Yellen to Trump: don't expect a flip-flop on financial reforms
Yellen to Trump: don't expect a flip-flop on financial reforms
JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. (Reuters) - Janet Yellen delivered a message to President Donald Trump on Friday, making it clear that if he re-nominates her as Federal Reserve chair she will not turn her back...
JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. (Reuters) - Janet Yellen delivered a message to President Donald Trump on Friday, making it clear that if he re-nominates her as Federal Reserve chair she will not turn her back on the raft of U.S. financial reforms that Republicans want to roll back.
Her speech to the world’s top central bankers in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, comes at a time when the chaos at the White House may make it more likely that she would be appointed to serve another four years to head the U.S. central bank.
Read the full article here.
Walter Isaacson to sit on City Planning Commission, and other area political news
Walter Isaacson to sit on City Planning Commission, and other area political news
Isaacson to sit on City Planning Commission
Author and former CNN CEO Walter Isaacson may be only a part-time resident of New Orleans, but Mayor Mitch Landrieu has appointed him to the City...
Isaacson to sit on City Planning Commission
Author and former CNN CEO Walter Isaacson may be only a part-time resident of New Orleans, but Mayor Mitch Landrieu has appointed him to the City Planning Commission.
Isaacson, 64, who now heads the Aspen Institute in Washington, D.C., will replace lawyer Alexandra Mora in January.
The City Council approved the appointment Thursday.
“I'm deeply honored and excited about the prospect of helping to protect the city and plan for its future,” said Isaacson, who splits his time between New Orleans and Washington.
Isaacson, a New Orleans native, is also a former editor of Time magazine and the author of books about Steve Jobs, Albert Einstein, Benjamin Franklin, Henry Kissinger and the "group of hackers, geniuses and geeks (who) created the digital revolution."
He was vice chairman of the Louisiana Recovery Authority, the agency that oversaw the state’s rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina. He is also on the boards of Tulane University and the New Orleans Tricentennial Commission.
Landrieu also appointed Jason Hughes to the commission to fill the unexpired term of Nolan Marshall III, who left New Orleans in October for a job in Dallas.
Hughes’ tenure will end in 2021, while Isaacson's will end in 2023.
City Council condemns anti-Muslim rhetoric
At the end of a heated election season that has included calls from Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump to ban Muslims from entering the country, the New Orleans City Council approved a resolution Thursday condemning anti-Muslim rhetoric.
The resolution is part of a national effort by the liberal group Local Progress to get similar measures passed across the country
"We have seen dangerous levels of anti-Muslim and racist rhetoric as well as a rise in hate crimes," said Councilwoman LaToya Cantrell, a board member of Local Progress. "This rhetoric and violence is not only a threat to our communities but also a direct threat to us as U.S. citizens."
The resolution passed 6-0, with Councilman Jason Williams absent.
"Love really does trump hate," Cantrell said, echoing a slogan used by Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
The resolution says the council "condemns all hateful speech and violent action directed at Muslims, those perceived to be Muslims, immigrants and people of color," "categorically rejects political tactics that use fear to manipulate voters or to gain power or influence" and "reaffirms the value of a pluralistic society, the beauty of a culture composed of multiple cultures, and the inalienable right of every person to live and practice their faith without fear."
Clinton is expected to easily carry New Orleans in Tuesday's election.
Jeff council backtracks, OKs disputed contract
The Jefferson Parish Council on Wednesday suspended a disputed ordinance in order to keep the parish's Carnival parades rolling in 2017, hiring a company owned by a local political consultant to build the grandstands from which revelers will cheer on the annual spectacle.
The council voted 7-0 to suspend a ban passed a year ago that would prevent parish contracts from being awarded to any firm partially owned by a consultant who had represented an elected official during a prior election.
That ordinance, which was proposed by Councilman Chris Roberts last November, is under challenge in federal court.
Buisson Creative, a firm owned by political consultant Greg Buisson, was the only firm to respond to the most recent request for proposals to provide the grandstands for the upcoming Carnival season.
Because of the pending legal challenge and the fact that no other proposals for the work were submitted, the council suspended the ban and also voted 6-0 to negotiate a contract with Buisson Creative. Roberts abstained from that vote.
The ordinance was controversial because some saw it as being aimed specifically at Buisson, who had just worked for Roberts’ political opponent in the prior election cycle.
Roberts dismissed the criticism, saying the ordinance was a good-government measure designed to prevent conflicts of interest by making sure those who worked on political campaigns did not then get contracts with parish government.
BGR: Its report to save taxpayers millions
The Bureau of Governmental Research put out a release last week taking credit for uncovering an issue that it said is "expected to yield millions in savings to taxpayers."
On Oct. 27, an Orleans Parish Civil District Court judge ruled in the city's favor on how to apply the formula for calculating pension benefits for city firefighters. The BGR release said the "matter stemmed from a 2013 report in which BGR revealed that the New Orleans Firefighters' Pension and Relief Fund was applying the benefits formula on more generous terms than those spelled out in state law."
The court order directs the fund "to apply the formula as set forth in law," the research group said.
"According to a pension consultant's estimate, if the formula were properly applied to current employees alone, taxpayers would save roughly $1.3 million per year. But under the judgment, the formula is to apply to current retirees as well, increasing the potential savings," BGR said.
By Jessica Williams, Jeff Adelson, Chad Calder and Bruce Eggler
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Why Black Lives Matter wants Hillary Clinton to reinstate Glass-Steagall
Why Black Lives Matter wants Hillary Clinton to reinstate Glass-Steagall
Hillary Clinton's support from financial institutions has always been her Achilles heel but running counter to this criticism is her pledge to end systemic racism. The two are actually closely...
Hillary Clinton's support from financial institutions has always been her Achilles heel but running counter to this criticism is her pledge to end systemic racism. The two are actually closely related and if she is to make good on her promises on racial justice, she will have to test those close connections to Wall Street by directly pushing for a reinstatement of Glass-Steagall and closing the carried interest tax loophole.
The Movement for Black Lives' policy platform calls for a reinstatement of Glass-Steagall, the 1933 law that separated commercial and investment banking. The law has lately become a core focus of economic progressives.
Groups involved with the Movement for Black Lives see it as a key way to advance economic racial justice. Hillary Clinton has hesitated to publicly talk about the policy – in no small part because Bill Clinton was the one who repealed the law under his administration. The absence of an impermeable boundary between commercial and investing functions both instigated and then accelerated the 2008 financial crisis, forcing millions to lose their homes and jobs.
Communities of color were hit hard and recovered more slowly. Mortgage lenders like Wells Fargo systemically targeted black and brown borrowers for subprime loans, putting many at risk of foreclosure. In the years after the recession, many of these lenders settled multi-billion-dollar discrimination lawsuits years after the damage had been done.
Also, a 2015 American Civil Liberties Union study showed that black families continued to lose wealth years after the recession – even as white families began to climb out. The average black household lost 40 percent of its non-home equity wealth.
"Hillary Clinton has hesitated to publicly talk about Glass Steagall – in no small part because Bill Clinton was the one who repealed the law under his administration."
Home ownership is one of the most stable and reliable ways to acquire wealth in America, and the massive loss of homes among black and brown communities during the 2008 crisis will take decades to recover from. A new Glass-Steagall would help prevent banks from getting bigger and riskier, stopping them from coming back to black and brown neighborhoods and destroying even more wealth.
The carried interest tax loophole is another example. Eliminating this loophole, which lets private equity firms and hedge funds avoid taxes on part of their income, could raise $180 billion. It might sound like a drop in the bucket in the context of a national budget, but when you look closer, it is money that could make a huge difference.
It is also money that could have drastic implications for cities and states around the country that claim they don't have enough funding. The City of Chicago is facing a massive school funding crisis of more than a billion dollars. The hedge fund-cozy Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Governor Bruce Rauner routinely go to the school district for more concessions to make up the gap.
In the meantime, billionaire hedge-funders use the carried interest loophole to get out of paying taxes that translates into much needed revenue. The details of closing the loophole should be worked out by economists, but one thing is clear: if we keep a loophole that costs us billions of dollars while closing schools in black and brown neighborhoods, we are making a strong statement about the level of racial injustice we are willing to accept.
If Hillary Clinton wins the election, she will enter office at one of the most racially charged moments in American history. It is also a moment of some of the greatest income inequality in history – a reality even starker for black and brown communities. If we truly want to achieve racial justice, we should look at policies that prevent a repeat of the 2008 crisis. Closing the carried interest loophole and reinstating a modern Glass-Steagall are the tip of the iceberg. It is up to us to push Clinton for more.
Commentary by Maurice Weeks, who leads the housing & Wall Street accountability campaign at Center for Popular Democracy. Follow him on Twitter @mo87mo87.
By Maurice Weeks
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AG-elect Ellison announces transition team
AG-elect Ellison announces transition team
Minnesota Attorney General-elect Keith Ellison announced a 36-member transition advisory board on Monday that includes state legislators, prominent attorneys, union members — and even a past...
Minnesota Attorney General-elect Keith Ellison announced a 36-member transition advisory board on Monday that includes state legislators, prominent attorneys, union members — and even a past political opponent.
Read the full article here.
The White House announced that it would nominate Randy Quarles to a vacant seat on the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors
The White House announced that it would nominate Randy Quarles to a vacant seat on the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors
Quarles would take the lead on rolling back any banking regulation under the Trump administration as vice chairman for supervision, a post created by the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act …
...
Quarles would take the lead on rolling back any banking regulation under the Trump administration as vice chairman for supervision, a post created by the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act …
Read the full article here.
Why it’s hard to legislate good corporate behavior
San Francisco, the country’s premier laboratory for new Internet services, is also used to innovating in municipal regulation.
But in its latest experiment, it’s...
San Francisco, the country’s premier laboratory for new Internet services, is also used to innovating in municipal regulation.
But in its latest experiment, it’s starting to find that legislating good corporate behavior isn’t as easy as pressing a button on your smartphone.
In July, the city started implementing a first-in-the-nation law aimed at curtailing the trend towards “just-in-time” scheduling, where managers call in employees to work on short notice. The new measure requires large chain retailers— such as Safeway and Walgreen’s — to publish schedules at least two weeks in advance, and to compensate employees with “predictability pay” if they make changes less than a week ahead of time. It also mandates that additional hours be offered to existing employees first before new hires are made, and that part-time workers be paid at the same rate as people who work full-time.
So far, it’s been easier to publish schedules than live up to the spirit of the law.
"The two-week notice seemed to be instituted right away, but the other stuff is lagging,” says Gordon Mar, director of San Francisco Jobs With Justice, a labor-backed group that pushed for the “Retail Workers Bill of Rights” and has been monitoring its implementation.
The sluggish response may be because fines don’t kick in until Oct. 3; the city is still hashing out the rules. But the spotty compliance so far highlights the difficulty of attempts to mandate worker-friendly practices — especially the kind that touch the most fundamental aspects of business operations, rather than those that simply require higher pay and better benefits.
San Francisco employers fought the new ordinance, but couldn’t prevent its passage. Now, they complain it’s impacting service.
“We’re hearing from members in San Francisco that it really is not working well at all,” says Ronald Fong, president of the California Grocers Association. Stores can’t always predict surges in foot traffic, which might be brought on a sunny day, leaving managers without the option to bring in more staff. That was a problem during the heat wave that swept over San Francisco this summer.
"Supplies weren’t able to get out to the shelves,” Fong says. "It just kind of snowballed, and our customers have a bad experience, or the stores lose sales.”
Some businesses don’t mind the rules in principle, but object to the red tape. "Everybody pretty much operates on a predictive schedule,” says Bill Dombrowski, president of the California Retailers Association. “But the process of implementing this, with offering the employees hours in writing and waiting three days for a response, it’s a lot of government intrusion into very minute detail.”
Also, not all industries schedule their workers in the same way. Milton Moritz is president of the National Association of Theatre Owners’ California and Nevada chapter, and says the theater business is by nature unpredictable, making the new law particularly difficult to comply with.
“We might not know until the Monday before the Friday a film shows, and even then we’re hiring, firing, scheduling people based on the business that film’s going to do,” Moritz says. “This ordinance flies in the face of all that. It really complicates the issue tremendously.”
The San Francisco ordinance hasn’t just been irritating for big companies. Some workers grumble the law discourages employers from offering extra shifts on short notice, because they would have to pay the last-minute schedule change penalty — even if workers would be happy for the chance to pick up more hours.
Rachel Deutsch, a senior staff attorney with the Center for Popular Democracy who has been helping local jurisdictions across the country craft fair-scheduling legislation, says that’s something that might change in future iterations.
"I think that’s the thing with any policy where it’s the first attempt to solve a complicated economic problem,” Deutsch says. "It’s been a learning process.”
So far, fair scheduling laws aren’t spreading as quickly as minimum wage and paid sick leave laws. A statewide bill in California failed a couple weeks ago, and no other local ordinances have passed besides San Francisco’s, though there are active campaigns in several cities including Minneapolis and Washington D.C.
Meanwhile, several companies have acted on their own to curb some of the practices that workers have found most disruptive, like on-call shifts, where workers have to be available even if they aren’t ultimately asked to work. But in some cases — like that of Starbucks, which committed to eliminating many of those practices — those voluntary changes haven’t been any more effectivethan government mandates.
Erin Hurley worked at Bath & Body Works and campaigned for an end to on-call shifts. After she left the job, parent company L Brands said it would stop the practice at Bath & Body Works as well as another of its chains, Victoria’s Secret. But Hurley says she’s heard from current workers that managers are still doing effectively the same thing, by asking employees to stay a little longer.
“On-call shifts were replaced with shift extensions,” says Hurley. “Basically what L Brands did was change the name of the practice.” Keeping people on-call is very convenient for employers, and letting it go can be easier said than done. (L Brands did not respond to a request for comment.)
Still, advocates in San Francisco think the Retail Workers Bill of Rights has already done some good, and will be more effective when the city’s enforcement kicks into high gear — just like overtime rules did, when companies got used to obeying them.
Take Michelle Flores, 21, who has worked part time at Safeway for two years to support herself while in going to college. Unpredictable schedules made that difficult: She would only know her shifts a few days beforehand, which sometimes didn’t leave her enough time to hit the books.
"I would study from midnight until 5, 6 a.m., sleep for two or three hours, and then go to the exam,” says Flores, 21, who attends San Francisco State. This year, she expects that to change. "If I know that I have a shift scheduled, I’ll just study another day,” Flores says.
Also, the law came with some funding for community organizations to make employees aware of what workers are entitled to. That has ancillary effects — like getting people interested in joining a union, which can be better equipped to make sure companies are following the rules.
“It just creates an opportunity to talk to more workers about their rights under the law, and that leads to conversations about other issues in the workplace,” says Gordon Mar, of Jobs with Justice. “And that could lead to getting organized.”
Source: Washington Post
Rockefeller Institute Hands over Final Scaffold Law Report Draft
Times Union - September 3, 2014, by Casey Seiler - SUNY’s Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government has released a second draft of its controversial report on New York’s Scaffold Law....
Times Union - September 3, 2014, by Casey Seiler - SUNY’s Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government has released a second draft of its controversial report on New York’s Scaffold Law. According to the Institute’s Deputy Director for Operations Robert Bullock, it’s the last draft version of the report that was shared with the report’s funder, the state Lawsuit Reform Alliance.
The business-backed group, which opposes Scaffold Law, paid $82,800 to fund the report — sponsorship that has led critics to attack the study as advocacy in the guise of research. Its authors, however, insist the research was conducted in good faith.
Scaffold Law, which places “absolute liability” on employers for gravity-related workplace injuries, is supported by labor unions but opposed by business groups that claim it needlessly drives up construction costs. Opponents would like to see New York follow other states by adopting a “comparative negligence” standard that would make workers proportionately responsible when their actions contribute to an accident.
The Center for Popular Democracy, a labor-backed group that supports Scaffold Law, requested copies of all communications between the Institute and the Lawsuit Reform Alliance. That FOIL request produced a series of emails between researchers and LRA Executive Director Tom Stebbins, including Stebbins’ suggested edits to a June 25, 2013, draft copy of the report that was not initially released by the Institute.
The Center appealed to SUNY’s FOIL officer, who ultimately decided the June 25 draft — which had been appended to an email to Stebbins — should be released. A comparison of the draft and the final report suggested that some of Stebbins’ suggestions were reflected in the final version. Researchers, however, said any changes were the result of their efforts to sharpen their analysis, and not made due to pressure from the funder.
The newly released draft, dated Aug. 7, 2013, closely resembles the final report — which neither proves nor disproves the Center’s charges that the academics buckled under pressure.
Josie Duffy of the Center for Popular Democracy, however, claims the six-week gap between the first and second drafts suggests that the Institute moved quickly to follow the Alliance’s edits.
“When LRANY wanted changes, the report’s authors dutifully made them right away — inflating the report’s findings and taking out a key section that challenged how onerous the Scaffold Safety Law really is,” Duffy said in a statement, alluding to the second draft’s disposal of a two-page section on the construction of the Champlain Bridge that found little or no impact on the project from Scaffold Law.
“SUNY says it has now disclosed everything it has, but given that LRANY and the authors held weekly conference calls to discuss the report’s progress, we may never know the full extent of their influence over the final version,” Duffy said.
In an email, Bullock said the Institute “has been open and honest about its contacts with funders and its research has been and will continue to be immune from influence. It is unfortunate that a research organization known throughout the nation for the quality and character of its work should have to defend itself from accusations leveled by the Center for Popular Democracy, an organization well known for its partisanship.”
Update: Stebbins sent the following statement:
“Reform opponents are so terrified of the data that they can do nothing but attack the method of three researchers at two top universities. The Scaffold Law costs billions and causes injuries. If the Center for Popular Democracy wants to have a real discussion about how many billions wasted and how many injuries caused by the Scaffold Law, I will have that discussion all day.”
Source
Fed comes up short on diversity goal, Democrats say
Fed comes up short on diversity goal, Democrats say
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — The U.S. central bank remains a bastion of white privilege and Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen should promptly take steps to “remedy” the issue, 115 Congressional Democrats...
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — The U.S. central bank remains a bastion of white privilege and Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen should promptly take steps to “remedy” the issue, 115 Congressional Democrats said Thursday.
In a letter to Yellen, the House and Senate Democrats urged her to “fulfill its statutory and moral obligation to ensure that is leadership reflects the composition of our diverse nation” and include representatives outside of the banking industry. Bernie Sanders, the independent senator from Vermont and a presidential candidate, also signed the letter.
The letter noted that Congress in 1977 passed a law mandating more diversity at the Fed.
“Nearly 40 years later, the leadership across the Federal Reserve system remains overwhelmingly and disproportionately white and male, while major financial institutions and corporations are overrepresented in senior roles,” the letter said.
Leading Democrats including Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Rep. John Conyers of Michigan signed the letter. Rep. Maxine Waters, the ranking member on the House Financial Services panel, was also a signatory.
At the moment, 11 of the 12 Fed regional presidents are white and ten are men.The five members of the Fed board of governors are all white, while two are women.
“Is the Fed Board of Governors embarks on its search for regional president vacancies, we urge you to engage in an inclusive process to consider candidates from a diverse set of background, including a greater number of African-Americans, Latinos, Asian Pacific Americans, women and individuals from labor, consumer, and community organizations,” the letter said.
In response, a Fed spokesperson said the central bank has “focused considerable attention in recent years” on recruiting directors of regional Fed banks with diverse backgrounds and experiences.
As a result, minority representation at the 12 district banks and their branches has increased to 24% this year from 16% in 2010, the spokesperson said.
By Greg Robb
Source
Fed's Bostic to Hear Case for Excluding Housing From Inflation
Fed's Bostic to Hear Case for Excluding Housing From Inflation
Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta President Raphael Bostic will hear the case for excluding housing from measures of consumer prices that the U.S. central bank targets when he meets this week with...
Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta President Raphael Bostic will hear the case for excluding housing from measures of consumer prices that the U.S. central bank targets when he meets this week with Fed Up, an advocacy group focused on monetary policy.
Read the full article here.
If Black Lives Really Matter, We Gotta Stop Hitting Repeat
If Black Lives Really Matter, We Gotta Stop Hitting Repeat
There’s a black man. Police confront him. Police kill him, and we watch the video. There’s an investigation, protests and calls for justice. A community grieves, and we all hit repeat.
...
There’s a black man. Police confront him. Police kill him, and we watch the video. There’s an investigation, protests and calls for justice. A community grieves, and we all hit repeat.
Alton Sterling, repeat. Philando Castile, repeat. Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Walter Scott, Willie Tillman, David Joseph, repeat, repeat, repeat.
I’m tired, y’all. I’m effing tired. I’m tired of hearing about these families who have lost fathers and sons, listening to simple platitudes about thoughts and prayers, or the pretzel-like explanations for how it’s all the dead guy’s fault.
And then nothing changes.
I welled up watching Sterling’s 15-year-old son break down and wail “I want daddy” at a news conference. Sterling was killed Tuesday while selling CDs and DVDs outside a store in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The police say they were responding to a report of an armed man.
The tears spilled down my cheeks as I watched the video of Castile’s girlfriend, Diamond “Lavish” Reynolds, begging, “Please officer don’t tell me that you just did this to him. You shot four bullets into him, sir.” Meanwhile, Castile is slumped over, bleeding and with his arm at a terrible angle. These killings have to stop.
After watching the video of Sterling, one of my black high school friends role-played with his sons, ages 8 and 12, on how to respond if they are ever confronted by a police officer. He even had them lie down and simulate being handcuffed. Another friend talked about how she hated that she was scared her husband, a hospital administrator, or her 16-year old son could someday be gunned down by a police officer.
This morning I told my husband, “I’m glad we now live in a country where I don’t have to worry about our sons getting killed by the police.” I love America, but damn, these killings and the muted effort to change is gut-wrenching.
It feels like the country that my ancestors helped to build with blood, sweat and tears, the place that I call home and miss terribly now that I live in Norway, just doesn’t care about me or those who look like me. Me and my brothers are all criminals, mere statistics or people waiting to become a statistic.
Fixing this epidemic feels like such an insidious behemoth, but we can’t keep going like this.
It’s easy to grow numb to the drumbeat of bodies piling in the streets from guns, drugs and other societal ills. Believe me, I get it. I’d rather scroll through the images of Paris’ fashion week than see Castile’s blood drench his plain white tee.
But I can’t. That would be just like hitting repeat.
What can I do?
First, I won’t pretend to have the answers, but through the magic of the interwebs you can find some very pertinent and well-researched information. One that I especially liked was a report from the Center for Popular Democracy and Policy Link. The two non-profit advocacy groups developed 15 possible solutions to curb police brutality. The ideas include increased police training and funding, treating drug addicts and the mentally ill instead of incarcerating them, and my personal favorite: Make the policy makers see their own racism.
Look, let’s be honest. We all have -isms, we’re not proud of them because we know it’s wrong to judge people based on looks, money or education, but it happens, and refusing to recognize the elephant in the room helps no one.
Check out the link to the report for how to push for such changes.
I care, but I don’t have any free time
We are all busy people. Work, school, kids, friends, life, and there are only 24 hours in a day. However, you make time for what you feel is important. Are you all caught up on what’s going on with Olivia Pope? Have you binge-watched “Orange Is The New Black” or something else on Netflix? How about my “Game of Thrones” people? Yeah, so it’s all a matter of priorities.
You gotta do what works for you, but please, don’t just sit there and hit repeat.
By MELANIE COFFEE
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2 days ago
8 days ago