Campaign News

How does one get invited to attend one of the most exclusive palavers on the planet? Well, if it’s the annual Jackson Hole economic summit sponsored by the Federal Reserve System, it’s virtually a prerequisite that one belong to that elite fraternity of beings known as central bankers. Or a pointy-headed professor with a certified globalist bent. Or, it seems, a loudmouthed, obnoxious street radical with a Marxist-Leninist “social justice/economic democracy” bent.

So, if you’re a screaming activist with the Center for Popular Democracy, apparently, you have an open door, a welcoming hand, and a place at the table with the Jackson Hole uber-elite.“Federal Reserve officials sought to reassure a group of labor activists that the central bank isn’t going to cool down the economy just as a stronger labor market is reaching a broader swath of Americans,” reported  the Wall Street Journal on August 26.

Here is an excerpt from the Journal’s report:

“We’re going to run [the economy] hot, get the unemployment rate down lower,” San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank President John Williams said at an unprecedented meeting with activists from the Campaign [sic for Popular Democracy’s Fed Up Campaign.

The meeting of activists and high-ranking Fed officials took place shortly before the start of the Kansas City Fed’s high-profile policy conference in Jackson Hole, Wyo. Central bankers in attendance included Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen’s two top lieutenants, New York Fed President William Dudley and Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer....

The left-leaning activist group Fed Up publicly met with eight Federal Reserve presidents Thursday to discuss inequality and interest rates during the central bank's annual meeting in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

Serious, responsible critics of the Fed of  a conservative/libertarian bent would never receive similar cordial treatment, of course. That’s understandable, since they want to restrict the power of the Fed, or abolish it altogether. The left-wing activists, on the other hand, want to expand the power of the Fed, and to use those expanded powers to further socialize our economy and society. That is surprising to many people, but it shouldn’t be; it’s completely in line with Karl Marx’s handbook. The fourth plank in Marx’s 10 planks of the Communist Manifesto calls for “Centralization of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.” Bingo: That’s the Federal Reserve.

So, what is the Center for Popular Democracy (CPD) and who is supporting it and its Fed Up Campaign? Not surprisingly, one of its major supporters is the Ford Foundation, which has been notorious for funding “progressive,” socialist, pro-communist, and outright communist organizations and individuals for more than seven decades. Also, among the CPD financial angels is the Open Philanthropy Project, which has generously funded CPD’s Fed Up Campaign, it boasts, to the tune of at least $2 million. And it has pledged millions more.

In our previous report on the Fed’s conference last weekend (Jackson Hole’s Gangsters and Banksters: What Are They Planning?) we utilized the Fed’s official list of conference attendees to underscore the fact that the Fed’s top echelon officials and advisers hail almost entirely from that elite cabal of globalist one-worlders, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). Moreover, we pointed out, this confirmed a virtually non-stop control of the Fed by CFR members since the Fed’s inception, under the guidance of elite Wall Street banker Paul Warburg, who was also a founder of the CFR.

The same CFR hands are at work in the creation of the Astroturf Fed Up Campaign posing as a grassroots “opposition” force to the Fed. The Ford Foundation and many of the other tax-exempt foundations supporting this faux CPD effort are longtime funding arms for the globalist agenda. Ditto for many of the other controlled opposition groups that CPD/Fed Up list as their “Partners.” Here is a partial list of those CPD partners, most of which would scarcely exist, if not for the activist cash they regularly receive from their globalist paymasters they pretend to oppose:

Arkansas Community Organization

Living United for Change in Arizona

ACCE Institute (Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment)

Working Partnerships USA

CASA de Delaware

New Florida Majority

Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights

Good Jobs Now

Neighborhoods Organizing for Change

TakeAction Minnesota

New York Communities for Change

Common Good Ohio

CASA de Pennsylvania

Ohio Organizing Collaborative

Texas Organizing Project

Wisconsin Jobs Now

Clearly, as with #BlackLivesMatter and the many other Astroturf “progressive” organizations funded by billionaire George Soros (a CFR member and CFR President's Circle corporate supporter), the Fed Up Campaign is another example of CFR Insiders providing simultaneous pressure from above and below to effect social/political/economic/moral revolution.

By  William F. Jasper

Source

Senator Flake, you were confronted on national television by two activists, both claiming to be rape survivors. Maria Gallagher and Ana Maria Archila gained national fame over the video of that confrontation, and both say they’ve never spoken about their experiences before. The testimony of Christine Blasey Ford gave them the strength, they said, to come forward. But they haven’t, at least as far as I’ve seen so far.

Read the full article here.

St. Louis Public Radio - March 5, 2015, by Maria Altman - What recovery? That was the question being asked Thursday by a small group of activists outside the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

About a dozen protesters called on the Fed to focus on unemployment, especially among minorities, rather than on keeping inflation rates low. They said if the Federal Open Market Committee raises the interest rate this year, as anticipated, it would likely mean fewer jobs.

"We’re calling on the Fed to do the right thing by most people, because the people they’re helping by changing the policy is a very small minority people and a very influential and affluent group of people," said Derek Laney of Missourians for Reform and Empowerment.

The protest was one of several held at Federal Reserve Banks around the country to highlight a new report by the Center for Popular Democracy and the Economic Policy Institute. The report calls on the Fed to focus on “full unemployment,” and highlights disparities between white and minority unemployment levels.

In Missouri last year the unemployment rate for African-Americans was 14.4 percent, while the rate for whites was just 5.1 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Several of the protesters, who represented a variety of local groups, including MORE, the Organization for Black Struggle, Veterans for Peace, Pro-Vote and Young activists United STL, had personal stories of being out of work and struggling.

Reginald Rounds with MORE said he had recently gotten a bachelor’s degree but still couldn’t find work.

"There is no recovery in the community in which I live," said Rounds. "I talked to many people in different organizations and churches throughout the city as we worked on the Don’t Shoot Coalition. It’s my personal belief that a lot of things that happened in Ferguson just boiled over from all the tensions of unemployment, job creation, housing and our educational system."

The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis said in an emailed statement that officials reached out to protesters on Wednesday and asked them to meet to discuss the report. 

"The Fed has a dual mandate to keep inflation low and stable and to foster maximum sustainable employment. It takes these responsibilities very seriously," said Karen Branding, senior vice president of public affairs, in the statement.

Washington University economist Jennifer Dlugosz said the Fed has good reason not to focus too tightly on lowering unemployment levels.

"We know from macroeconomics that if the Fed tries to push the rate of unemployment below the natural rate, which people think is 5.5 percent, that it wouldn’t work and that it would just accelerate inflation," she said.

Dlugosz, who previously worked for the Fed’s Board of Governors in Washington, D.C., said monetary policy is not the right tool to address unemployment disparity. Instead, she said, targeting labor market and education policies to create more equality would likely have better results.

The report also took aim at the Fed’s transparency, especially in choosing the board of directors for each of the 12 Federal Reserve Banks. The protesters argued too many corporate and bank executives take those positions, including in the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis’ board of directors.

"It’s basically bankers, and that’s in the charter, and there’s whole bunch of other folks who could be from labor and working people, but are instead from big corporations," said Jeff Ordower of MORE.

The board of directors in each of the Federal Reserve districts is responsible for choosing the president of the Reserve Banks. Those presidents rotate onto the Federal Open Market Committee, which meets eight times a year and decides the nation’s monetary policy. (Learn more about how it all works here on the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis' website.)

In her statement, Branding said the Fed was designed by Congress to “represent the voice of Main St."

"At the St. Louis Fed we have significant dialogue with business leaders, community development organizations, educators and the public,” she wrote. “We have a diverse board of directors who are familiar with economic and credit conditions in the district.”

Professor Dlugosz said the make-up of the boards is somewhat limited by statute. Each district’s community bank members choose three bankers to sit on the board and three non-bankers. The other three directors are chosen by the Fed’s Board of Governors in Washington, D.C, and are supposed to represent a mix of labor, agriculture, industry, and consumers.

Dlugosz said the last group, known as “Class C,” is the most likely group to represent the interests of the public, since they’re appointed by the Board of Governors.

"That’s really, I’m guessing, the main place where you’re going to see heads of labor unions or consumer advocates. If they’re getting on there, I imagine it’s the Board that’s electing them," she said. "I don’t know if that’s changed over time, but one would hope that they’re keeping an eye on it."

Source

PHOENIX -- The head of the state's restaurant industry is gearing up to convince voters to quash an initiative that would boost the state's minimum wage to $12 an hour by 2020.

Steve Chucri, president of the Arizona Restaurant and Hospitality Association, said Wednesday the campaign against the measure will be based on showing them how much wages in Arizona have gone up since voters enacted the first minimum wage law in 2006.

Prior to that, Arizona employers had to pay only what was mandated in federal law, which was $5.15 an hour. The ballot measure pushed that to $6.75, with a requirement for annual adjustments based on inflation.

That has pushed the current state minimum to $8.05.

"The public will say, 'Enough's enough,'" Chucri said. And he said polls done for the industry in the spring show people believe that $12 is "too much."

The comments come as Arizonans for Fair Wages and Healthy Families is planning to submit its petitions for the $12 wage plus required paid leave today to the secretary of state's office.

Spokeswoman Suzanne Wilson said organizers have collected more than 250,000 signatures. That is 100,000 more than are needed to qualify for the ballot.

But Chucri said he's not convinced his organization will even have to fight the battle in November. He questioned whether petition circulators, both volunteer and paid, were careful to ensure that those who signed are qualified to vote in the state.

Arizona has become the latest battleground over what can be considered a living wage.

Several states have enacted their own laws, often through legislation. Most recently, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed a measure that will take that state's minimum, now $10 an hour, up to $15 by 2022 for large employers; small companies will get another year to comply.

Chucri said part of the campaign against the ballot measure will be to remind voters here that Arizona already has a minimum wage that's higher than what federal law requires.

And that same law requires annual revision. Chucri pointed out that has meant a boost every year except for two when the rate of inflation was too small for even a nickel more, the bare minimum adjustment.

The difference, though, is not great: That $8.05 an hour is just 80 cents more than the federal minimum.

What Chucri also faces is that $8.05, assuming it's a family's sole source of income, translates out to $16,744 a year.

For a single person, the federal government considers anything below $11,880 a year to be living in poverty. That figure is $16,020 for a family of two and $20,160 for a family of three.

That's part of what has driven similar living wage efforts elsewhere in the country. But Chucri said the idea of a $12 minimum won't sell here.

"That is too high of a wage for a place like Arizona,'' he said.

Chucri said part of the campaign against the ballot measure will be the argument that higher wages mean fewer jobs.

"Restaurateurs are going to survive,'' he said. But what they will do, Chucri said, is simply hire fewer people.

He pointed out the push toward automation already is underway.

At Panera Bread, customers place their orders through computer screens and then can pick up what they want. And even at more traditional sit-down place like Applebee's, orders can be placed through tablets at each table.

Chucri conceded, though, that is happening even in places where the minimum wage is not going up. What approval of this measure would do, he said, is hasten the day.

"I don't think it's a matter of 'if,' '' Chucri said. "It's a matter of 'when.' ''

He would not say how much his group and other business organizations intend to spend to kill the measure.

The most recent campaign finance reports show campaign organizers have raised more than $342,000. Virtually all of that comes from Living United for Change in Arizona. But Tomas Robles, former executive director of LUCHA, said much of that is from a grant to the organization from The Center for Popular Democracy, an organization involved in efforts to establish a $15 minimum wage nationally.

Another $25,000 came from The Fairness Project which has its own efforts to push higher minimum wages on a state-by-state basis.

By Howard Fischer

Source