Campaign News

07.10.17

NEW YORK – In response to the White House’s nomination of Randal Quarles to the Federal Reserve as Vice Chair for Supervision, Jordan Haedtler, Campaign Manager for the Fed Up coalition, released the following statement:

“Throughout his career, self-described ‘Wall Street lawyer' Randal Quarles has looked out for his banker clients at the expense of America’s hard-working families.

After the financial crisis took a devastating toll on our country, Daniel Tarullo and the Federal Reserve Board of Governors implemented regulations to protect consumers from Wall Street excesses and facilitated job recovery by keeping interest rates low. Quarles stood against crucial decisions like these that helped working families, and he was proven wrong.

Quarles is on record opposing the Volcker Rule, which is meant to prevent banks from gambling with depositors’ money. During the Bush administration, Quarles negotiated trade agreements that blocked countries from regulating derivatives and other instruments that caused the crash. And after returning to the private sector, Quarles held private equity up as a solution to avoid government bailouts. He then took advantage of relaxed restrictions on private equity ownership to purchase a failing bank, and had the FDIC pay 80% of that bank’s losses.

We are also very concerned about Quarles’ monetary policy views. He enthusiastically supports the adoption of a Taylor Rule by the Fed, which would deprioritize full employment and put monetary policy decisions on autopilot. If Quarles had his way and the Fed strictly followed a Taylor Rule over the past five years, economists estimate that 2.5 million fewer jobs would have been created.

Trump claims that his highest priority is jobs, but Quarles’ regulatory and monetary record show that he would destroy jobs, not create them.We urge the Senate to press Quarles on all of these troubling positions, and to oppose his confirmation.”

### www.thepeoplesfed.org

Fed Up is a coalition of community organizations, labor unions, and policy experts across the country calling on the Federal Reserve to reform its governance and adopt policies that build a strong economy for the American public. By keeping interest rates low and prioritizing genuine full employment, the Fed gives the economy a fair chance to recover and allows wages to grow across all communities.

Contact:  Shawn Sebastian, Fed Up co-director, ssebastian@populardemocracy.org,  515.451.8773