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WASHINGTON, Aug 22 (Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Reserve has two guiding goals when designing monetary policy: maximum employment and stable inflation.

But as the country's central bankers converge for their annual symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming this week, they are under increasing pressure to reform their own system and goals to better reflect the diversity of America and its incomes.

At this year's flagship economic policy conference, from Aug. 25 to 27, U.S policymakers will confer not only with their counterparts from around the world but also host a meeting on Thursday with a group calling for a radical overhaul of the Fed.

Fed Up, a network of community organizations and labor unions that wants a more diverse, transparent and income-inequality aware central bank, will meet with Kansas City Fed President Esther George.

It may be one reason why the organizers changed the dress code for the evening, usually a suited and booted affair, to casual attire.

So far three other Fed policymakers, New York's William Dudley, Cleveland's Loretta Mester and Boston's Eric Rosengren, are also scheduled to show up.

A Fed spokesman said Federal Reserve Governor Lael Brainard from the Washington-based Board of Governors also plans to attend the meeting.

The activists will look to build on their proposals, put forward in conjunction with former top Fed policy adviser Andrew Levin, to make the Fed's 12 regional banks government entities. The Fed is the world's only major central bank that is not fully public.

POWERFUL ALLIES

The group has recently been joined by powerful allies in Congress in forcing racial, gender and income inequality up the Fed's agenda.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has come out in favor of restricting the financial world's influence on regional Fed boards.

In May, 127 U.S. lawmakers including Senator Elizabeth Warren and former Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders sent a letter to Fed Chair Janet Yellen urging more diversity among its ranks in order to "reflect and represent the interests of our diverse country."

Currently 11 of the 12 regional Fed presidents are white, 10 are male, and none are black or Latino. At the Board level, the highest echelons of the Fed, Yellen is the first woman chair in the central bank's 103-year history.

SIGNS OF CHANGE

There are indications that the steady drumbeat of pressure is having some effect on areas on which the Fed does have some control.

"I believe that diversity is extremely important in all parts of the Federal Reserve," Yellen told Congress in June under sustained scrutiny from lawmakers about the Fed's performance.

Minorities now make up 24 percent of regional Fed bank boards, up from 16 percent in 2010, while 46 percent of all directors are either non-white or a woman.

Yellen, who has not been shy in speaking on income inequality, has also noted that rising inequality could curb U.S. economic growth.

And for a Fed not used to addressing distributional issues associated with monetary policy, such considerations are now seeping into policy discussions.

"The unemployment rate for African Americans and for Hispanics stayed above the rate for whites..." the Fed noted in minutes released last week from its policy meeting in July.

Or as Yellen put it to Congress in June, "We're certainly very focused on...wanting to promote stronger job markets with gains to all groups." (Reporting by Lindsay Dunsmuir; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

By Lindsay Dunsmuir

Source

If there are two American figures one would least expect to be connected, they may well be Woody Guthrie and Donald Trump. Guthrie, one of the most revered political songwriters ever to put pen to paper, has next to nothing in common with Republican presidential nominee Trump, a man who represents everything against which Guthrie fought as a folk singer and activist. But the two do have one connection: Trump's father, the late New York real estate mogul Fred C. Trump.

In the early 1950s, Guthrie was briefly a tenant of Trump's Beach Haven apartment complex, a Brooklyn property the elder Trump developed using an FHA subsidy specifically designated for affordable public housing. Years after Guthrie moved out of Beach Haven, in 1964, Trump would be investigated for profiteering, having, as Will Kaufman wrote in a story on Guthrie and Trump for The Conversation earlier this year, "overestimat[ed] his Beach Haven building charges to the tune of $3.7 million." And in 1973, six years after Guthrie's death from Huntington's disease at the age of 55, Trump was sued by the Justice Department for discriminating against Black people, eventually settling outside of court.

"In 1950, Woody and his family rented an apartment in the complex called Beach Haven that was owned by Fred Trump," Deana McCloud, Executive Director of Tulsa's Woody Guthrie Center, says. "After they moved in, it came to [Guthrie’s] attention that the elder Mr. Trump would not lease apartments to African-Americans, which did not sit very well with Woody, as an advocate for civil rights."

It was the racism of "Old Man Trump" that stoked the most intense anger in Guthrie, inspiring him to write two sets of writing -- the first being the better known "Beach Haven Ain't My Home," a re-working of an existing Guthrie song called "Ain't Got No Home" and one that is often referred to as "Old Man Trump," and the second, "Racial Hate at Beach Haven." Both writings are available on view at the Guthrie Center and, since Kaufman's piece was published, have been fodder for outlets as large as NPR and the New York Times, once again relevant in light of the 2016 election. As seen in the images provided by Kaufman, Guthrie punctuated his lyrics with exclamation points, a seemingly small detail that McCloud finds very telling.

"What’s really interesting for me is, I looked at the lyrics for ‘Beach Haven Ain’t My Home’ and -- of course, we have thousands of examples of Woody’s handwriting and very seldom does he use exclamation points -- in this particular lyric, every line is followed by an exclamation point," she says with a slight laugh. "His emotions are very apparent in the lyrics. It was just an issue with him, the idea that people should be separated and kept apart in anything, but especially when it comes to allowing them to live together and learn together and cooperate with each other."

A reimagined "Old Man Trump," recorded by Santa Barbara band U.S. Elevator, made its way into current headlines just a few days ago as part of the "30 Days, 30 Songs" project, an initiative spearheaded by acclaimed author Dave Eggers (famous for works like 2000's A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and the more recent novel A Hologram for the King; he also documented his time at a Sacramento Trump rally for the Guardian) and Zeitgeist Artist Management's Jordan Kurland, who is known for his integral role in the careers of artists like Death Cab for Cutie and Bob Mould. The project, which kicked off October 10, is a playlist of anti-Trump songs, proceeds from which will benefit the Center for Popular Democracy, written and/or performed by a diverse roster of artists that includes Aimee Mann, Jim James, R.E.M., and Adia Victoria. At press time, the initiative has grown to become "30 Days, 40 Songs," and could continue to grow larger as Election Day draws nearer. "30 Days" follows the pair's 2012 effort "90 Days, 90 Reasons," a series of essays by figures like Roxane Gay and George Saunders that argued for the re-election of President Barack Obama.

"One of the things that really struck [Eggers] about the rally was the music that was being played," Kurland says. "It was so off-base from Trump’s message, you know? It was Elton John’s 'Tiny Dancer' or Bruce Springsteen or the Who -- clearly just songs that didn’t make sense contextually, but also songs that there’s no way the artists would have approved. So Dave came back with the idea to get artists to write songs that should be played at Trump rallies, with that meaning they could be songs either directly about Donald Trump or songs that celebrate all the things that Donald Trump is against, like diversity and freedom of speech, etcetera, etcetera."

Nashville artist Adia Victoria -- who speaks powerfully on race, class, and Southern culture in both her music and in interviews -- contributed the sparse, sobering "Backwards Blues" to the playlist. When sharing the song on Facebook, she wrote, "Perhaps the greatest irony is how a campaign fueled by outright lies reveals a deep-seated kernel of truth of what far too many Americans hold up as sacred: massive wealth, the sway of celebrity, branding, power, and greed. I don't want to say that he's the president we deserve, yet here we are."

Many other musicians outside of the "30 Days" project have found themselves getting political in recent months, too. Ani DiFranco recently released the song "Play God" which, while not overtly anti-Trump, champions women's reproductive rights, a message that flies in the face of Trump's endlessly mysognistic rhetoric and behavior. "As we prepare for our first woman president, isn't this the perfect time for all of us to put women's civil rights into law?" DiFranco asks. "Make reproductive freedom a Constitutional amendment. With the Supreme Court in flux, we cannot afford to leave our rights in the balance."

Revered Nashville/Austin songwriter Radney Foster contributed to the conversation with "All That I Require" -- what he describes as an "anti-fascism history lesson" that, to name only one example, feels especially chilling in light of Trump's third debate comments about his reluctance to concede the election were Clinton to win the presidency.

"The voices of extremism and fascism are ringing more loudly in our national debate than ever before in my lifetime," Foster says. "Questioning the free press and the peaceful transition of power never ends well. All of the sloganeering in the song are taken from Stalin, Mussolini, Hitler, and Franco -- demagogues from the right and the left. I hope the song is something that will make us all, Democrat or Republican, do some soul-searching about what kind of country we want to be.”

One of the most powerful, acclaimed albums of 2016, the Drive-By Truckers' latest release American Band, was described by Slate's Carl Wilson as "the perfect album for the year of Trump." DBT songwriters Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley address a number of difficult topics, including racism, immigration, and police brutality, on the LP, with songs like "Ramon Casiano" and "What It Means" two standouts (among a consistently stellar batch of songs) whose narratives have chilling parallels: The first describes the death of Mexican teenager Ramon Casiano at the hands of Harlon B. Carter; the second refers to the murder of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman, as well as cases like the police killing of Michael Brown. The album grapples with many of the very issues for which Trump stands, providing alternative viewpoints from, as Wilson describes, a group of men "embodying the stereotypical demographics of a Trump voter (white, male, middle-age, non–college-educated)."

Akron, Ohio, songwriter Joseph Arthur released his anti-Trump number, "The Campaign Song," which juxtaposes audio and video of clips of Trump shouting catchphrases like "Build That Wall" with lyrics like "Trump is a chump," earlier this month and invoked Guthrie's legacy as a political songwriter, as well as his unfortunate connection to the Trump family. "Woody Guthrie wrote a protest song about Donald Trump’s grandfather," Arthur wrote on his website. "So this is like carrying the torch for Woody. I used the lingo of a by-gone era to accentuate that aspect like ‘America really should boot bums like this out’ and ‘Old scratch’. I wanted to use the lingo of Trump’s elders as subtle form of linguistic manipulation designed to send him under his bed shivering like the whimpering maggot that he is.”

A particularly biting critique of Trump, his policies and his deeply flawed Trump University comes from folk singer/songwriter Anthony D'Amato, who released the song "If You're Gonna Build a Wall" and its accompanying video via MoveOn's Facebook page last week. D'Amato was inspired to write the song, which references Trump's desire to build a wall between Mexico and the United States and includes lines like "Oh if you're gonna build a wall / You better be ready the day it falls," after covertly attending a Trump Rally in Long Island.

"I wrote this song last Summer during the primaries," D'Amato says. "I was home from tour with a broken finger and bombarded by election news every day. The rhetoric was dark and divisive and ran counter to a lot of the ideals I always felt like this country was built on. Trump's campaign was the initial spark, but the song touches on race and class and privilege, too. History doesn't look kindly on those who build themselves up by excluding  and demonizing the less powerful. If you're going to do that, you'd better be prepared for the consequences."

Pioneer Valley band Parsonsfield also felt compelled to write about Trump's hypothetical wall, expressing their frustration in the song "Barbed Wire," a stirring track off their recently released album Blooming through the Black. "It's funny how the loudest voices championing freedom are the ones who want to erect the clearest symbol of restrictiveness," the band's Chris Freeman says. "It will never happen, but the rhetoric is frightening enough. The song references the wall in the sense that they are often built as a mechanism to keep others out. The builder usually fails to see that they are also the ones being kept in.”

Like his father's before him, Donald Trump's policies seek to exclude rather than unite. And like Guthrie before them, today's musicians are using their platforms to voice progressive platforms, the latest entrants into the long, continually evolving songbook of American protest music. Protest music is most commonly attributed to the 1960s -- just look at this year's somewhat unusual, certainly polarizing winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature -- but it's a tradition that's been around in America for centuries. To name just two, non-'60s American milestones that birthed political music, the Civil War inspired a number of tunes, including "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" and "Song of the Abolitionist"; and the gay rights movement of the '80s and '90s brought us "Rebel Girl" by Bikini Kill and "True Colors" by Cyndi Lauper.

Trump is, of course, not the first politician to inspire musicians' ire (and he certainly won't be the last), although he has accomplished the not-so-desirable feat of doing so before the election results have even been tabulated. Bright Eyes, Radiohead, and, perhaps most famously, the Dixie Chicks were among the many artists who called out 43rd President George W. Bush through song. Ronald Reagan had the Ramones and Prince as detractors. And, in case you thought musicians only targeted Republicans, Democratic President Bill Clinton's indiscretions have been documented by artists as high-profile as Beyoncé -- though it's important to note that Monica Lewinsky is often, problematically, the target, instead of Clinton himself.

"The way that music makes a difference in society is still apparent today," McCloud says. "You still have those people who are raging against injustice and we know that Woody’s work is as relevant today as it was whenever he was writing it. The specific names might have changed a little, some specific details may have changed. But when you look at the lyrics that Woody wrote, and that Pete Seeger wrote, and Phil Ochs wrote, we’re still struggling with this huge divide between the people who have so much and those who struggle just to get by every day."

And while many artists choose to express political views through song, others take stances by withholding their music from candidates with whom they disagree. Just this year, the Trump campaign has received cease and desist letters (or, some cases, some very angry rhetoric) from the Rolling Stones, Adele, R.E.M. (who, along with Sleater-Kinney, just released their own "30 Days" tune), and several other artists regarding the usage of their songs at Trump rallies and events.

"Music and protest, for a very long time, have gone hand in hand," Kurland says. "For this particular project, it’s to get people inspired about the election or voting that have maybe been somewhat apathetic to it. Certainly Bernie Sanders captured a lot of people’s attention and imagination amongst younger voters and it just felt like, in May or June, there were people who were disappointed and people who weren’t really seeming like they were very engaged. So the idea of doing this is a way of getting people motivated by hearing a well-written song about an important topic. The goal with this project, and the other projects we've worked on in the past, is to appeal to younger voters who maybe don't fully grasp the importance of this election or understand how different the two candidates really are. I get so sick of hearing, 'Hillary is the lesser of two evils.' That couldn't be further from the truth."

While Guthrie isn't alive to sing us through these last few weeks leading up to election day, many of the issues for which he fought are, unfortunately, still issues today. McCloud believes he would have been just as disappointed by Donald's political rhetoric as he was by Fred's housing practices. "I certainly don’t want to put my thoughts into Woody’s voice by any means, but based on my knowledge of what he wrote and his perspective of things, I think, like many of us, it would be deeply troubling to him to see the lack of civility and the divisive nature of today’s political climate," she says. "This idea of getting together, walking together, talking together, solving problems is almost nonexistent in what we see today, and I think that would be deeply troubling to him."

Though it appears as though Hillary Clinton has all but clinched the election, the work to heal from and evolve past the divisive, racist, bigoted rhetoric in which the United States became ensnarled throughout this election is only just beginning. It's another chapter in a long, bloody story that is centuries long -- one that Guthrie, like his modern counterparts, immortalized in song, offering small glimpses of hope, wisdom, and catharsis for all of us hoping for a better world.

McCloud sums up Guthrie's feelings -- which were messy, uncomfortable, unresolved, but ultimately hopeful -- when she recounts his writing "Racial Hate at Beach Haven." "What I really love is the way he ends it," she says. "The last paragraph -- it’s so lyrical. It’s, ‘Let’s you and me shake hands together and get together and walk together and talk together and sing together and dance together and work together and play together and hold together and let’s get together and fight together and march together until we lick this goddamned racist hate together, what do you say?’ That’s Woody. He was upset. He was angry. But he still understood that this is a problem, and let’s sit down and talk about it and solve the problem instead of just being separate and having our own opinions. Let’s solve the problem."

By BRITTNEY MCKENNA

Source

Progressive activists opposed to a Federal Reserve interest rate hike gained an influential new ally on Labor Day: The New York Times editorial board.

In a Monday editorial, entitled “You Deserve a Raise Today. Interest Rates Don’t,” the Times argued that if the Federal Reserve raises interest rates in the near term, it could slow job creation at a time when there are still too few jobs to generate substantial wage growth. 

“Wage stagnation is a clear sign that the economy is not at full employment, which means it needs loose monetary policy, not tightening,” the Times wrote.

The Times called the Fed a “crucial player” in efforts to undo the decades-long trend of worker wages not growing in sync with the broader economy. The paper noted that from 1973 to 2014, median worker pay rose 7.8 percent while overall productivity increased by 72 percent, a finding published Wednesday in a report from the liberal-leaning Economic Policy Institute. 

An interest rate hike would exacerbate, rather than reverse, this trend by slowing wage growth, the Times editorial suggested. The paper also said that an interest rate hike would send “the wrong signal of economic health,” undermining efforts by advocacy groups to raise workers’ wages through measures like increasing the minimum wage. 

It is unclear what impact the Times’ editorial will have on the Fed’s decision-making, but it is a high-profile boost for progressive activists and economists, who have long argued that a Fed interest rate hike should be tied to wage growth that is about twice as high as it is currently. 

These activists, led by the Center for Popular Democracy's Fed Up campaign, note that even as the official unemployment rate declined to 5.1 percent in August -- its lowest level since April 2008 -- wages have grown 2.2 percent in the past 12 months, only marginally outpacing increases in living costs. Since wages rise when demand for workers is high enough that businesses must compete for labor, many economists attribute ongoing sluggish wage growth to the number of people who are underemployed or have given up looking for work -- figures masked by the low official jobless rate. 

The Fed Up campaign sent a memo to newspaper editorial boards across the country on Sept. 1, asking them to oppose an interest rate hike in 2015. The memo, a copy of which was obtained by The Huffington Post, employs arguments that resemble those used by The New York Times. The memo warned that an interest rate hike in 2015 would "leave millions in considerable andunnecessary economic distress and would exacerbate troubling longer-term trends in wages and incomes for the vast majority of American workers and their families." 

Fed Up campaign director Ady Barkan celebrated the editorial, but stopped short of claiming credit for it. 

"The New York Times Editorial Board is right," Barkan said in a statement. "Workers do deserve a raise! The data is crystal clear – stagnant wages and the lack of inflation mean that the Fed shouldn’t raise rates anytime soon. The Fed Up campaign is of course glad that the Times and other leading voices are speaking up about this issue."

Fed officials have signaled for months that they plan to raise the current near-zero interest rates before the year’s end, but William Dudley, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, recently indicated that a September increase may be too soon in light of market fluctuations. The Federal Open Market Committee, the central bank body charged with adjusting key interest rates, will report on whether it plans to raise rates on September 17.

Supporters of an interest rate hike argue that it is necessary to head off excessive price inflation, which, along with maintaining full employment, is part of the Fed’s dual mandate.

Source: Huffington Post

REAGAN NATIONAL AIRPORT, Virginia — The anti-Trump “resistance” movement is about to get its biggest test in months — and the stakes could hardly be higher.

On Thursday, Senate Republicans released the Better Care Reconciliation Act, which would dramatically reduce subsidies for lower-income Americans while cutting Medicaid and rolling back its expansion under Obamacare. The CBO hasn’t released an estimate of coverage impacts, but the House version of the bill would have resulted in 23 million fewer people getting covered.

Read the full article here.