source

“The U.S. Justice Department has charged more than 60 people during its three-year-long crackdown on insider-trading. But that, it seems is only the beginning.

Authorities are working to build cases against twice as many people still, with about 120 people in the crosshairs as targets, The Wall Street Journal reports. And that figure is just half of the 240 people that the government is investigating, hedge fund managers among them.

“We’ve identified them, and now of course we have to build a case around that,” the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s David Chaves said. The roughly 120 “subjects”—the half of those under investigation whom the Feds do not necessarily believe have broken the law—could be asked to assist in the investigation, Chaves, who heads one of the two teams running operation “Perfect Hedge,” added.

Federal prosecutors have won 57 convictions or guilty pleas. A total of 66 people have been charged with insider trading over the past two-plus years.”

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Wealthy More Likely To Lie, Cheat: Researchers

By Elizabeth Lopatto

Maybe, as the novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald suggested, the rich really are different. They’re more likely to behave badly, according to seven experiments that weighed the ethics of hundreds of people.

The “upper class,” as defined by the study, were more likely to break the law while driving, take candy from children, lie in negotiation, cheat to increase their odds of winning a prize and endorse unethical behavior at work, researchers reported today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Taken together, the experiments suggest at least some wealthier people “perceive greed as positive and beneficial,” probably as a result of education, personal independence and the resources they have to deal with potentially negative consequences, the authors wrote.

While the tests measured only “minor infractions,” that factor made the results “even more surprising,” said Paul Piff, a Ph.D. candidate in psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, and a study author.

One experiment invited 195 adults recruited using Craigslist to play a game in which a computer “rolled dice” for a chance to win a $50 gift certificate. The numbers each participant rolled were the same; anyone self reporting a total higher than 12 was lying about their score. Those in wealthier classes were found to be more likely to fib, Piff said.

“A $50 prize is a measly sum to people who make $250,000 a year,” he said in a telephone interview. “So why are they more inclined to cheat? For a person with lower socioeconomic status, that $50 would get you more, and the risks are small.”

Read the rest here.

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How to Delete your Google Browsing History before New Policy

By JohnThomas Didymus

With just a week to go before Google changes to its new privacy policy that allows it to gather, store and use personal information, users have a last chance to delete their Google Browsing History, along with any damning information therein.

Tech News Daily reports that once Google’s new unified privacy policy takes effect all data already collected about you, including search queries, sites visited, age, gender and location will be gathered and assigned to your online identity represented by your Gmail and YouTube accounts. After the policy takes effect you are not allowed to opt out without abandoning Google altogether. But now before the policy takes effect, you have the option of deleting your Google Web History by modifying your settings so that Google is unable to associate data collected about you with your Gmail or YouTube accounts.

Tech News Daily reports that Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a nonprofit organization based in San Francisco that advocates for online privacy, says: “Search data can reveal particularly sensitive information about you, including facts about your location, interests, age, sexual orientation, religion, health concerns, and more.” EFF advises all Google users to delete their web history.

Read the rest here.

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Saudi Arabia Calls For Arming Syrian Opposition

Saudi Arabia has backed the arming of Syria‘s opposition guerrilla army in remarks that could signal an intervention by the Sunni Muslim superpower in the Assad regime’s crackdown against the uprising.

The Saudi foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, described the arming of the Free Syria Army as an “excellent idea” at an inaugural meeting inTunisia of an anti-Assad group – the Friends of Syria.

But the Saudi delegation later walked out of the summit citing “inactivity” among the member states gathered….”

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NYC Teacher Data Reports are Released

By Fernanda Santos and Sharon Otterman

7:17 p.m. | Updated After a long legal battle and amid much anguish by teachers and other educators, the New York City Education Department released individual performance rankings of 18,000 public school teachers on Friday, while admonishing the news media not to use the scores to label or pillory teachers.

The reports, which name teachers as well as their schools, rank teachers based on their students’ gains on the state’s math and English exams over five years and up until the 2009-10 school year. The city released the reports after the United Federation of Teachers exhausted all legal remedies to block their public disclosure.

The reports are now available on SchoolBook, posted on the individual pages for the elementary and middle schools whose teachers’ ratings were released. You can search for a school by using the search module on the left.

At a briefing on Friday morning, an Education Department official said that over the five years, 521 teachers were rated in the bottom 5 percent for two or more years, and 696 were repeatedly in the top 5 percent.

But citing both the wide margin of error — on average, a teacher’s math score could be 35 percentage points off, or 53 points on the English exam — as well as the limited sample size — some teachers are being judged on as few as 10 students — city education officials said their confidence in the data varied widely from case to case.

“The purpose of these reports is not to look at any individual score in isolation ever,” said the Education Department’s chief academic officer, Shael Polakow-Suransky. “No principal would ever make a decision on this score alone and we would never invite anyone — parents, reporters, principals, teachers — to draw a conclusion based on this score alone.”

Chancellor Dennis M. Walcott also underscored the need to use the individual rankings cautiously.

“I don’t want our teachers disparaged in any way, and I don’t want our teachers denigrated based on this information,” Mr. Walcott said. “This is very rich data that has evolved over the years. As Shael has indicated, it is old data and it’s just one piece of information. And so I don’t want our teachers characterized in a certain way based on this very complex rich tool that we have available to us.”

Nevertheless, the data is ripe for analysis. One fact shared by the Education Department: Many of the teachers included in the database are no longer working in city schools.

Officials said 77 percent of the 18,000 who received reports were still employed by the Education Department, but of those who remained, many had moved on to administrative jobs or teach subject areas or grade levels that were not included in the reports.

For example, the teacher who was rated most highly, based on his scores for the 2009-10 school year, is now an assistant principal at another school, according to his online profile. His rating encompassed only one year of data and was based on 32 students’ test scores.

The data was handed to the news media on CDs, which contain spreadsheets listing teachers’ scores for the 2007-08, 2008-09 and 2009-10 school years. Roughly 12,000 teachers were given teacher data reports each year.

Charter school and special education teachers were not included; the city says it will likely release their rankings on Tuesday.

The teacher rankings began as a pilot program four years ago to improve instruction in 140 city schools. It has turned into the most controversial set of public school statistics to be released by the Bloomberg administration: individual rankings for roughly 18,000 math and English public school teachers from fourth through eighth grades.

The teachers have already seen their reports, which have been distributed for the past several years. But parents and the rest of the public can now learn how individual teachers performed, based on how they improved their students’ test scores, and with that they will begin the difficult and emotional reckoning of comparing what they personally know about a teacher to what a set of statistics tells them.

In the larger picture, the ratings could bolster or undermine a school’s reputation, and validate or discredit convictions long espoused by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, like his belief that small schools are better than large ones and that length of service is not necessarily a predictor of strong performance in the classroom.

The rankings, known as teacher data reports, are supposed to rate teachers across a performance scale. They are at the core of a national effort to assess, compensate and dismiss teachers based in part on their students’ test results.

In some school districts, the rankings have become an important component in decision-making about teachers. New York City principals have been using the rankings to help make tenure decisions. Houston gave bonuses based on rankings, though the district eventually restructured that program. In the Washington school district, poorly rated teachers have lost their jobs.

New York has become only the second city in the country where teachers’ names and ratings have been publicized. In 2010, The Los Angeles Times published its own set of ratings, in spite of fierce opposition from the local teachers’ union. Thousands of people flocked to the newspaper’s Web site to check the rankings, though, and Arne Duncan, the United States education secretary, praised the effort, saying, “silence is not an option.”

Read the rest here.

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MUST READ: Asian American Journalists Association Releases Guidelines on Jeremy Lin Media Coverage

SOURCE 

Given the media’s “Linsanity” surrounding Jeremy Lin, perhaps this was inevitable.

Following (justified) outrage over several examples of racially-insensitive coverage of Lin–including a headline published by ESPN.com which resulted in the firing of one staffer and suspension of another–the Asian American Journalists Association has issued a set of guidelines for media outlets salivating over the NBA’s Asian-American sensation.

“As NBA player Jeremy Lin’s prowess on the court continues to attract international attention and grab headlines, AAJA would like to remind media outlets about relevance and context regarding coverage of race,” the group wrote in an advisory. “In the past weeks, as more news outlets report on Lin, his game and his story, AAJA has noticed factual inaccuracies about Lin’s background as well as an alarming number of references that rely on stereotypes about Asians or Asian Americans.”

Among the “danger zones” identified by AAJA:

“CHINK”: Pejorative; do not use in a context involving an Asian person on someone who is Asian American. Extreme care is needed if using the well-trod phrase “chink in the armor”; be mindful that the context does not involve Asia, Asians or Asian Americans.

And:

“ME LOVE YOU LIN TIME”: Avoid. This is a lazy pun on the athlete’s name and alludes to the broken English of a Hollywood caricature from the 1980s.

AAJA urged caution “when discussing Lin’s physical characteristics, particularly those that feminize/emasculate the Asian male (Cinderella-story angles should not place Lin in a dress). Discussion of genetic differences in athletic ability among races should be avoided. In referring to Lin’s height or vision, be mindful of the context and avoid invoking stereotypes about Asians.”

The group added: “Stop to think: Would a similar statement be made about an athlete who is Caucasian, African American or Latino?”

Below are the AAJA’s guidelines in full:

THE FACTS

1. Jeremy Lin is Asian American, not Asian (more specifically, Taiwanese American). It’s an important distinction and one that should be considered before any references to former NBA players such as Yao Ming and Wang Zhizhi, who were Chinese. Lin’s experiences were fundamentally different than people who immigrated to play in the NBA. Lin progressed through the ranks of American basketball from high school to college to the NBA, and to characterize him as a foreigner is both inaccurate and insulting.

2. Lin’s path to Madison Square Garden: More than 300 division schools passed on him. Harvard University has had only three other graduates go on to the NBA, the most recent one being in the 1950s. No NBA team wanted Lin in the draft after he graduated from Harvard.

3. Journalists don’t assume that African American players identify with NBA players who emigrated from Africa. The same principle applies with Asian Americans. It’s fair to ask Lin whether he looked up to or took pride in the accomplishments of Asian players. He may have. It’s unfair and poor journalism to assume he did.

4. Lin is not the first Asian American to play in the National Basketball Association. Raymond Townsend, who’s of Filipino descent, was a first-round choice of the Golden State Warriors in the 1970s. Rex Walters, who is of Japanese descent, was a first-round draft pick by the New Jersey Nets out of the University of Kansas in 1993 and played seven seasons in the NBA; Walters is now the coach at University of San Francisco. Wat Misaka is believed to have been the first Asian American to play professional basketball in the United States. Misaka, who’s of Japanese descent, appeared in three games for the New York Knicks in the 1947-48 season when the Knicks were part of the Basketball Association of America, which merged with the NBA after the 1948-49 season.

DANGER ZONES

“CHINK”: Pejorative; do not use in a context involving an Asian person on someone who is Asian American. Extreme care is needed if using the well-trod phrase “chink in the armor”; be mindful that the context does not involve Asia, Asians or Asian Americans. (The appearance of this phrase with regard to Lin led AAJA MediaWatch to issue statement to ESPN, which subsequently disciplined its employees.)

DRIVING: This is part of the sport of basketball, but resist the temptation to refer to an “Asian who knows how to drive.”

EYE SHAPE: This is irrelevant. Do not make such references if discussing Lin’s vision.

FOOD: Is there a compelling reason to draw a connection between Lin and fortune cookies, takeout boxes or similar imagery? In the majority of news coverage, the answer will be no.

MARTIAL ARTS: You’re writing about a basketball player. Don’t conflate his skills with judo, karate, tae kwon do, etc. Do not refer to Lin as “Grasshopper” or similar names associated with martial-arts stereotypes.

“ME LOVE YOU LIN TIME”: Avoid. This is a lazy pun on the athlete’s name and alludes to the broken English of a Hollywood caricature from the 1980s.

“YELLOW MAMBA”: This nickname that some have used for Lin plays off the “Black Mamba” nickname used by NBA star Kobe Bryant. It should be avoided. Asian immigrants in the United States in the 19th and 20th centuries were subjected to discriminatory treatment resulting from a fear of a “Yellow Peril” that was touted in the media, which led to legislation such as the Chinese Exclusion Act.

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Fed Survey: Inflation Worries Businesses

“Inflation will become a problem in the longer term for the U.S. economy, although price pressures will remain manageable at least for now, a Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta survey shows.

Federal Reserve officials insist their ultra-loose monetary policies such as asset purchases from banks and commitments to keep interest rates low for years have not seriously pushed up inflation rates.

High prices at the pump, for example, are caused by factors other than Fed policies, such as supply strains.

Nevertheless, the Fed survey of 168 firms in the southeast U.S. finds inflation should average at 1.9 percent over the next 12 months, just below the Fed’s 2 percent goal, the Wall Street Journal reports.

However, that average jumps to 2.9 percent in five to 10 years, the survey finds, well above Federal Reserve comfort levels.

“What our panel of firms appears to be telling us is that the risks to the inflation outlook — in both the near term and longer term — aren’t particularly balanced,” Atlanta Fed economists Mike Bryan, Laurel Graefe and Nicholas Parker write in the study, according to the Journal.

“In the near term, they weigh the inflation risks more heavily to the downside. But looking over the next five to 10 years, the panel sees the inflation risks leaning decidedly to the upside.”

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