Senate Testimony of Stephen C. Horne, Dow Jones Vice President Describes How Pending Legislation Could Help Identify Potential Systemic Risk in Financial System, U.S. Economy

Speaking Before Senate Subcommittee On International Trade And Finance, Horne Describes Expanded Importance of Database Created Under S. 910, The TARP Transparency Act

WASHINGTON, Feb. 17 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Legislation pending before the Senate aimed at improving TARP transparency could also help the Government identify potential systemic risk within the financial system and many other parts of the economy according to testimony by Stephen C. Horne, vice president, Master Data Management and Integration Services for Dow Jones & Company before the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Subcommittee on International Trade and Finance on Friday, February 12, 2010.

The pending legislation, Senate Bill 910, mandates the creation of a comprehensive analytic database to capture appropriate real-time information necessary to prevent waste, fraud and abuse of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 and ensure that taxpayers' money is being used as intended.  The legislation was introduced by Senator Mark Warner (D-VA).   A companion bill, H.R. 1242, cosponsored by Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (NY 14) and Rep. Pete King (NY 3) has already passed in the House, by a vote of 421-0.  

According to Horne's testimony, "using the same basic infrastructure of the database that would be created under the legislation described above, we at Dow Jones have identified over 400 leading indicators that when used together can identify potential systemic risk within the financial system and many other parts of the economy. If the proposed database were in place the government would be in a better position to confirm, quantify and tackle these problems proactively."

The problem, according to Horne, is that "the data is in disparate systems that cannot talk to each other.  The value of the database that is proposed in S. 910 is in its ability to combine and analyze this data to predict and prevent systemic risk."  

The full text of Stephen Horne's testimony is available at http://www.dowjones.com/pressroom/SMPRs/S910Testimony.html.

About Dow Jones

Dow Jones & Company (www.dowjones.com) is a News Corporation company (Nasdaq: NWS) (Nasdaq: NWSA) (ASX: NWS) (ASX: NWSLV; www.newscorp.com) and a leading provider of global news and business information. Its principal products include The Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones Newswires, Dow Jones Factiva, Barron's, MarketWatch and Dow Jones Indexes. Its Local Media Group operates community-based newspapers and Web sites. Dow Jones also provides news content to television and radio stations.

SOURCE Dow Jones & Company

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