Fed Up Condemns Trump Nomination to Federal Reserve
07.10.17
NEW YORK – In...
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
NYC Council Progressive Caucus Backs Keith Ellison for DNC Chair
NYC Council Progressive Caucus Backs Keith Ellison for DNC Chair
The City Council’s dominant Progressive Caucus—led by Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito—announced their endorsement today of Minnesota Congressman Keith Ellison for chairman of the Democratic National...
The City Council’s dominant Progressive Caucus—led by Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito—announced their endorsement today of Minnesota Congressman Keith Ellison for chairman of the Democratic National Committee.
As Democrats look to recover from a devastating Election Day, Ellison is vying to lead the party against former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean and South Carolina chairman Jaime Harrison. Ellison, the first Muslim-American ever elected to the House of Representatives, has attracted the support of Sen. Charles Schumer and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, whom the congressman backed for the presidency in defiance of most party leaders.
Now the Progressive Caucus, whose 19 members mostly though not unanimously favored Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary, has added its backing to the Midwestern lawmaker’s bid.
“The members of the Progressive Caucus Alliance are proud to add our voices to those in support of Keith Ellison for Chair of the Democratic National Committee,” the group said in a press release today. “Congressman Ellison has been a true progressive champion in Congress, and has demonstrated the grit and tenacity that we’ll need for the tough fights ahead.”
Dean, who headed the DNC from 2005 to 2009, has asserted that the organization needs a chair who can attend to party business full-time. The Democrats have suffered severe setbacks over the past eight years under chairs who held elected office, most recently the controversial Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz.
The former Green Mountain State governor and 2004 presidential candidate has highlighted the success of his “50-state strategy” in yielding the first Democratic majority in Congress in 22 years in 2006.
More important for the Council’s Progressive Caucus, however, are Ellison’s two turns as keynote speaker at “Local Progress” gatherings of low-level left-leaning officials. This, the caucus asserted, showed an emphasis on building a party bench at the most basic levels of government.
“As municipal legislators, we are especially enthusiastic about his emphasis on progressive politics at the local level,” their statement said. “Congressman Ellison recognizes that progressive politics matter at the most local of levels: to families seeking a job that pays the bills, to kids from low-income families hoping to go to college, and to parents worried about whether their kids of color will be treated fairly by the criminal justice system. He knows the difference it makes to unite action at the local, state and federal levels, and why it is important to build strength among City Council members and other local elected officials.”
Ellison’s bid also comes as many Democrats, including Schumer, have argued the party needs to increase outreach to blue collar white voters in depressed industrial areas. But the Progressive Caucus insisted the “incredibly divisive national atmosphere” President-elect Donald Trump’s incendiary anti-immigrant rhetoric has created demands party leadership that will stick up for minorities.
“We need a leader who will stand firm against hatred, bias, discrimination, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia,” the Council members’ release said. “The members of the Progressive Caucus Alliance know that Congressman Ellison will be that type of leader, and we enthusiastically support his bid for Chair of the DNC.”
“We are enthusiastic that he will be [the] first Muslim-American DNC Chair,” it added.
Disclosure: Donald Trump is the father-in-law of Jared Kushner, the publisher of Observer Media.
By Will Bredderman
Source
Puerto Ricans call for protest in Washington
Puerto Ricans call for protest in Washington
“Convened by the Power4Puerto Rico coalition, refugees and civic and union groups have organized a day of protests - which could include acts of civil disobedience - and visits to offices of...
“Convened by the Power4Puerto Rico coalition, refugees and civic and union groups have organized a day of protests - which could include acts of civil disobedience - and visits to offices of members of Congress, to mark the six-month anniversary of the worst catastrophe the Island has faced in a century. The events, which begin on Monday evening, will be headed on Tuesday by a protest in front of the headquarters of FEMA in Washington DC, said Samy Nemir Olivares, spokesman for the Center for Popular Democracy.”
Read the full article here.
After Volkswagen scandal, can consumers trust anything companies say? (+video)
After Volkswagen scandal, can consumers trust anything companies say? (+video)
Adam Galatioto’s loyalty to diesel Volkswagens predates his ability to drive.
The 29-year-old’s parents first bought a Jetta TDI in 1998, and he drove the little...
Adam Galatioto’s loyalty to diesel Volkswagens predates his ability to drive.
The 29-year-old’s parents first bought a Jetta TDI in 1998, and he drove the little sedan through high school, college, and a master’s program before selling it in 2013. Mr. Galatioto and his girlfriend now share a 2011 Jetta TDI SportWagen, which he helped encourage her to buy.
“They get really good mileage,” he says. “Mine got 50 m.p.g. on the highway. By proxy that means you are being environmentally friendly.”
He’s not alone. Volkswagen has long enjoyed a reputation for reliable engineering, cheerful affordability, and, largely thanks to its efforts in clean diesel, sustainability. In Consumer Reports’ 2014 survey on how people perceive leading car brands, the German automaker was singled out (alongside Tesla) for its fuel efficiency.
That made recent revelations that VW had duped environmental regulators for years, installing software on 11 million diesel vehicles worldwide allowing them to run cleaner during emissions tests than they did on the road, all the more unnerving.
“I don’t generally trust corporations on what they say, and this was so intentionally devious it just lumps them in with any other car company for me,” Galatioto says.
This is a worst-nightmare scenario for companies trying to attract customers that increasingly want to make not just quality or affordable purchases, but ethical ones. It’s an impulse nearly every consumer industry is racing to capitalize on, from restaurant chains shifting to cage-free eggs and fair-trade coffee to retailers pledging to raise wages and give workers more predictable scheduling.
But with such promises being made left and right, and especially in the wake of Volkswagen’s fall, conscientious consumers may be wondering: Can any of them really be trusted?
Not always, clearly, but there is some comfort to be had on that front. Brands that fail to deliver risk even greater financial and reputational fallout than ever before (Volkswagen lost a third of its stock value when the scandal broke, and it faces billions in future losses from EPA fines, repairs, and lost sales). Combined with effective third-party oversight, it’s a powerful motivator for companies on the whole to behave better, experts say.
Consumers, particularly younger ones, are armed with easier access to information about what they buy than previous generations, and it’s affecting their choices. Millennials (adults ages 21 to 34) are more than twice as likely as their Gen-X and baby boomer counterparts to be willing to pay extra for products and services billed as environmentally and socially sustainable, according to a 2014 Nielsen survey. They are equally more prone to check product labels for signs of sustainable and ethical production.
“There’s an increased attention to more intangible characteristics of a product,” says Dutch Leonard, a professor who teaches corporate responsibility and risk management at Harvard Business School. “When I buy a shirt, it has a particular color, it’s soft, or wrinkle-free. But now people are also paying attention to where it was made, if the workers are being exploited, and if the company is environmentally conscious or not.”
This makes responsible changes effective marketing tools, which can create domino effects as companies try to keep up with and outdo standards in their particular industries. When Wal-Mart, the biggest retailer in the world, raised its minimum pay rate at the beginning of this year, competitors such as Target and Kohl’s quickly followed suit. The success of Chipotle, which has a carefully detailed food-sourcing policy, has been followed by major supply chain overhauls for McDonald’s, General Mills, and other giants of the corporate food world.
“Customers want 'food with integrity,' ” Warren Solochek, a restaurant-industry analyst with NPD Group, a market-research firm, told the Monitor in May. “[Companies] that choose locally sourced, fresh ingredients can put that on their website and know that people are looking at it.”
But especially for major corporations, “when you say you are doing things, you will attract attention from outside business groups," Professor Leonard says. "You can bet some NGO [nongovernmental organization] is going to try and figure out if that’s true or not.”
Indeed, Volkswagen isn’t the first brand to have its positive positioning face pushback, especially as global companies work to strike an operational balance between ethics and profitability. Wal-Mart’s wage hikes were followed by cutbacks in worker hours when the retailer’s earnings suffered, a move that led labor advocacy groups to call the earlier wage hikes “a publicity stunt.” Earlier this week, the Center for Popular Democracyreleased a report showing that Starbucks has so far failed to live up to a much-publicized vow from a year ago to give workers more consistent schedules.
While Volkswagen eluded the Environmental Protection Agency, it was eventually found out by the International Council on Clean Transportation, an independent nonprofit aided by researchers at West Virginia University.
In addition to catching such discrepancies, watchdog groups can be helpful in weeding out credible claims of positive change from the less so. In the mid-2000s, the Unions of Concerned Scientists’ annual environmental consumer guide largely dispelled the idea that washable cloth diapers are significantly better for the environment than disposable ones.
Furthermore, some major corporations and industry groups have partnerships with independent, NGO-like organizations to set ethical industry standards and submit to outside monitoring. Unilever, for example, teamed up with the the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) in the 1990s to create the Marine Stewardship Council, a certification program for sustainable fisheries. In 2008, Starbucks embarked on a decade-long project with Conservation International to improve the sustainability of its coffee supply around the world. Home Depot sells lumber certified by an outside organization.
Such collaborations may not catch everything, Leonard says, but they are effective because they are “constructed in such a way that the [certification groups] are not beholden to an industry. We may not be able to get full agreement on the standards, but we might make real progress by creating safe harbors through development of standards that are negotiated in advance.”
Source: The Christian Science Monitor
Victima de abuso sexual se identifica con Blasey Ford
Victima de abuso sexual se identifica con Blasey Ford
Para la activista Ana María Archila, víctima también de violencia sexual, el caso de Kavanaugh despierta el de muchas mujeres que han sido objeto de abuso.
...
Para la activista Ana María Archila, víctima también de violencia sexual, el caso de Kavanaugh despierta el de muchas mujeres que han sido objeto de abuso.
Read the full article here.
Clinton Wants Bankers Off Regional Fed Boards
Clinton Wants Bankers Off Regional Fed Boards
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton joined the fray Thursday in the debate over how the nation’s central bank operates, saying banking industry insiders need to be removed from the...
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton joined the fray Thursday in the debate over how the nation’s central bank operates, saying banking industry insiders need to be removed from the Federal Reserve System.
Mrs. Clinton’s campaign said, if elected, she would appoint officials who will carry out “unwavering oversight” of the financial sector and “defend” both sides of the central bank’s inflation and employment mandates. The campaign also said “commonsense reforms—like getting bankers off the boards of regional Federal Reserve banks—are long overdue.”
Mrs. Clinton’s comments on central bank changes appeared to be her first on the topic in a campaign season where the Fed has intermittently been an issue, albeit mostly on the Republican side. Mrs. Clinton’s views emerged on a day in which dozens of Democratic congressional members, led by Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Rep. John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, criticized the central bank for a leadership largely made up of white males with business and finance backgrounds.
While the Fed is led by its first-ever woman chief, all of its governors are white and three of the five are men. Of the 12 regional bank presidents, none are black and 10 are men. The last African-American to serve in a key leadership role left in 2006.
The letter to Ms. Yellen, referencing a recent study by the left-leaning Center for Popular Democracy’s Fed Up Coalition, also flagged a lack of diversity among the boards of directors that oversee the regional Fed banks. The letter said a Fed that doesn’t look like the nation it works for will struggle to make policy that benefits an increasingly diverse nation. Regional Fed board members are drawn from the private sector to watch over institutions that are quasi-private. By law, the boards are supposed to represent their broader communities with three classes of directors reserved for differing interests, including the financial sector, in a process set out by a complicated set of rules. These boards oversee regional Fed bank operations, provide local economic insights and help select new bank presidents.
But the presence of bankers on the boards, representing firms regulated by the Fed, has been a sore spot for Fed critics. Over the years, the New York Fed faced notable controversies on this front.
Recent legal changes have removed financial-market participants from the process of selecting new bank presidents. Also, the Fed’s regulatory operations are managed in Washington even as they operate out of regional banks, and are insulated from the influence of the regional boards. Most regional Fed boards are spoken of in glowing terms by their respective bank presidents.
Financial-market professionals are well represented among Fed leaders. Most top central bankers are either economists by training or former bankers. The leaders of the New York, Minneapolis, Dallas and Philadelphia Fed banks all have worked in some capacity for investment bank Goldman Sachs. Current Fed Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer was vice chairman of Citigroup from 2002 to 2005.
Mrs. Clinton’s desire to remove financial-sector leaders from the regional Fed boards would mark a historic change for a central bank that was founded on the mission of promoting financial stability, and whose monetary policy actions work through private financial-market channels to affect the performance of the broader economy.
In response to the congressional letter, the Fed said in a statement that when it comes to the members of the regional boards, “by law, we consider the interests of agriculture, commerce, industry, services, labor, and consumers. We also are aiming to increase ethnic and gender diversity.“ It also said there has been a rise in both racial and gender diversity on the regional Fed boards, with 46% of all directors now meeting the label of “diverse.”
A recent overhaul proposal by former top Fed staffer Andrew Levin, now a professor at Dartmouth College, called for the regional Fed banks to be made fully public, ending their private ownership structure operating within the Fed board, which is explicitly part of the government. Mr. Levin also called for directors representing firms regulated by the central bank to be removed.
By MICHAEL S. DERBY
Source
New York’s Progressive Experiment Tees Up
Politico - November 4, 2013, by Edward-Isaac Dovere -
Even New York liberals weren’t expecting things to go this well.
Tuesday, voters in America’s most...
Politico - November 4, 2013, by Edward-Isaac Dovere -
Even New York liberals weren’t expecting things to go this well.
Tuesday, voters in America’s most prominent city are poised to elect Bill de Blasio mayor and turn over every major lever of municipal government to a new breed of politics that’s been on the rise but never close to this level of power: a mix of young progressives, reconstituted ’60s- and ’70s-era lefties, newly active minority voters and deep-pocketed unions that have transformed themselves into expert campaign organizers.
What that will mean as they try to translate that ideology into a governing philosophy is a question that even people who’ve been leading the charge are still asking. And in New York, where there are more than 8 million residents (plus close to a million more who come in daily for work), 300,000 city employees and a $70 billion-plus budget, there’s a lot riding on the answer.
These are the people who formed the labor-funded, liberal-favorite Working Families Party and sparked Occupy Wall Street. They say government shouldn’t just allow for change — it should force new change on the city and private sector. That means universal pre-K; closed tax loopholes; pensions divested from fossil fuel companies; family-friendlier work policies, including financial support for single parents; and paid sick leave requirements. And on the housing front: more market regulation, leveraging of privately owned real estate that’s in trouble and greater community power over developers’ plans.
The reaction of the city’s business, real estate, finance and high-tech industry leaders to its new governing class-in-waiting has ranged from panic to scoffing at the stuff they say pipe dreams are made of. The political establishment in the city is skeptical any of it can work, especially without igniting a budget disaster. And the progressives in charge are superstitious enough that, despite their candidates’ long and overwhelming lead in the polls, they’ve avoided doing too much planning before election night.
One thing all sides agree on: A new era has arrived. Barring major upsets, former political-labor strategist de Blasio will be the mayor, longtime Upper West Side official and political maven Scott Stringer will be the city comptroller, and Tish James, a product of Brooklyn African-American activism and politics, will be the public advocate, roughly the equivalent of the city council president.
The city council speaker most likely won’t be picked until January, but even the conservative choices are liberal Democrats. And whoever gets the job will face a newly empowered City Council, in which the rapidly multiplying Progressive Caucus members include many unconnected to the traditions of go-along legislators, and have made clear they’re going to push for their own changes.
That array of progressive victories is “a dream,” de Blasio said on his way out of a late September fundraiser for Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), the godfather of this strain of progressivism in the city, that seconded as an advance celebration for the impending takeover.
“For a lot of progressives who’ve spent a whole lot of time on the steps of City Hall, this is the chance to get inside City Hall,” Stringer told POLITICO. “The challenge for all of us is to come together and govern and build our city for every New Yorker.”
Expectations are high, and made higher by the spirit of achieving what seemed impossible with unexpected election wins including de Blasio’s late surge and Stringer’s fending off Eliot Spitzer.
So what happens next, when these are the people confronted with a complicated and tight city budget, multiple costly labor contracts that are coming due for renewal, a crime rate that seems like it will statistically have to edge up at some point? How do they manage when they’re in charge, and not the outside instigators? And what happens when they’re heading into office promising major changes in rent costs and education, realignment of investments in city services and a detailed agenda of “broadly shared prosperity” — along with other liberal priorities like confronting climate change and improving senior care? When many competing interests are all going to be demanding attention from people who’ve never before been in positions of major power?
“There’s a lot you can do with really good leadership throughout the city that shares this agenda,” said Brad Lander, a city councilman who leads the progressive bloc and helped organize “Toward a 21st Century for All,” a collection of policy essays that’s become one of the main touchstones of progressive planning. “New York City is going to be an exciting laboratory.”
“What a pleasure it will be to have a city administration united with people who believe that you can increase the minimum wage, who believe that you can have paid sick leave, who believe that it doesn’t harm the city to treat workers and low-income people right, who believe that the purpose of an economy is not just to get the numbers on television but to help people live their lives, and who believe that the purpose of city government is to help all people — not just the 1 percent or the 5 percent or the 10 percent,” Nadler said, riling the crowd at an Upper West Side rally over the weekend.
At the rally, the talk was of how subway tokens cost only $1.25 and that Miley Cyrus wasn’t yet born the last time a Democrat was elected mayor. But that was a very different type of Democrat than what’s coming now — much more rooted in traditions of government spending and programs than the current strain’s emphasis on activist intervention, rethinking budget priorities and reeling in what they see as runaway wealthy interests.
“‘Liberal’s’ too soft,” actor-singer-activist Harry Belafonte declared at the rally to describe what he said was the most exciting political moment in his life in New York. “’Radicals.’ It’s time for radicals.”
There are limitations. Taxes — including the one on high-income earners that would pay for de Blasio’s signature expanded pre-kindergarten proposal — have to be approved by the state government, which also has the authority to take over city finances at any point if they begin to veer off track.
“It should be a comfort to people who are worried about the city going off the rails in a crazy far-left direction that Albany is not going to let that happen,” said Kathy Wylde, president and CEO of the Partnership for New York City, which represents business and financial interests across the city.
“I don’t think the primary concern is whether the mayor’s a lefty,” she said, reflecting the private-sector leaders she’s talked to. “It’s whether we’re going to have a mayor who can effectively manage 300,000 city workers and an $80 billion budget and not allow the city to run off the rails.”
“We have to govern,” Stringer said. “We have to do things through the lens of what we can afford and also what we can’t afford.”
At a meeting of municipally elected progressives in Washington state in late October, the same “tale of two cities” line that’s dominated de Blasio’s campaign kept coming up as people talked about how they could build support for many of the ideas that de Blasio’s about to have the power to do.
“It’s happening all over the country,” de Blasio said in a taped message to the Local Progress conference. “This is a tremendous moment for progressive activism.”
The mayors of Richmond, Calif., and Fitchburg, Mass., both attended, but as people there acknowledged, the importance and size of New York make de Blasio and the incoming officials a much bigger deal for the movement, in both spotlight and potential.
“It’s easy to talk on the outside than to be on the inside, actually preparing the meal, so that means they’re going to be judged on what kind of meal they prepare,” said Nick Licata, a former Seattle City Council president who’s the chairman of Local Progress. “It’s going to be a challenge — it’s always a challenge for any advocate group, left or right, when you go from proposing something to actually implementing it.”
John Del Cecato, a political consultant who was one of the main architects of de Blasio’s campaign, said there’s a clear reason why the revolution started in New York.
“There aren’t just pockets of extreme wealth and pockets of poverty anymore. We’ve got close to 400,000 millionaires, while half the city lives at or near the poverty line,” Del Cecato said. De Blasio’s appeal, he said, is the fact that the current state of affairs “is deeply troubling not just to those who are living the struggle every day, but to those who’ve done quite well who fear that New York is losing what’s made it such a special place for generations.”
Recalibrating the enormous city government to focus on pre-K, after-school programs, community hospitals, better wages and affordable housing is going to be difficult, and certainly won’t be fast, Del Cecato said.
But this year’s elections, he argued, are an important start to “move New York in a direction that acknowledges where we’re slipping behind, puts us on a new path and establishes a mind-set that we’re a city that leaves nobody behind.”
Source:
Protesters ask Fed to delay at Jackson Hole summit
About 50 demonstrators gathered in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, holding signs reading "whose recovery is this" and "how many jobs do I have to work to be middle class?" Surrounded by the protesters,...
About 50 demonstrators gathered in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, holding signs reading "whose recovery is this" and "how many jobs do I have to work to be middle class?" Surrounded by the protesters, Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz also lent his voice, saying "this is not the time" to tighten policy.
"We are not algorithms in your computers. We are real people with real bills and real responsibilities," said Rod Adams, a protester who added that he makes $10.10 per hour.
The Fed's plans to abandon its yearslong near-zero interest rate policy have taken a turn recently amid stock market volatility fueled by concerns about the Chinese economy. The U.S central bank in recent months said it saw a strengthening labor market, describing job gains as "solid" after its July policy meeting.
Two former top Fed officials told CNBC that the central bank needs to evaluate how best to boost conditions for workers. Based on the last few years, easy policy may not necessarily fuel wage and job gains, noted former Philadelphia Fed President Charles Plosser.
"It's very important that we look beyond what's happening now and are looking to the long run," he told CNBC from Jackson Hole on Thursday.
While the central bank takes worker concerns "very seriously," it needs to evaluate how best to boost employment and wages, said Randall Kroszner, a former Fed governor. He added that it cannot base its decision on the fundamentals of another economy.
"You can't have Fed policy responding to every bump and wiggle that are coming out of the markets," he told CNBC from Jackson Hole.
He added that a rate liftoff in September of December of this year could make sense without a "negative downward shock" to inflation.
Why markets ignore Trump news
Why markets ignore Trump news
ALSO TODAY: FED UP IN WYOMING — Per release: “On the eve of the Federal Reserve’s annual economic symposium in Jackson Hole, researchers, scholars, and workers will join Fed Up for a panel...
ALSO TODAY: FED UP IN WYOMING — Per release: “On the eve of the Federal Reserve’s annual economic symposium in Jackson Hole, researchers, scholars, and workers will join Fed Up for a panel discussion that will set the tone for this year’s theme: “Changing Market Structure and Implications for Monetary Policy.” Thursday, August 23 - 4:00 pm MDT. “Free Speech Area” directly in front of the Jackson Lake Lodge.
Read the full article here.
Fed Up Applauds Cautious Approach to Rate Hikes This Year
02/05/2016
Statement & Booking Opportunity: Ady Barkan, Director of the Fed Up campaign, released the following statement in...
02/05/2016
Statement & Booking Opportunity: Ady Barkan, Director of the Fed Up campaign, released the following statement in response to today’s Jobs Report:
“While January’s job data shows a moderately good start to the new year, fears that global turmoil will roil the U.S. economy are giving Fed officials pause about raising interest rates. Earlier this week, San Francisco Fed President John Williams and Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan both suggested that recent foreign stock market instability is influencing the trajectory of projected interest rate increases by the Fed this year. Kaplan explained that stock market turmoil coupled with low commodity prices gives the Fed good reasons to be patient and take more time to assess the impact on the U.S. economy. The Federal Reserve intentionally slowed down the economy in December, ignoring the voices of working people around the country. In January, we learned that the economy barely grew at all in late 2015. And as international markets tumbled, the Fed began to walk back its excessive optimism. It’s good that Fed officials are now taking a cautious approach to rate hikes. They need to keep their eyes on the fundamentals, and prioritize higher labor force participation, higher wages, and lower racial disparities in the labor market.”
# # #
www.whatrecovery.com
Fed Up is a coalition of community organizations and labor unions across the country, campaigning for the Federal Reserve to adopt pro-worker policies for the rest of us. The Fed can keep interest rates low, give the economy a fair chance to recover, and prioritize full employment and rising wages.
Media Contact: Anita Jain, ajain@populardemocracy.org, 347-636-9761
Sofie Tholl, stholl@populardemocracy.org, 646-509-5558
17 hours ago
17 hours ago