it's too hard. we read them. but no consume actually reads them. to have it at the end of the day is more helpful. it's more important on smartphones when you think about the limited real estate available there to have quick messages to consumers. we're about to collect your location. we wanted download your contact list. is that okay?

if it's not okay. the consumers say no it doesn't happen. icons, pictures, you know, it's a very important issue. transparency is a third issue. i futured on that. i think there's more we can do to inform consumers about what is happening with the data and what control they might have over it. the foirt is an important one. it's the issue of identification. and as much as possible question really focus on using information in a form that is identified as robustly as possible. first of all, identify to the extent reasonably possible. from a technological

perspective. and the company engaged in using the deidentified information promises not to not reidentify the information. now there have been showing how easy it to take it. and retype with individuals. and particular individuals. terrorist a promise to not reidentify. if it is transferred to anyone escaladed. the company holding the data to moms to also not change we see in technology and focus how we can implement these important principles. i recognize it. you are making it. we have a lot more questions.

i think i missed you. i apologize for it. thank you. making it an even more difficult job. the trade negotiations? >> yes. >> excuse me the negotiations between the u.s. and europe. which is commonly called ttip.

trade and investment negotiation partnership. you suggested there are some room for agreement at least on in your positive reactions to recent european regulatory initiations. i'm conscious that there is the whole u.s. interagency process. i don't know how much you have to coordinate with the trade representative. but many people feel that these trade negotiations that are going on between europe is really more about regulatory harmization than anything else. and so my question is to what extent do you have to relate or

do relate in this at fear in which these goasheszs have now had three meetings, and the president has put some emphasis on this. >> so the issues i was talking about in terms of safe harbor and the e.u.'s report in term of how to improve and maintain it. we are an independent agency, as you pointed out. we're are not officially -- the federal trade commission is not officially involved with the ttip discussions. however, the usgr and other folks who are involved with. the. the u.s. trade represent, and others do consult with our staff from time to time about technical issues. particularly when it comes to issues around privacy enforcement, because again,

trying to explain what we do and how it gets done in the united states. it's not offensive to the paragraph. we're not in the table in the discussion. we are really focused -- my job is to focus on protecting consumers and protecting competition. and with respect to privacy and data flows, you know, it's to make sure that we have appropriate law enforcement, and we're engaged in appropriate law enforcement as well as policy development around the issues. and, you know, i've been a -- [inaudible] whether at the state level or now at the federal level for a long time. i'm a big believer in enforcement. that's our job. i just want to comment in two

ways on that. one, perhaps what was coming up is a lack of -- the nsa revelation snowden re -- revelations created either a real sense that lack of trust or created a hook for one of the things information in all future trade agreements.

>> that's exactly why i thought it was important for us to break down the silo and really see whether, in fact, this is happening. >> and a few people here from the federal government from other parts the -- do they want to comment in any way? on anything? okay. >> thank you, commissioner, for your always-thoughtful remarks. [inaudible] i've come to the conclusion that corporations are poor at making choices -- but they're only slightly better than governments, particularly foreign governments for making decisions for consumers. it's my personal opinion. we're entering an era where consumers can benefit on -- [inaudible] mass personalization. i worry that resumes set in

place that might do things like limit data collection done on a report -- become an opportunity in the future. and we don't foreclose those by setting rules as we think about putting in place the very thoughtful limitations i think you have -- [inaudible] >> well, some of what i talked about, i do think would focus on collection issues. so and thank you. that's also a very thoughtful comment and thoughtful question.

my view is that in term of tracking consumers online given the incredible breadth of information that is now available, the explosion of data about each and every one of us, as we walk around with our smartphones and use our apps and are engaged in online activity and the activity is all getting linked together to create very rich profiles. it strikes me that while you're presenting a framework that arguably says, well, if there's no collection we don't have any benefits for consumers. i'm trying to say, i think we need to be thoughtful about the

way in which information is either collected or created. collected and used. but it's focused on -- my kid has been up for five nights. it flu or cold or tell me something about diabetes and early onset or heart conditions or whatever. people are doing so much online that gets identified with them

personally and so sthiewld information be collected? should be collected that consumers may have a health condition simply because they inquire about an issue? it may be just be curiosity. may be a school project. but in today's "the wall street journal," for instance, we saw rirches to companies that are gathering that information and using it to find out if they are interested in participating in political trials. clinical trials are an incredibly important function in this united states. it has incredible benefits for consumers, for health care, for doctors, for providers, for pharmaceutical companies to understand what works and what doesn't work. it's more on an evident basis.

they either don't have the condition or have it and don't understand. i think these are some deep and important issues we need to think about how the information is collect order frankly even created. some of the entities that are hanging on to the information are presuming that consumers have certain health conditions based on restaurants they go to, the way they shop, the clothes they wear. things like that. which apparently, you know, in maybe 80 percent of cases 85% of cases, 90% of cases or whatnot may indicate that consumer has a certain condition. but it's not always going to be true. even if it's true, should entities be to be make the conditions -- these predictions about our health conditions collect the information and hold on to it in an identifiable way. i think these are questions we

need to drill down in to. i don't think we're yet at your -- we haven't yet touched your problem, which is gosh, if we stop collection with all the great benefits will go away. i think we need to look at the type of collection that is going on and the creation of predictions about consumers for the purposes of profiling that is going on and figure out whether we think it's appropriate or not. >> i just have one question. you don't have a question anymore? [inaudible] i thought we would come back to that. if you want to ask your question. and i thought, julie, we started out with your being optimistic and the conversations going in the right direction. one of the things we like to do at the round table is break down silo. trying to break down silos two people who think about the internet, the economy, and foreign policy, and i should add, trade policy as well. people from the worlds do not

talk to each other enough. so i think after -- mark, after your question, maybe question get back to what is the people in the trade qorld take back knowing that improved in the conversations can take back being to be say this is where the u.s. is of course, you know, strong and then -- if you want to make it more pointed. go ahead. ..

>> about that distinction and? a.m. for your in answer i would be remiss if i did not say thank you for your work on the views and patten's conduct in the are overwhelmingly in support of your new initiative. >> with the distinction? >> last week and today talking about the distinction between commercial and national security and information flow of the different

traditions and in legal regimes in the u.s. and europe and weather from prior experience is a distinction in better appreciated at a level they and other public arenas and for your discussions said a general level is thought observation is true? >> it does appear to be true that national security issues are dealt at the state level in europe a and with my conversation, by the way thank you for your kind remarks about me. that is very nice of you. speaking about the european commission or the data protection authorities they

recognize that a and of the competency. they make a fair point that there are some provisions with the safe harbor european commission determination with idi a mechanism to transfer data but it has to be proportionate so there are tools they have had the commission in the fold to halt at the issue. we need to recognize that. and i tell them to really

understand the national security issues at stake national security people need to be at the table having a conversation with him. what has happened over the last three-year four months skulks within the tpa the outcomes and others have had a dialogue with some of the people focused on security issues. it has not alleviated of the conservative helps them to understand of breath of the problem but i don't want to leave this conversation without emphasizing again that i do think is important

to have the appropriate scope there are changes to maintain national security and inhalants consumers. and also needs to happen in the transatlantic context systemically did not mean that you would go into you trade policy but i just thought those of us in the room who are familiar in the world how the conversation ends with the u.s. and e.u. would have done projective with privacy almost at the talking points levels you are better armed to. >> i and charles freeman i am better to identify myself

[laughter] >> publicly i have lost their right to privacy. but for your recognition of the security issues from the commercial issues but american companies and others have different approaches of the immelt process daybed they don't have the same approach to privacy put separate and distinct from that and while commissioner has taken this as an petraeus to flush the agenda there are others as in sure you know, whether

it is the tax agenda or basic rules of competition or european union resources, all these push up a and it is difficult to operate under privacy so i do think it is important. i hope to hear what they're looking at this level but it is important to be aggregated so weaken the of the greater conversation otherwise this will be an opportunity that we already see as european companies start to take it vintage to look at them as a business opportunity. >> was there a question mark?

[laughter] >> we are at times so combined your answer his. >> one of the things i found most interesting with european commission report on said harper was a recognition of value of data the economic value but coupled with the recognition the value is enhanced by the cross border flow. i have heard this a the eighth you talk about to create those loans but they did not read that with the latest reiteration. so for those who are directly involved with of trade discussion there

appears to be the open window to have a healthy conversation with the data flow and don't lose the moment to understand for what it is said recognize there is the need to address concerns national security is happening separately to of the commercial side a particular i talk about what i would like to see done but leaving that aside of the life very much believe in that, but are in safe harbor let's recognize the moment we have been taken seriously and look at the 13 changes and respond appropriately. it is a moment that could be lost for political and policy reasons so let's not

lose it is what i would say. it has been a fabulous the conversation i appreciate ever ready to cave especially those who ask questions for i hope you don't mind the grueling two leo. [laughter] but we want to have this conversation and so many people see pieces of this elegant so that we can work productively and you spoke in a different time where we need to be better but also the u.s. through the enforcement actions is incredibly strong and we have got to be proud of the end it is important to realize that as well and we

have a transparent dialogue going on in the u.s.. we will continue to have these conversations did you so much for coming in julie for sharing some many interesting thoughts cough >> this was a deliberate move on behalf of the

government that would actually blame it was always the purpose of the government to blame benazir bhutto she went through the escape hatch to say hello to a crowd she should not have. she was responsible but she was the victim she should have been protected they say it was the elite force into the political rally where she was killed after resaw videos to pictures and we talked to numerous witnesses interviewing with hundred 50 people they saw no e. lee forced protection that was the duty of the government of which are off mic priorities r

congress, the third way think tank hosted this with bill schneider moderating.

>> to anticipate the holidays i will ask a few questions as usual the nature and over to those in the audience. to think the budget deal that has been passed will beal passed today? affair represents anything bigger than the desire of republicans to of laid shutdown? >> i cannot tell you whether represents for republicans but for the economy is more certainty where ability to find infrastructure and research.peo when people were dark about this type of agreement i thought it was the could trade it to be had to have deficit reduction and we like to do more now maybe

some would care more about defense or infrastructure but that basic trade was a clear when wind we could do more upfront with more deficit reduction. i always thought every now and then crash and how the mutual benefit would win out over all the inertia in washington. >> reagan, clinton, obama both scott -- all got elected because of the economy but it turned around in two of theirs and also giving the vice president elected after them. where is the obama seconde term boom?y >> we went through an incredibly deep financial crisis it is harder to grow

your way out overly indebted you would not have consumer borrowing looking at the 11 countries that wind throughk systematic thinking countries only two of theml have retained its said gdp per worker before the crisis fuelled catecholamine context we are ahead of the pack of the we need to better over the last two quarters of has grown at an annual rate of 3 percent so n that is going into next year. but it is tough when you go t through the worst crisis it takes time we are continuing to dig yourself out. >> immigration reform is to

be aet the top of the agenda. >> economist instinctively recoil we just love to bother people with t trade-offs with downside than negatives and immigration is as close as to what we have of public policy these days. the cbo says hill at 1. $4 trillion in not just the extra workers one of the most exciting things it would expand a total factor productivity it is in the economy to bring in theen talented dutch procurers and itbr brings down the budget deficit plan over $100 billion in the my view

strengthens america as a country specific the conventional view is but with public health anddo y education how do you counter that argument? >> with the fact there is no better wray three in an end to a trickle look tuesday it would cut the deficit by one ado $60 billion over the next decade ian to a lot of the people here are attracted were taxpayers have strengthening the economy. >> recently the president has been addressing the equality issue.what what specific policies flow from the concern? minimum-wage? tax reform? >> looking at his speech the first is economic growth. we would be much bettere

position to to address these problems if we have a larger overall economy but that isa not a guarantee those benefits flow to the typical family likes the minimum-wage. and also thinks how we this medium and long-term adjustments you don't need to raise rates but it contributes more to solving it. >> what one datapoint median household income but that only comes once a year but i still think the jobs number

is the best comprehensive and measure others give reason everyone else pays attention to it. >> it looks like the affordable care act is an obstacle but will there be the upside? >> we see that already one of the most thought extraordinary things health cost per capita is growing at the low wasd street over the last 50 years when we talked about a world was rapidly raising premiums they are rising one-third the rate from a decade ago but looking at manufacturingob betsy's strong job growth is a slowdown of health benefits in there's a lot of reasons partly the economy

economy, currently the trend that started six or seven years ago in the health system partly it is the affordable care act that did important things of its old like cutting down hospital regressions. >> luck with the partnership mean to the americany? economy? is this another nafta? >> it means our businesses have a greater scale the united states used to be more than half of the world economy now is one quarter pfiffner most consumers live outside our border and a lot of countries have barriers to us to sell things there that is why these agreements are advantageous to everyone especially to the united

states and the trade agreements that we negotiate with europe are some of the most promising things and to expand access scale of high-paying jobs. >> what is the biggest source of frustration? >> of course, it is not the media. there are so many things that are obvious. we should do less to /on spending up front and their common chris did to the obvious and business tax reform is another of republicans in congress and experts have a reasonably

similar vision of tax rates to broaden the base in thehi more competitive tax code but it is hard to get that done.ha immigration is another common sense when.y but this seemed like there should be a lot of agreement but get stuck kim congress. >> he said it gives more ability without the grant a pardon would you expecto to get? >> we are digging thee president's major infrastructure proposal or any other but we've also not have the same cuts to theo airport improvement program forra headstart fed is under discretionary budget.

>> you are talking about you avoided keds. >> by a buying back of the domestic sequester we will invest more in areas like headstart the airport improvement program and things in the discretionary budget. >> you will not again it is. >> but he proposed the infrastructure on jobs thisog is not the grand bargain or the major investments but it will mean more in of those areas. >> by a flood to ask aboutax inequality and the tax code.

thomas as the new book out in french coming out in english. but i do have a translator. [laughter] but he says we cannot address inequality without using the tax code a and he talks about the highest marginal rate of 70%. top dollars aren't -- earned not all dollars are so hard you tackle quality without using the tax code? >> i will give you example the presence death plushgh tough for high-income households he is focused on the tax benefits so when the high income household makes

a $1 billion per year plans to buy a house or save for retirement they get a tax benefit for that that might be two or three times ascl large as what dave hav middle-class family would kit that limits the tax benefits to cap at $0.28 per dollar. that is to say progressive taxation is part of the solution but that does not mean necessarily higher taxd rates.ode. wanted vintages to make it more a efficient when youes have those subsidies is the inefficient way to use federal resources and to prevent talk about cutting

spending through the tax code there is the important conversation to be had. looking at the challenges and tax is a part of that but you don't have to do that through higher taxn. rates but expenditures bill read talk about the economy doing better but perceptions are lagging this is there ar way to make the case is the states of the union an opportunity to do that? >> we do see that rise a strongly through septemberdow that was a big blow to consumer confidence of i was

mahal watching what wass going on i would be less confident that we did see that start to translate i don't think that depends on thet monthly jobs numbers that will justify and on when families see it and wages nominal wage growth has been increasing inflation has fallen over the last 12 months. that is after a period thet unemployment rate has come down over six months. it was up 3 percent over the last two quarters torrey to think that israel.

>> is are harder for the president to make the case? >> every time you say that but it is that politicallybs. tricky? it >>. >> things are complicated. you have to explain that it is not that hard to understand we went through deep scars as we got further way it is harder to remember but to remember that historical context

>> yes. >> there was an astonishing transformation and it's now back up what it was. we have massive deleveraging, and this includes private sector corp or the profits that are at financial failure is way down. down. and yet the administration owns that record. but it doesn't seem to be a part of this. but the question is there have been positive things that have happened with the auto industry and good things at a record

level and a lot of positive things that are real and not false. so the question is why is it a failure of this construction on the part of the president or the fact that the lack of wage growth and income kind of trumps all of that. >> you certainly hear us talking about it. there is no shortage of these private-sector job growth. in the united states starts unwinding and we are fully out of that and everything president obama invested at the previous investment as well.

and senator jack reed has a proposal to do a clean three-month extension of it, which would prevent the 1.3 million people from being cut off. the president strongly supports that unemployment insurance as one of the highest priorities and most immediate things that we can do to help the economy out. and the reason we support that is we have created really strong job growth and we have broke the unemployment rate down a lot. and this includes insurance benefits to lapse. and that is just one example and

it is one of the things that we need to do to build on that record and strengthen it. >> so the federal reserve going forward, impacting the economy. and secondly, how do you see the role of president obama would regard to executive orders so what is most frustrating with my current job is that one of the most interesting topics is always the federal reserve and one of the topics of the federal reserve, we have always thought that this would be in better shape without executive branch officials. and obviously in broad terms and

i think that she will be doing this from me or anyone else or any of my colleagues. and do things like the deals that the president would like to do it b-schools, infrastructure, and there is -- we are going to be doing everything that we possibly can. and one thing is this long-term unemployment issue that i mentioned before and we need

legislation and there's a lot to do administratively on that. and this is part of the regulatory agenda as well. >> so inequality. the president was talking about the defining challenge of our time and how does that link to job creation? so this is unemployment and long-term unemployment.

>> i think that unemployment is part of this and if we get it down from 7% where it is now to where was in the 1990s, you would see personal people's earnings go from zero who are unemployed up to 30 or 40 or 50 or 60 for a job. and so moving this, getting the unemployment down, part of what the president is saying is that we have had several decades and we would still need to worry about that in the deep deeper

forces and most of them find that it's very close to zero. and that is because the benefits of reduced turnover increase motivation, better productivity and it offsets the extra cost associated. >> let me follow that again. can you really promote inequality without redistribution? >> what is most troubling is how highly correlated it is with the lack of mobility. and so if you could have a really unequal society and people were likely to move out and have a prominent situation on it, you'd worry a lot less about inequality. but it's an empirical fact when you look across the country is,

the countries that are more unequal are also those that are less mobile and ultimately, i think everyone in our society subscribes to the quality of opportunity. you can't be serious if you don't have a high-quality preschool if you don't have a middle class family having a same shot at saving for their retirement and there are a lot of elements of a quality that show up in the income distribution as well. and it's expanding and making sure that everyone has enough. >> for what you are saying, it sounds like the inequality framework, it is a broad framework for presenting the agenda and understanding what

the agenda actually is. and i'm wondering if that is new inequality things that we haven't heard about that you can tell us about and that was a good description of it last week. and that was not a speech where he was -- they have all been motivated by this, and it's also the freedom that we are using as we think about policy proposals going forward and you always see new policy proposals.

>> with the labor market, the participation rate has declined fairly sharply. and there is a debate among economists as to how much is structural with things that would happen anyway and how much it is perhaps temporary, people just discourage about getting work. and is there an estimate as to how much you would allocate to each cause? and do you have an expectation assuming the economy strengthens that there will be a flow back into the labor market and they stopped looking for jobs? >> okay, we spent a lot of time looking at that. and people should understand the participation rate falling at this point in our countries history. or something that was very much predictable or predicted. the economic report of the president put president put down by the council of economic advisers in 2004 in this

includes a decline after 2008. the cbo was projecting this after 2008. and that's because the first baby boomers turn 62 years old and became eligible for social security benefits and the labor force participation rate goes down. so we always expect this. the question is the magnitude. and we have seen since the end of 2007 the participation rate falling by 2.7 percentage points and we think that it explains about half of them. ..

as the economy continues to heal, demography is still going to be bringing out the participaparticipa tion rate down. that cyclical component will go in the other direction and will start raising the participation rate and i think it's reasonable to think that this will roughly offset each other. i would not roughly expect the participation rate is going to rise over the next couple of years and it back over the next

decade and it's likely the participation rate will fall but the demography is going to be with us for a long time. spews the participation rate reported as a percentage of all americans are working age americans? >> its american 16 and older. if you are 100 not working that counts as a nonparticipant. >> well yeah and people are living a much longer time which may be built into it. i always thought of the first -- participation rate as the americans working. speak at the prime age so 25 to 54. that has also come down for the cyclical reasons we were talking about but it hasn't come down nearly as much as if you look at 16 through 120 or whatever age it is americans can work until. >> the things the president can actually do to get at inequality to get through congress.

where does making sure the affordable care act survives and thrives fit into that? is that the most reasonable thing that he can get done to get to inequality with the last three years he has got? he has a lot of special things happening in this town were nothing special has happened for a while so the affordable care act and making sure it works the greatest thing he can do on the inequality front that he has actual control over? >> like a lot of people that know a lot of bout politics at this table that can predict the future better than i can but the affordable care act as an really important part of that and that is why we have been working so hard to get the web site working to make sure it's implemented effectively. i think -- i don't think he's just going to sit there for the next three years just trying to take the web site veteran better and better.

raising the minimum wage. the last time we raised the minimum wage and with signs of two law was president bush in the time before that it was best a speaker gingrich and signed into law by the resin and clinton. there's no reason why we shouldn't be able to do something like that. infrastructure and the highway reauthorization expires at the end of september. we are going to need highway legislation by the end of september. we could extend for a month and extend for another month and extend for another month or we could do what the chairman of the transportation committee and the house wants to do. the chairman and the people with transportation the president what to do which is something bigger and something longer-lasting, something that gives us more of an investment going forward. preschool, we talked to business leaders all the time and economists who think that's an important ingredient to our growth.

there are a whole lot of things we have been able to do in the past that they are forcing events around doing now or a bipartisan support we should be able to get done all of which matter for inequalitinequalit y and the economy more broadly. >> i want to ask a question related to the kerfuffle and the way it found itself. even with the implementation of dodd-frank and the publication of the volcker rule there seems to be this unresolved anger directed towards banks and financial systems on congress. and maybe more the democratic party. is that fair to you think that anger is still there and that the community seems to be feeling the community at price per pound of flesh still needs to be gotten from the banks for what happened in 2007 in 2008 and how are the bank stating

today affecting the pace of the economic recovery, bank lending? is it a drag on the recovery at all? >> so, banks play a really important role in our financial system. they help allocate capital. they help revive liquidity when they function as they should. they also help better allocate risk but when you have poor regulations and when you have poor decisions banks can do the opposite of all of that. they can miss allocate capital and put it in the wrong places that hurts our economy. they can freeze up with the ability to have liquidity and rather than diversifying if they can concentrate it and expand that risk and hurt the economy. and you know a lot of that depends on the regulatory

incentives that those half if you tell a large financial institution that heads they win and tails the taxpayer loses, that means a perfectly rational and agile institution is going to end up making decisions that are contrary to the public interest and contrary to the economic interests. we have had a lot of that else into our system leading into the the financial crisis in 2007 and 2008. a lot of this is about changing the incentives that you have. even with the right incentives, banks are like anyone. they are going to make mistakes. a lot of businesses to make mistakes might go out of business. it's a very localized thing. we can prevent that. that's going to happen and things are going to succeed and we will thrive in move up and down. banks tend to create a lot more damage to the economy as a whole

when they run into problems and that is why it's very appropriate to have a set of rules on banks above and beyond the set of rules we have on our corner dry cleaner. none of those rules are saying, no one is nationalizing banks are saying we shouldn't have banks. we are saying they need rules of the road and they created a lot of a lot of damage direct economy and we want to make sure that doesn't happen again. i think this is very forward looking and motivated by the economy. >> in terms of the behavior now how are they right now? >> i think this is the saying that larry summers likes to repeat which is the paradox of the financial crisis is one of the things that causes them is too much lending into much blacks lending and then you want to get out of them by having more lending and having more blacks lending. certainly chairman bernanke has talked about how credit standards on home mortgages for

example are too tight now. they are much tighter than they were in 2003 before the run-up in credit at a time when most of the loans we were making were perfectly good loans that were repaid terry at so you know a credit to small businesses. still remains relatively tight so there are a lot of ways in which we like to see the flow of credit expanded and more certainly trying to work on the parts that we can do. a lot of that is decisions by and dependent regulators and by the banks are its speediest oracle folk note i wrote about constitutions than 100 some years ago when we were much more agrarian society banks were the most aided institution in america. banks and railroads. there was a huge crusade against banks. the progresses in teddy roosevelt and woodrow wilson. banks were evil institutions when many americans were farmers.

that transformed. after world war ii suddenly found tanks were among the most respected institutions in the united states and the most highly-regarded. i don't know if that transformation has really changed. >> with the budget. >> we can't hear you. stay with the budget deal expected to pass now, what do you see as the biggest risk to the outlook and specifically how concerned are you about the expectation that interest rates are headed higher next year? >> i think the most immediate risk is that we don't extend unemployment insurance benefits. we estimated that that is the difference between 240,000 jobs and the purchasing power associated with those unemployment insurance benefits. that's similar to the estimates from cbo jpmorgan and others in similar order of magnitude so i think that's the single most

most -- policy challenge in the policy challenge to those 1.3 million workers that would be cut off. i think it's also a challenge to our overall macroeconomy. beyond that, i take senators like mcconnell at their word that they are going to raise the debt limit and we are not going to see another round of rings winship but if you went down to the wire on the debt limit and if you went down the wire on the debt limit that would be a major threat to the economy. there is no reason that should happen and i'm confident congress will not want to put our economy through that. beyond that, i don't want to talk about and forecast the future of interest rates but if you step back and look at the fundamentals of the housing market i think there is still a lot of room for growth. we are building 900,000 houses a year. we add about 1 million

households a year, existing household also depreciates of the steady state of the housing production to 1.6 million homes in here. how we will get from 900,000 to 1.6 million in the next year, think we will over the next year but if you look at the fundamentals of the housing market in the demography that ultimately drives the plus the fact that housing is relatively affordable if you look at the affordability indexes and take into account housing -- i think that's an area where there's a lot of potential and upside still. [inaudible] >> the translation is interest rates affect the economy but if you look more fundamentally at the driver, the ways in which it matters you seethe business investment is relatively slow

over the past year. that is the things that hasn't been as good in the economy but the cost of capital overall is relatively cheap or were businesses and stock valuation is high and profitability as a share of the economy is high. i think a lot of the fundamental determinants of business investment are strong and affordability and below the steady state value so a lot of fundamental determinants of housing are still strong. i think we have an ability as an economy to grow robustly. >> i want to draw on the minimum wage a little bit. you know, as people here pointed out your confidence in unemployment notwithstanding there's a lot of discussion of whether cost george -- jobs a lot and an emotional. how do you see that happening given the climate in watching 10

before 2014 and a second question, wasn't going to assess but your response to the that gentleman kind of forces me to. i wonder whether you think you would be a good person to be involved in monetary policy? >> so, on your first question and you asked a political question but let me drill down a tiny bit more into that to try to understand the effect of minimum wage on unemployment. it's always hard in economics to do cause and effect because a lot of different things are happening at the same time. ideally what you would like is a randomized experiment. if you can't find one title at the closest thing. alan krueger and david card years ago published the american economic review and found the closest thing to the random experiment which is new jersey raised its minimum wage. they let the counties on both sides of the border and looked at fast food restaurants and noted the fact that job growth

is the same on both sides of the border. that was a great study. the problem with that study was it was a few counties in two states at one point in time. since then i think it was about two years ago a paper that use basically the same methodology was published in a review of economic statistics but rather than looking at just one pair it looked at over 1000 pairs of different states and counties where one neighbor raised its minimum wage and one didn't and that's what happened with unemployment. so they looked at over 1000 on average the employment difference between a place that raised its minimum wage in the place that didn't was zero. it's that type of quasi-random experiment that is as close as we get to real science and empirical economics that is the type of data we looked at in assessing the employment impact

of the minimum wage. that plus these meta-studies where you look at 64 different different studies and you find the bulk of them and found a fat that was near zero. in terms of the politics, i have a little bit less expertise in that area but i have noticed that it tends to be a popular issue with the public and tends to be a popular issue with independents and it tends to be something that you have seen political figures say it will happen over their dead body in the year 1995 and 1996 the person is still alive and it didn't pass. but you know congress is different now so i can say what it ought to be from the economic evidence from what people have done in the past. in terms of you know i think stanley fisher is an outstanding economist and an outstanding policymaker and knows an awful lot about how the world works. i think he would be good at a

large number of jobs that he could possibly do. >> i wanted to follow up on the question and i know it's still being implemented and as you said these things are unknowable in advance but i wonder how you were a assessing the success of the white house and aligning incentives for banks and whether the white house would take up financial regulation in the next three years again for any reason? >> this is still a large task of implementing dodd-frank. we have put a lot of the most important pieces in effect in the volcker rule is the most recent of the pieces. one way to measure the success is you have seen the rating agencies talk about or downgrade some of the largest financial institutions and not downgrade them because they think they are risky or unsafe but because they don't think that they are going to be bailed out by the taxpayers if they run into trouble. that was the central feature of dodd-frank and i think that is

being increasingly understood by markets and increasingly understood by the people who assess this that there are going to be any more taxpayer-funded bailouts. part of that is about reducing the chances that you are in that situation again with things like volcker rule and preventing that from happening but also making sure if you are in that situation no rule is going to be perfect to prevent every problem from happening. and if you're in that situation that you have resolution mechanisms that we didn't have in our -- at our disposal to resolve those taxpayers put in a lot of money at risk for tarp. it was all prepaid. we made a profit on that investment which is a testament to the economic management we saw from the fed and from the treasury and from president obama. but you can't count on that happening every time in the future and that is why in terms

of going forward as i said there's a lot of implementation. >> i think -- was still a big mistake. so what's the best economic policy to address greenhouse emissions and will regulating power plants be done in our economy? >> so the best thing we currently have at our disposal is the regulatory authority and environmental protection agency has over both sources and existing sources of rain house gases under the clean air act and that is something the president has instructed them to do and they are working on it. if you step back, that is an area where you can do quite a lot administratively. there was whacks them --

waxman-markey in 2000 which a president supported him because it was legislative they didn't just rely on existing authorities. it was an even more comprehensive approach to dealing with climate and affected every source of emissions done in a comprehensive and flexible way. i think something like that is even closer to the ideal but i think there's a huge amount we can to administratively. in this area, a lot of what you are doing in climate is going with a grain of the economy. you are seeing especially with the decline in price we have seen for natural gas, the increase that we have seen in renewables, a a lot of what the epa is doing is going with a grain of that helping accelerate the transformation that is already underway in american energy and you know certainly as an economist would i do is look at the cost-benefit.

this is an area where it is very easy to design policies for the benefits that massively outweigh the costs. >> the keystone pipeline decision a long time coming. i know there's an environmental impact. do you look at the economic impact in following up on his question various red -- do you look at the economic impact? >> i will answer that question from myself recently which is i haven't been personally involved in looking at the economic impact of that because it is something that the state department is focused on and the state department -- the president is very much looking at the impact on climate. in terms of jobs insofar as i have read anything about it my understanding is the impact on jobs in the long run is pretty small. i can't remember, it's a couple thousand or something like that

and so either way the argument this is a huge help to the economy or huge damage to the economy if you don't do it, if you did this to the full accounting of costs and benefits and impact that would have and that part of the debate is overstated. as i said it's something the state department is doing. [inaudible] >> i have noticed that it looks like that sometimes. >> i was surprised and a lot of people were with what paul ryan said last week that you can't get nothing for raising the debt limit which is what you get is protecting the full faith and credit of the united states and you get the avoidance of a world financial crisis. that is something. is the administration prepared to bargain on this issue or just to stonewall at? >> we are not prepared to

bargain the full faith and credit of the united states. we said there should be a bargain over the sequestered and that was exact to the model. we dealt with is a question that forced us as a country to do medium and long-term deficit reduction. there are a lot of things that could force a discussion about our fiscal future but going into default this and one of them. the last few times we did this, we did it without negotiating with the ransom and hostagetaking and there's no reason we can't follow the same model we all it in 2013 and for frankly most of the 100 years. >> we voted on it several times. >> give and long-term unemployment insurance why wasn't included in the debate? >> the president wanted it there. senator murray wanted it there. leader pelosi wanted it there and you know there was absolute refusal from the other side.

president bush. the president absolutely pushed. there's something really really important in this agreement and we are not going to blow something up that is an important step forward for our economy and our certainty for investments and all the things we need to invest in. when there will be other opportunities to get insurance but would love to have seen it there. the most important thing is that i get done so right now senator jack reid has legislation and the president strongly supports to actually get it done in the senate is going to have it both on that. we have had 12 votes. the unemployment insurance has passed 12 times since extended benefits started in june 2008. in june 2008, the unemployment rate was 5.6%. the average number of weeks of unemployment was 17 weeks. now the unemployment rate is 7%

and the average weeks is 36 weeks. president bush did extended employment insurance in 2008 surely there's more reason for us to be doing it today. the drumbeat in the pressure is just going to grow on the nation. >> my formulation looks like this. republicans believe economic growth is sufficient. if the economy is growing people can solve their own problems and the democrats believe it's necessary but not sufficient. we still need a safe he met. is there any kind of safety net that the white house can pursue on its own unemployment compensation requires congress. health care is a safety net program but will require congress. what can the white house do on the safetynet? >> i think you put that quite well which is growth is absolutely necessary but as we have seen is not sufficient and we need to make sure that growth is shared and the growth is stronger when it is shared.

i think far and away the best instruments we have for that our legislative and require legislation. we are trying to to do a weekend and i will give you an example of long-term unemployment working on what we can do with skills connecting businesses and community colleges and workers to improve skills. we are looking at a range of other actions that would affect wages and inequality. but the biggest dials are still legislative. >> does the administration have any kind of backup plan? this may be beyond your purview. if not i get enough young healthy people sign up for the affordable care at, what's going to happen? i mean, i teach a university course and the students are all saying what is this year about a penalty and why am i going to have to pay this? i said well it will be in april 2015. they say april 2015? that is never.

they aren't worried about paying a penalty. what are you going to do if they don't sign them up? the numbers don't look that good or young healthy people. >> we actually don't have a great demographic right now but what we do have is there was a big increase in enrollment in november relative to october and we have seen increasing demand in december although we don't have the final numbers and we don't have the demographic right down. we are obviously making if not a planned beet -- b a plan a to do the most aggressive enrollment effort you can with young people in using social media. you see the insurance companies doing paid advertising. it's in the insurance companies interest to sign these people up to the part of what you did in the affordable care act was we created a private system but then we tried to create the right incentives for those private at yours. rather than keeping those people away they have the incentive to bring people in those customers up so i think we are doing

everything we can but unleashing the private sector and the large amounts they will spend on advertising might even more important. >> that you have no particular backup plan? >> there's a plan a which is to enroll as many young and healthy people as we possibly can. >> okay, well let's hope we see the the

floor. the presiding officer: the senator from -- the senate pro tem is recognized. mr. leahy: the white house has released a group, the message is very clear, the message of the n.s.a. is now coming from every branch of government, from every corner of our nation.

n.s.a., you've gone too far. the bulk collection of americans' data by the u.s. government has to end. review group came to the same conclusion that i have about the utility of the section 215 phone records program, the same conclusion that judge leon found just the other day calling it unconstitutional. they said section 215 was not essential to preventing attacks and could readily have been obtained in a timely manner using conventional section 215 orders. they say what many of us have been saying, that just because we can collect massive amounts of data doesn't mean we should do so. and they say -- quote -- "although we might be safer if the government had ready access to a massive storehouse of information about every detail of our lives, the impact of such a program on the quality of life and individual premium freem would simply be too

great." senator lee and i and others have legislation to curtail this. i think for the sake of our nation and dais, but two more wonderful people, senator blumenthal, center car,

senator fisher, and senator warner will all be here, but this is the day that we almost load on the budget, actually. not quite. we always find a way to do it. you have a motion to proceed? to whatever? and tomorrow at some point we vote on a budget. just be grateful you are in private life. [laughter] ok, you are all welcome. the disclosures about u.s. intelligence activities over the past few months have sparked a very public bait in this country about the kinds of information the government should be gathering and how we protect the privacy of the americans where we have done something -- nothing wrong. these disclosures have harmed the country's national security, but made americans safer than ,sual over how their lives

online and off-line, can be tracked, monitored, and analyzed. people are aware of that. not to the extent in great britain, where they are so accustomed to being videotaped while they do everything, but we are still adjusting to that. i am glad that we are talking about these privacy issues in general and today we have all benefited from rapid advancement in computer technology but also there is personal freedom. we always use the word cherished, but we do, and it is a complicated subject. we want to be able to protect ourselves and loved ones from the unwanted gaze of the , and of our neighbors. what has been missing from this conversation so far is the role of private companies in collecting and analyzing our personal information. a group of companies known areectively as data brokers gathering massive amounts of

data about our personal lives and selling this information to marketers. about thehear a lot private sector data broker industry, but it is playing a large and growing role in our lives. last year the data broker industry generated 106 ilya and dollars in weapons, twice the size of the entire intelligence budget of the united states government. all generated by the effort to learn about and sell, the details about our private lives. whether we know it, like it, or not exceeded difference. one of the largest data brokerage companies, axion, recently boasted to investors that they can provide multi- sourced insight into

approximately 700 million customers worldwide. government or law enforcement agencies collect arermation about us, they restrained by our constitution and laws and are subject to the oversight of courts, inspectors, general united states congress intelligence committee, the senate, and the house. i have served on the intelligence committee since he for september 11 and i can tell you that without a single that nsathe protection provides to security and secrecy is far better than what we will be talking about today. they have rules. they have all kinds of judges, who is that you have to jump through. the fbi is involved. the doj. it is very tight. every day you read the paper in you would think it does not exist, that it is just a government gone wild, but

particularly when it comes to 215, it isection very tightly monitored. there is never content, there is never e-mail, and there is never a name. there is never a name. just a telephone number. but data brokers go about their business with little or no oversight. are laws on the books to protect the privacy of americans health and financial information, they do not cover data brokers marketing activities. collecting consumer information for marketing purposes is not a new business. for decades before the internet was invented, retailers, marketers, and yes, political candidates, compiled many lists that they used to send coupon books, catalogs, and other materials to potential

customers, but the data broker industry has been revolutionized theecent years by tremendous advances in computing and data analysis. more and morepend time socializing and shopping online, they are generating rich new streams of personal data to collect and analyze. these days data brokers do not just know our address, our income level, our political affiliation, most probably, they probably know the weight of everyone in the family. they have collected thousands of data points about each one of us . and we are simply not aware of it. except in hearing. they know if you have diabetes or suffer from depression. they know if you smoke

cigarettes. reading habits. your browsing habits. much you and your family members way. igh.eu that numbern know of whiskey drinks you have had in the last several days. we would not reveal that, would we? >> [inaudible] >> as a mosaic, these are startlingly detailed profiles of consumers. under the current law we have no right to see these pictures of ourselves. that these companies have created. we have no right. committeest year this has been trying to bring some much-needed oversight to the data brokerage industry. where is the copy of the report? under here. we have been pushing

them to answer the same kinds of questions that many americans have been asking the government since the snowden disclosures. what information are you collecting about us? how are you using the information? this hearing is the first time we are publicly discussing that we are learning what we are learning in this investigation. conference committee staff has prepared a report for me and for the ranking member on the progress of this investigation. it is thus. more to come. aask unanimous consent to put copy of this report in the record of this hearing. things we have learned in this investigation is that data brokers engage in many unobjectionable activities.

they do what marketers have always done. they help businesses find potential customers. found someo practices that raise serious consumer protection concerns. in particular i am disturbed by the evidence showing that the segment americans, categorize them into categories, name categories based on their incomes, and then they sort economically vulnerable customers into groups, with names like -- rural and barely making it. not making it up, that is one of their categories. top start, young single parents. rough retirement, small-town and rural, seniors. -- zero member mobility. i want to know how and why data brokers are putting american consumers into categories like these.

and i want to know which companies are buying these lists to target their marketing to these groups. maybe it is totally innocuous and benign. i don't start out excepting that, but maybe it is. it is why we are doing this investigation. some companies in the data brokerage industry have responded positively to our oversight efforts. when i became chairman here we went over ago, to henry waxman and stole a couple of his best people and set up in investigations unit that for some reason we never had and we gave ourselves subpoena power, something we had never done. it is a powerful tool when you are doing investigation, which is what we tend to doing here. want to know which companies are buying these lists to target

their marketing to those groups. datacompanies in the brokerage industry have responded positively to our oversight efforts. over the past -- the past year they have provided complete answers to my questions, even the tough ones, but several of the largest brokers, specifically cap salon, action, and experient, are continuing to resist oversight. today they have not given me complete answers about where they sell and get their customer data on consumers and to whom they sell it. i am putting these companies on notice today that i am not satisfied with their responses and i am considering further steps. i have steps that i can use, that i can take to get this information.

have oversight over this activity in american commerce. oversight, to intelligence or this, you do it seriously or with the purpose of getting the truth. i am putting these companies on notice that i am not satisfied and i have further steps i can take to get this information. i want to assure them that oversight efforts in this committee, which we have started, will continue. i now call on my distinguished friend from a similar urban state. senator john thune. >> that is right. thank you for holding this hearing, thank you also to the witnesses for coming here today. our economy is increasingly data-driven and data brokers lay . go -- growing role data or information brokers are companies that collect data,

including personal information about consumers from a wide variety of sources, like public records, retailers, selling the information for the purposes of preventing fraud, marketing products. as the chairman noted in his initial letters to several data brokers in 2012, the purpose of the inquiries to better understand the industry and i look forward to each hearing as we focus cap on how the information collected by the brokers is used for marketing purposes. without question this can provide greater benefit and convenience to consumers, lowering the cost of business to target more precisely, helping businesses create products that consumers actually want, lowering startup costs for new businesses. data-driven is one reason that many of us are able to use search engines and e-mail accounts for free, allowing search engines to promote the targeting of resources to reduce the amount of junk mail catalogs

tailored to a consumers particular interest. at least that is the goal. but as the industry is at the center of something that the commerce committee cares about, commerce, it is data-driven marketing widely used across all sectors of the economy. used by nonprofits, governments, and political campaigns. many media outlets have noted how commercial resources help the president's reelection campaign in 2012. as we will hear from the direct marketing association, they are also helping to fuel job creation with technical innovation in our slowly recovering economy. while the industry creates many benefits, there are also important questions about the implications of data broker activity, profiling, and concerns about allegations of differential pricing. questions have also been raised about whether consumers are aware of the instances in which

their personal information may be sold, resulting in calls for more transparency into data broker practices. advocates of also raised concerns that they create profiles on individual consumers based on the aggregation of sensitive and sometimes personal data, like health conditions. rapidly changing marketplace, the federal trade commission has done important work concerning these brokers privacy issues, including educational efforts. they have also brought enforcement action under the fair credit reporting act. also completing a study of practices in the data broker industry and will provide recommendations to congress based on their findings next year. i look forward to their testimony. the government accountability office has recently produced report that i understand will be submitted as a part of this hearing as well as something to help inform this committee. i will be asking witnesses how the data brokerage practices may

impact consumers positively and negatively and i am he interested in hearing from our witnesses how the industry can work the balance the private industry concerns with the needs of privacy in the economy. thank you to all of our witnesses here today, i wanted to add a special note of thanks to tony from experient. .- experion having one of those companies testify is a good way to keep the number of witnesses manageable. i am sure that many of the other companies are also grateful for your willingness to testify and advance our understanding of the dater -- data broker industry. i know i certainly am. thank you for having this hearing and i look forward to hearing from our witnesses. >> thank you very much, senator. we have -- i will just do it one by one. jessica?

ms. rich is the director of the bureau of consumer protection and the federal trade commission . i will go down the line. could you give your testimony, please? >> [inaudible] a you have got to push button. it is called technology. >> yes, i assure you i know something about technology. my name is jessica rich, director of the consumer of bureau per to -- director of the bureau of consumer protection. this is a highly opportune time to examine the practices of data and technological developments that allowed for the dramatic increase and collection of consumer information. data brokers collect personal information from consumers from a wide variety of sources and resell it for a wide variety of purposes without any consumers knowing of their existence much less the variety of practices in which they engage. many of these practices, as you noted, fallout side the scope of

existing loss. laws.sting chairman rockefeller, we commend you for your leadership on this issue and stand ready to work with the committee in congress on ways to improve the transparency of these practices. the report from today is a key effort, as is the study requested from gao. our work on data broker practices goes back to the 1970s. for decades policymakers have expressed concerns about the transparency of companies that buy and sell consumer data. indeed, the existence of companies selling consumer data for credit and other eligibility determinations, invisibly and behind the scenes, went into the enactment of 1970 of the fair credit reporting act. since then the commission has been examining the preface of data brokers. we used three primary tools in the effort. first, we bring in enforcement

actions when company practices violate the law. perhaps our most well-known case involved a choice point, where we obtained 10 million dollars in penalties and $5 million in redress for consumers. it lacks privacy security incedures, resulting sensitive consumer report information winding up in the hands of known identity thieves. more recently we entered into a consent decree with an online data broker. according to our complaint, they collected personal information from hundreds of online and off- line sources, including social networks, combining the data into detailed personal profiles. we alleged that they marketed resource use by human departments, making the consumer reporting agency subject to the fair credit reporting act, but it was failed to be revived by the accuracy privacy requirements. includes strong belief

in the civil penalty. second, the commission conducts research and issues reports addressing data brokerage issues. for example, the 2012 privacy report named best practice conditions for consumer practice -- consumer privacy. among other things, the report reiterated a long-standing commission recommendation that data brokers provide consumers with access to the data that they maintain and depending on how it is used, the ability to correct it. or recently in order to shine a light on the industry we issued orders requiring nine data brokers to provide information on how they collect and use consumer data. the commission is close to completing a report based on this information and expects to release it in the coming months. in the spring of next year we plan to host a series of privacy workshops, including a seminar on what is called alternative products offered by data brokers

, that is products that companies use to predict consumer behavior and shape of a market to particular consumers. , educatingool businesses and consumers on privacy issues and the practices of data brokers. for example, we recently sent letters to multiple data brokers that provided services and warning them about their duty to comply. for consumers we recently produced a video on data brokers and have published frequent posts and updates on issues related to the industry. in closing, as the collection and use of this data continues to explode, we share the commitment to continue to examine data brokers and we stand ready to work with the committee on this critical issue. >> thank you. >> thank you very much. >> mystic and is the executive director of the world privacy report. you are on.

>> she is loading. [laughter] >> chairman rockefeller, members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to share what i have learned about the data brokerage industry today. i appreciate it very much. moderate in the privacy debate and privacy world, i have come to a troubling conclusion. the data broker industry as it is today does not have constraints and does not have shame. it will sell any information about any person, regardless of sensitivity. for 7.9 cents per name. of a list ofprice rape sufferers that was recently sold. rape sufferers, victims of domestic violence, police

officers, home addresses, people who suffer from genetic illnesses, complete with names, home addresses, ethnicity, gender, and many other factors. this is what is being sold and circulated today. it is a far cry from visiting a website and seeing an ad. what it is is a sale of the personally identifiable information and highly sensitive information of americans. would like to make three points. first, scoring. scores thatow pseudo- are comprised of factors that are not financial. i should say, non-credit report based. these pseudo-credit scores are used in lou of actual credit

scores, because they completely circumvent the fair credit reporting act. so, if a business or an employer, or an insurer can purchase these scores and use them with no ill consequence, or , thisnsequence at all needs to change. secondly, health. ofre are lists of millions people that are categorized by the diseases that they have, ranging from cancer to alzheimer's -- terrible diseases, some of them benign, some of them relating to mental illness. there are lists of millions of people and what prescription drugs they take. entirelyts exist outside of hippa. >> what? federal data --

federal health data protection. it does not apply. this industry that is selling these lists, there has been a lot of mention made of marketing lists.s for these these lists are being sold without constraint. we do not know if employers are buying them, if insurers are buying them. we do not know who is buying them. but the lists are being sold apparently for billions of dollars, which suggests to me that we need to find out who is buying these lists. terms of solutions, my third and final point, we need to expand the fair credit reporting act so that when there are consumer scores that are pseudo- credit scores, that this is drop under the fair credit reporting act so that consumers can exercise the same rights that they would have if the credit score had been pulled.

if the information is as statistically accurate and has the same effect as a credit score, why is it not regulated under the fair credit reporting act? this should be a bright line here and i do not think that that is too terribly difficult to draw. to be -- actually, there is an urgent need for a national data broker requirement for an opt out. out that isopt highly granular so that consumers do not always have to take the nuclear option and get entirely off of every list. we favor consumers having the ability to make their own choices. maybe a consumer wants her name and phone number on a list, but nothing else. certainly nothing about her weight, the number of children she has, or maybe she does. the point is that consumers need to know when they are on a list and make choices about what appears on the list.

andeed to re-examine hepa decide if health information that is not held by health care providers deserves health care protections in privacy. i believe they do. is going to be the beginning of an important public dialogue that is going to be incredibly important or all of us to engage in. if we have an industry that is by the sale of names of everyone with highly sensitive information for 7.9 cents per name, then we have not done enough. thank you for this opportunity and i look forward to your questions. >> thank you, and you are exactly right. this is the beginning. the beginning of a dialogue. deeply,eed to pull without fear. without fear of consequence. and then we need to do something

about it. that will be a judgment that we will have to make, but as you ,uggested, a change in hippa which is to be sacred, and still is, but not in all cases. i thank you for your testimony. professor? the associate dean for graduate studies at the annenberg school for communication at the university of pennsylvania. >> thank you, chairman rockefeller, members of the community. i would like to address two key questions about the collection of data for market purposes. first, if we take sensitive -- first, if we take sensitive topics like health unemployment out of the equation, what possible harm could come from using this data for marketing purposes? we are talking about targeting for product advertising. second, had these lessons not been around for a century? what makes it different from the

past? let's start with a history question. the compiled list of prospects goes back to the 19th century. the lists became more detailed in the 20th century, but the difference between the lists of 35 years ago and today are extreme. the distinction is the amount of information that brokers have now and how they deal with it. lists from the old a's were static. the number of data points the company had was small. today data brokers can collect huge amounts of information, tens of millions of people, even hundreds of millions of people. they update the information frequently and they use high- speed computers and advanced to state six to draw conclusions that previous generations could hardly have imagined. consider the recent data catalog. it contains 41 pages of information about individual america and sold to marketers. the information ranges from the

amount of money taken to the amount of vacations taken to the number of friends on social media to the value of neighbors to diseases to how tall they are to whether they gamble, to the media uses and much more. they sell any number of items tailored to markets from different industries. in addition, the data broker has created a kind of universal follow people and across desktops, laptops, mobile, and 10 -- tablets. like axiom, other data brokers continually run programs that connect the dots for marketers and then attach them to other ideas marketers have about us. the brokers bring together pieces of information people did not expect would emerge when they disclosed them separately to various online and off-line entities. the results are buckets of descriptions and stories of our lives and economic value and potential we did not know exists

. merges can charge you more than others for products raised on teachers they tagged you with you do not know they shared. by -- buygularly anti-acids. that is great news to travel company searching online for those types of people. using personalized coupons, the physical and virtualized stores whathange prices based on they know about you. they can add your lifetime value and the results can dictate the kinds of items you see and how much the discount will be. connecticut -- negative data brokers said know how long you wait for customer service and being rejected as a customer and offering coupons for not nutritious foods. based on engagement