CPD IN THE NEWS

Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said Friday that the case for raising interest rates has strengthened in light of a solid job market and an improved outlook for the US economy and inflation.

At a gathering of central bankers from round the world in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Yellen said improvements in the USA labor market and expectations for moderate economic growth have boosted the case for a rate rise, supporting what the rate futures market has been pricing in for some time. The gains were all but erased after Fed Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer said her remarks leave open the possibility of boosting rates in September.

The economy is "nearing" the Fed's goals of full employment and stable prices, share said.

With an interest rate hike unlikely in the immediate future, the dollar is struggling to gain traction.

Still Yellen declined to hint at whether the Fed might raise rates at its next policy meeting, September 20-21, or at its subsequent meetings in early November and mid-December.

The head of America's central bank said the case for an interest rate hike had strengthened but stopped short of indicating any timetable for a move.

"Yellen's speech at Jackson Hole today didn't necessarily offer much in the way of surprises", said OANDA senior market analyst Craig Erlam.

"New policy tools, which helped the Federal Reserve respond to the financial crisis and Great Recession, are likely to remain useful in dealing with future downturns", Yellen said. Although setting a hawkish tone and perhaps trying to sound balanced, Yellen did issue a few cautionary words, but for the most part, she indicated that more rate hikes were on the horizon.

Although US government data earlier on Friday showed the economy growing only sluggishly in the second quarter, Yellen said a lot of new jobs were being created and economic growth would likely continue at a moderate pace.

Yellen's words returned a measure of clarity on the intentions of U.S. monetary policymakers, who have been publicly at odds in recent months over the need to raise rates in the near-term. "On balance, it strengthened the case for a December move", said Bill Northey, chief investment officer for the private client group at U.S. Bank in Helena, Montana.

Prices for fed funds futures implied investors saw about even odds that the Fed will raise rates in December, largely unchanged from before Yellen's remarks.

The dollar eased to 100.47 yen from 100.55 yen Thursday in NY, while the euro nudged up to US$1.1291 from US$1.1281.

In a meeting, members of the groups Fed Up and the Center for Popular Democracy told Fed policymakers that the assessment that the USA was approaching full employment did not reflect life for many blacks and Latinos looking for work. The dollar's 5 percent loss this year reflects a dimming outlook for the US central bank to reduce stimulus and diverge from unprecedented easing in Europe and Asia.

In afternoon trading, the dollar index, which measures the greenback versus six major currencies, rose 0.8 percent at 95.563.

By Adam Cater

Source

The New York Times - December 5, 2013, by Kirk Semple - For years, New York City correction officials routinely provided federal immigration authorities with information about foreign-born detainees in their custody. The city, in response to federal requests, would transfer many of those detainees into federal custody, often leading to their deportation.

But a series of laws passed by the City Council over the past two years sought to restrict this cooperative agreement.

And according to new city statistics, the laws appear to be achieving their goal, prompting celebration — albeit guarded — among immigrants’ advocates.

From July, when the most recent of the restrictive laws went into effect, to September, city officials responded to 904 federal hold requests, known as detainers, according to the statistics. Of those detainers, the city declined to honor 331, or 37 percent.

In contrast, until the laws were passed, the city customarily honored every detainer, according to city officials.

“We feel good about the impact that this legislation has had because it has stopped the deportation of a lot of New Yorkers,” Javier H. Valdes, co-executive director of Make the Road New York, an advocacy group, said on Thursday.

“Our hope,” he said, “is that with the new administration we can increase the number of New Yorkers who will not be turned over to immigration.”

Even with the new city laws, New York’s restrictions are still not as tight as those of other major cities, like Chicago and Washington, advocates said.

Cooperation between local governments and federal immigration authorities has been a deeply contentious issue around the United States.

Some jurisdictions, convinced that the federal government has not done enough to enforce immigration laws, have increased their role in immigration enforcement. But others, concerned about the impact of deportations on their communities, have tried to put distance between themselves and the immigration machinery of the federal government.

Much of the recent debate has surrounded the federal Secure Communities program. The initiative allows Homeland Security officials to more easily compare the fingerprints of every suspect booked at a local jail with those in its files. If they find that a suspect is a noncitizen who is in the country illegally or has a criminal record, they may issue a detainer.

The Secure Communities program, a cornerstone of the Obama administration’s immigration enforcement strategy, has been vehemently opposed by some elected officials around the country, who have sought to limit their jurisdictions’ participation.

In November 2011, the City Council passed a law that narrowed the range of detainers the city would honor. Among other terms, the law prevented correction officers from transferring immigrants to federal custody if the inmates had no convictions or outstanding warrants, had not previously been deported, were not suspected gang members or did not appear on a terrorist watch list.

The effect on the detainer system was immediate: Correction officials went from routinely honoring all detainers to, according to the recently released statistics, about 75 percent of them.

In February, the Council imposed additional restrictions, including blocking detainers for immigrants facing all but the most serious misdemeanor charges, like sexual abuse, assault and gun possession.

Under these new guidelines, the percentage of detainers the city rebuffed rose to about 37 percent from about 25 percent. The rates may have even been higher had the federal government not concurrently altered its own detainer policy, limiting the range of immigrants it would seek custody of.

Still, immigrant advocates said they would press for more restrictions and have reoriented their lobby toward Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio, who has vowed to end the city’s cooperation with federal immigration detainers except for detainees convicted of “violent or serious felonies.”

Newark, San Francisco and Santa Clara, Calif., are also among the cities that have more restrictive detainer policies than New York, according to Emily Tucker, staff attorney at the Center for Popular Democracy, an advocacy group in New York.

“New York City can do much better than these numbers show we are doing at the moment,” she said.

Source

"Today, the Federal Reserve concluded another opaque and controversial Reserve Bank presidential selection process by ignoring the demands of the public and choosing yet another white man whose record on Wall Street regulation and full employment raises serious questions,” said Shawn Sebastian, Fed Up’s director. Fed Up said it submitted a list of nine non-white male candidates to the New York Fed’s search committee and that most of them were never contacted.

Read the full article here.

The Women's March, NARAL Pro-Choice America, and the Center for Popular Democracy all participated in the protest, where demonstrators chanted, "We believe Christine Ford! We believe Anita Hill!" before proceeding to senators' offices.

Read the full artilce here.