The Washington Post - December 5, 2013 - The American Civil Liberties Union has sued the Federal Housing Finance Agency, asking it to disclose efforts to stop municipalities from...
Richmond Fed Names McKinsey's Thomas Barkin as Its President
Richmond Fed Names McKinsey's Thomas Barkin as Its President
Directors at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond confirmed Monday they had chosen Thomas Barkin, a senior executive at global consulting firm McKinsey & Co., as the institution’s next...
Directors at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond confirmed Monday they had chosen Thomas Barkin, a senior executive at global consulting firm McKinsey & Co., as the institution’s next president.
“We are fortunate to have found an extremely well-qualified individual to serve the Federal Reserve’s Fifth District and the American people,” Margaret Lewis, chair of the Richmond board of directors, said in a statement.
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Pressures mount on Wells Fargo following fake-accounts scandal
Pressures mount on Wells Fargo following fake-accounts scandal
Pressure mounted on Wells Fargo & Co. Friday following its fake-accounts scandal, as the bank faced new calls to allow affected customers to file lawsuits and for the board of directors to...
Pressure mounted on Wells Fargo & Co. Friday following its fake-accounts scandal, as the bank faced new calls to allow affected customers to file lawsuits and for the board of directors to rescind the pay of a key senior executive.
The demands came just one day after Chief Executive John Stumpf resigned from a Federal Reserve advisory panel.
Senators had pushed for Stumpf not to be reappointed, saying it was inappropriate for someone who presided over improper sales tactics to be giving advice to an agency involved with bank regulation.
Stumpf has been under intense fire since the bank this month agreed to pay $185 million to settle investigations by Los Angeles City Atty. Mike Feuer, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency into an aggressive sales culture that led bank employees to open as many as 2 million accounts that customers didn’t authorize.
The Justice Department is investigating possible criminal charges, and some senators have called for a Labor Department investigation into whether the bank failed to pay employees overtime when they worked late nights and weekend to meet sales quotas.
A group of Senate Democrats continued to attack Wells Fargo on Friday, publicly calling on Stumpf to stop enforcing mandatory arbitration clauses in the agreements for customer accounts that were not authorized.
Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) had pressed Stumpf on the matter at a Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee hearing Tuesday, arguing that it was unfair not to allow those customers the ability to file lawsuits against the bank.
Stumpf said at the time that he would have to “talk to my legal team.”
Brown said Friday that he and his colleagues want relief for bank customers and more answers from Wells Fargo.
“If Wells Fargo really does want to look out for the customers, if they really are in fact sorry, as the CEO said, for these unauthorized accounts, they ought to let the court system work if these people who were wronged want to bring suit,” he said.
Wells Fargo's collateral damage: customers' credit scores
Wells Fargo's collateral damage: customers' credit scores
The Democrats sent a letter to Stumpf on Friday, requesting more information about the arbitration clauses, including how many customer complaints about fake accounts were forced into arbitration proceedings.
Brown was among those writing to Stumpf, along with Patrick Leahy of Vermont, Richard Durbin of Illinois, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Al Franken of Minnesota and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.
A spokeswoman for Wells Fargo did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Also on Friday, an activist investment group that is part of the Change to Win union federation wrote to Wells Fargo’s board, asking it to rescind at least part of the compensation earned by the executive who oversaw the employees who opened unauthorized customer accounts.
The letter from CtW Investment Group, which is a Wells Fargo shareholder, adds to the pressure on the bank to claw back some of the approximately $100 million earned by Carrie Tolstedt, the company’s former head of community banking.
Wells Fargo’s stock has declined by about 8% since the settlement was announced on Sept. 8.
On Thursday, five senators called for Stumpf not to be reappointed to the Federal Advisory Council, a 12-member body that meets four times a year with the Fed’s Board of Governors to discuss banking and economic matters.
Stumpf had represented the Fed’s San Francisco district, where Wells Fargo is based, since 2015.
He “made a personal decision to resign” and notified the Fed on Thursday, Wells Fargo spokeswoman Jennifer Dunn said.
“His top priority is leading Wells Fargo,” she said.
Sen. Angus King, an independent from Maine, organized the letter to the head of the board of directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco asking that Stump not be reappointed to the advisory council when his term expires on Dec. 31.
“It would be ironic if the Federal Reserve, a key federal banking regulator tasked in part with ensuring the fair and equitable treatment of consumers in financial transactions, continued to receive special insights and recommendations from senior management of a financial institution that just paid a record-breaking fine to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for ‘unfair’ and ‘abusive’ practices that placed consumers at financial risk,” they wrote.
The letter also was signed by Warren and Democratic Sens. Maria Cantwell of Washington and Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden, both of Oregon.
Their call was backed by Fed Up, a coalition of labor, community and liberal activist groups that has pushed to reduce the influence of bankers on Federal Reserve policies.
“Commercial banks already have too much influence within the Federal Reserve System,” the coalition said Thursday. The coalition also asked its members to sign a petition calling for Stump’s “immediate dismissal” from the advisory panel.
“Stumpf, as the CEO of a bank accused of ‘unfair’ and ‘abusive’ practices, should have no role advising the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors on policies affecting working families,” Fed Up said.
By Jim Puzzanghera
Source
Groups sue feds over foreclosure fighting tactic
The Washington Post - December 5, 2013 - The American Civil Liberties Union has sued the Federal Housing Finance Agency, asking it to disclose efforts to stop municipalities from using eminent domain to bail out underwater homeowners and make its dealings with the financial industry more transparent.
The ACLU, Center for Popular Democracy and other nonprofits filed a freedom of information lawsuit against the agency Thursday in federal court in San Francisco.Richmond, Calif., was the first city to officially codify the divisive foreclosure fighting plan, which has drawn zealous opposition from Wall Street and Washington. Two lawsuits challenging the use of eminent domain have been thrown out, but will likely be refiled. The city has not yet used eminent domain to seize a mortgage.Irvington, N.J., is moving forward with the strategy, and the city council in Newark took its first steps toward moving forward with a plan Wednesday. Yonkers, N.Y., is considering it, but other places have scrapped the idea because of opposition from banks or legal hurdles.The agency said in August it may initiate legal challenges against municipalities that want to use eminent domain to fight foreclosures and could direct regulated entities to stop doing business in those places. The nonprofits said most of the cities exploring the use of eminent domain have been besieged by foreclosures and have predominantly low-income, minority populations.The nonprofits filed freedom of information requests with the agency in October, seeking communication between agency leadership and representatives of the banking, mortgage and financial industry, and records of meetings between the agency and financiers, among other requests.FHFA acknowledged, but did not complete, the requests, according to the lawsuit, so the groups sued. The nonprofits are asking for the documents to be procured on an expedited basis.“The FHFA has taken an aggressive stance on this issue in a way that has harmed minority communities. The public deserves to know why,” said Linda Lye, a staff attorney with the ACLU of Northern California, in a statement.A FHFA spokeswoman said the agency is not commenting on the lawsuit.By using eminent domain, municipalities can circumvent mortgage contracts, acquire loans from bondholders, write them down and give them back to the bondholders with reduced principals. According to Cornell University law professor Robert C. Hockett, who devised the plan, only government has the power to forcibly sidestep mortgage contracts.The tactic only works with so-called private label security mortgages, or ones that are not backed by the federal government.FHFA oversees government-backed loans owned by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. They cannot be seized by eminent domain.The lawsuit said one of the agency’s “statutory mandates is to help the housing market recover,” and threatening to sue municipalities that try to use eminent domain conflicts with that obligation.“By threatening legal action,” the suit said, the agency “effectively blocks the communities hit hardest by the foreclosure crisis from pursuing one potentially effective solution on behalf of their residents.”The suit also said the agency’s threats to deny credit to communities raises Fair Housing Act and Equal Credit Opportunity Act concerns.Members of the financial industry have said they fear using eminent domain could be a slippery slope, and penalizes people who save and invest in mortgage-backed securities.In Washington, Texas Republican Rep. Jeb Hensarling and Calif. Republican Rep. John Campbell proposed legislation that would bar the federal government from backing mortgages in places that use eminent domain to seize mortgages. SIFMA, a group that represents security firms, banks and asset managers and 11 other groups sent a letter to Congress opposing the use of eminent domain.Last month, 10 members of Congress sent a letter asking the head of FHFA to rescind its threat to sue places that use eminent domain.Source
Three Labels Control 80% Of The U.S. Music Industry. What Responsibility Comes With That Power?
Three Labels Control 80% Of The U.S. Music Industry. What Responsibility Comes With That Power?
In recent months, the music media has responded to the political climate by zooming in on artist behavior: Have or haven’t they condemned Trump? Where do they stand? What do they suggest we do to...
In recent months, the music media has responded to the political climate by zooming in on artist behavior: Have or haven’t they condemned Trump? Where do they stand? What do they suggest we do to resist? Publications including The FADER have increasingly looked to celebrities to provide a moral compass, to demonstrate what large-scale compassion looks like, and to show their peers what they’re doing wrong.
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Advocacy Groups Call for Closer Scrutiny of Charter Schools
Trib Total Media - October 1, 2014, by Megan Harris - Three groups with union affiliations on Wednesday pointed to the criminal case against ousted PA Cyber Charter School founder Nick Trombetta...
Trib Total Media - October 1, 2014, by Megan Harris - Three groups with union affiliations on Wednesday pointed to the criminal case against ousted PA Cyber Charter School founder Nick Trombetta as an example why the state's nearly 180 charter schools need better oversight and stronger accountability.
The Center for Popular Democracy, Integrity in Education, and Action United of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh issued a report that alleges Pennsylvania charter schools defrauded taxpayers out of more than $30 million. That figure is an aggregate of cases brought by whistleblowers and media exposés, according to the authors.
Pennsylvania Coalition of Public Charter Schools executive director Robert Fayfich said in a prepared statement that “the report draws sweeping conclusions about the entire charter sector based on only 11 cited incidents in the course of almost 20 years, while ignoring numerous alleged and actual fraud and fiscal mismanagement in (traditional) districts over that same time period.”
Trombetta, who investigators allege illegally funneled $1 million from school coffers and deferred taxes on an additional $8 million in personal income, pleaded not guilty to 11 counts of mail fraud, bribery, tax conspiracy and filing false tax returns last year. Hearings are ongoing.
Fayfich said, “Fraud and fiscal mismanagement are wrong and cannot be tolerated, but to highlight them in one sector and ignore them in another indicates a motivation to target one type of public school for a political agenda.”
The groups' report urges state officials to temporarily suspend the approval process for new charter schools, investigate existing ones, and shift from standard audits to forensic audits.
School districts paid more than $853 million in tax dollars to charters serving 128,712 students in 2013-14. Almost 4,000 Pittsburgh students attended 33 charter schools the same year.
SourceFed Up group claims Fed behind loss of reservation
Fed Up group claims Fed behind loss of reservation
A group critical of Federal Reserve policy is crying foul after their reservations for an upcoming meeting of central bankers at the Jackson Lake Lodge were revoked.
The hotel is claiming a...
A group critical of Federal Reserve policy is crying foul after their reservations for an upcoming meeting of central bankers at the Jackson Lake Lodge were revoked.
The hotel is claiming a booking error is responsible. The group of labor unions and community organizations isn’t buying it.
The annual Economic Policy Symposium hosted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, held in Grand Teton National Park, is one of the most high-profile meetings of the country’s central bankers. This year, they are set to discuss frameworks for raising and lowering interest rates. Rates are currently low, and the debate in the Fed is how soon they should rise.
Fed Up is a coalition which argues that Federal Reserve interest rate policy is geared toward corporate and banking interests, leaving out the interests of workers and minorities.
“The impact of higher interest rates is to slow the economy down,” said Jordan Haedtler, Fed Up’s campaign manager. Raising rates pushes down inflation, which is good for lenders, but it does that by increasing unemployment and making it harder for workers to get raises, he said.
At the last two conferences in Jackson Hole, Fed Up has staged protests and an alternative conference focused on the impact that Federal Reserve policy has on wages and unemployment. The group plans a similar event at the meeting this year, despite the loss of their reservations, Haedtler said.
The lodge, which has 385 rooms, revoked 18 reservations in July. Those included all 13 rooms the Fed Up coalition had booked.
The Grand Teton Lodge Company is the National Park Service-authorized concessionaire which operates the Jackson Lake Lodge. Vice president and general manager Alex Klein said in a statement: “This summer we encountered an error with our booking system that resulted in our Jackson Lake Lodge property being oversold by 18 rooms for three peak nights in August.”
Klein said the company worked to move those who lost rooms to Flagg Ranch, 20 miles to the north.
Haedtler thinks his group was specifically targeted.
“We think that the computer glitch strains credulity,” he said “It’s pretty well known that the Kansas City Fed in particular doesn’t welcome our presence, but we think it’s important for the voices of working families and communities of color … to be included.”
Haedtler said his group made its reservations in May, and he was told by hotel officials that some guests who had made their reservations later in the year hadn’t lost their rooms. He said because the lodge is owned by the National Park Service, it has an obligation to protect free speech.
“The National Park Service, more than any other institution, is supposed to be a place of public accommodation,” he said. “We have secured a free speech permit, and we will be at the lodge during the Fed summit.”
The group filed an official complaint with the National Park Service, the Department of the Interior and the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice on Tuesday.
“What happened here is that, once again, the voices and faces of working class people of color have been marginalized; they have been treated disrespectfully; their opportunity to enjoy our country’s national parks has been subordinated to that of wealthy white guests,” the group wrote.
By Bryan Clark
Source
Everything you need to know about Tuesday's Arizona special election for Congress
Everything you need to know about Tuesday's Arizona special election for Congress
Ady Barkan, a progressive health-care activist whose videotaped pleadings with U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Arizona, last year briefly became a viral hit, has formed a group trying to raise money for...
Ady Barkan, a progressive health-care activist whose videotaped pleadings with U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Arizona, last year briefly became a viral hit, has formed a group trying to raise money for Democrats, starting with Tipirneni.
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Candidates Ready for GOP Debate: Alleged NY Backers of Hate Rhetoric
NEW YORK - Protestors called out some prominent New Yorkers ahead of tonight's GOP presidential candidate debate, accusing them of funding a network of groups that promote anti-immigrant hate...
NEW YORK - Protestors called out some prominent New Yorkers ahead of tonight's GOP presidential candidate debate, accusing them of funding a network of groups that promote anti-immigrant hate speech. Connie Razza, director of strategic research for the Center for Popular Democracy Action, said those allegations are confirmed in a new report that identifies New Yorker Barbara Winston as a financial contributor and board member of groups that, for example, worked to restrict undocumented immigrants' access to driver's licenses in the wake of the 9-11 attacks.
"When Donald Trump talks about deporting all of the undocumented immigrants in the United States," she said, "he's really picking up the platform that these wealthy New Yorkers have been investing in, over years." We reached out for comment to Bruce Winston Gem where Barbara Winston serves as president. Asked to respond to the allegation that Barbara Winston funded hate speech organizations, a manager there said, “No, it is not true.” Immigrant advocates say they protested in front of the Harry Winston Jewelers on Fifth Avenue Tuesday, because they say Barbara Winston owns that property.
Daniel Altschuler, managing director of the Make the Road Action Fund and co-editor of the report, "Backers of Hate in the Empire State," said it calls on nonprofit groups, political parties and the news media to sever ties with the New Yorkers cited in the report and the groups they are allegedly funding. "These are folks that have been buttressing the anti-immigrant infrastructure in this country," he said. "It identifies these folks, and demands that they be held responsible for promoting this kind of anti-immigrant rhetoric and false facts." Razza said it has been a major goal of these anti-immigrant groups to get their views front and center in prime-time slots such as tonight's GOP debate. "These wealthy New Yorkers are providing funding both to this anti-immigrant hate network and to the Republican Party," she said, "and starting to mainstream anti-immigrant hate in a way that's really dangerous."
The report is online at cpdaction.org. - See more at: http://www.publicnewsservice.org/2015-10-28/immigrant-issues/candidates-...
Source: Public News Service
Report: Language access isn’t great
Capitol Confidential – August 7, 2013, by Jimmy Vielkind - Several immigrant advocacy groups released a report this week saying it’s still difficult to get access to government services in...
Capitol Confidential – August 7, 2013, by Jimmy Vielkind - Several immigrant advocacy groups released a report this week saying it’s still difficult to get access to government services in languages other than English, nearly two years after Gov. Andrew Cuomo decreed that written and oral interpretation would be available the state’s six most-spoken foreign languages.
Cuomo signed an executive order that took effect last October mandating state officials to offer language assistance for speakers of Spanish, French, Italian, French Creole, Russian and Chinese. But the order’s scope was necessarily limited to state agencies, even though state-funded services like food stamps, driver’s licenses and unemployment benefits are administered by New York City or other counties.
The groups — including Make the Road New York, the Center for Popular Democracy and the Center for the Elimination of Minority Health Disparities at the University at Albany — visited government offices and surveyed people with limited English proficiency to develop a measure of compliance. Overall, they found that less than half the people who needed language assistance were able to receive it.
According to Nisha Agarwal, deputy director of the Center for Popular Democracy, the survey found 63 percent of citizens using state-operated facilities that are explicitly covered by the order were not successful in their quest to gain language assistance.
“The governor’s team has been very engaged on implementation, and we’re sympathetic to the challenges of getting an entire state apparatus to change,” said Agarwal. “That said, the results are by no means satisfactory, and we were quite disappointed that the state took the position that county-run agencies for state services were not within the ambit of the order. We feel it’s a pretty big gap.”
A Cuomo spokesman did not immediately return a request for comment.
Source
"Give Them Hell": Exposing the Corporate Backers of Anti-Immigrant Hate
"Give Them Hell": Exposing the Corporate Backers of Anti-Immigrant Hate
Since election night 2016, the streets of the US have rung with resistance. People all over the country have woken up with the conviction that they must do something to fight inequality in all its...
Since election night 2016, the streets of the US have rung with resistance. People all over the country have woken up with the conviction that they must do something to fight inequality in all its forms. But many are wondering what it is they can do. In this ongoing "Interviews for Resistance" series, experienced organizers, troublemakers and thinkers share their insights on what works, what doesn't, what has changed and what is still the same. Today's interview is the 61st in the series.
Today we bring you a conversation with José Lopez, one of the co-organizing directors at Make the Road New York, and Daniel Altschuler, the director of civic engagement and research at Make the Road New York.
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6 days ago
6 days ago