‘Patriot’ Dimon dodges calls to disavow Trump policies
By Ben McLannahan Jamie Dimon endured a rough ride at the annual meeting of America’s biggest bank on Tuesday morning,...
By Ben McLannahan
Jamie Dimon endured a rough ride at the annual meeting of America’s biggest bank on Tuesday morning, as shareholders repeatedly attacked the JPMorgan Chase chief over his ties to the administration of Donald Trump.
In December Mr Dimon was named chairman of the Business Roundtable, a group of almost 200 CEOs which is among the most prominent lobbying groups in Washington. Mr Dimon, chief executive of JPMorgan for the past 11 years and chairman for 10, is also a member of Mr Trump’s strategic and policy forum, which meets regularly to shape the economic agenda.
At the meeting in Wilmington, Delaware, a succession of shareholders challenged Mr Dimon to publicly disavow some of Mr Trump’s policies, such as his curbs on immigration from predominantly Muslim countries and his building a wall on the border with Mexico. One shareholder noted that users had sent more than 4000 messages to a website, backersofhate.org, urging Mr Dimon to “distance himself from hateful policies of human suffering”.
After staying silent throughout several speeches from the floor, Mr Dimon defended the bank’s record on Mexico, its support for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, and its funding of private prisons.
Finally, he said of Mr Trump: “He is the president of the United States, he is the pilot flying the aeroplane. I’d try to help any president of the US because I’m a patriot. That does not mean I agree with every policy he is trying to implement.”
Mr Dimon has long been the most outspoken of the big-bank chiefs in the US, often using his shareholder letter as a platform for taking positions on matters of public policy, and for challenging the regulatory framework put in place since the 2008 crisis.
In the weeks after the presidential election, the 61 year old was approached by members of Mr Trump’s transition team to serve as Treasury secretary but declined, saying he was unsuited to the role, according to people familiar with the discussions.
As hostile questioning resumed after his remarks at the Tuesday meeting, Mr Dimon tried to lighten the mood, saying “you’re starting to hurt my feelings”. The shareholder admonished him by saying that just by hearing him out, the chief executive would earn more than $100.
“I hope it’s worth it!” said Mr Dimon, who was paid $28m last year.
“This is not a laughing matter,” the shareholder replied.
The meeting stood in contrast to the peaceful gathering at the Goldman Sachs building in Jersey City at the end of last month, when chief executive Lloyd Blankfein faced just two questions from the floor, both of them friendly. Mr Blankfein, who is also chairman of the board, closed the meeting within just 24 minutes.
Mr Dimon wrapped up Tuesday’s proceedings by saying the entire board “takes this feedback seriously”.
Ana Maria Archila, co-executive director of the Center for Popular Democracy, said after the meeting that until Mr Dimon takes a stronger stand her organisation would continue to associate JPMorgan Chase with Mr Trump’s “anti-immigration” agenda.
Ms Archila arrived in America 20 years ago to reunite with her father, who had fled political violence in Colombia.
“I don’t think we have a plan to really inflict economic damages on the bank just yet,” she said. “But what we do have a plan for, is to force them to clarify whose side they’re on.”
What Does Black Lives Matter Want? Now Its Demands Are Clearer Than Ever
One commonly asked question about this moment in black-led organizing—what some broadly refer to as the Black Lives...
One commonly asked question about this moment in black-led organizing—what some broadly refer to as the Black Lives Matter movement—is what its participants want. What are BLM’s goals and why, some critics ask, is the movement so reactive, only vocal and visible in response to police violence against black people?
Starting today, anyone with such questions can refer to the Vision for Black Lives, a document that lays out six demands and 40 corresponding policy recommendations to paint a picture of what today’s black activists are fighting for. At both the Democratic and Republican national conventions last month, there were plenty of indications that the current movement to end anti-black racism has made it to the national stage. The “Mothers of the Movement”—women whose children were killed by police or vigilantes or who died while in police custody—shared their stories at the DNC, making the case that their fights for justice would be in good hands with a Clinton presidency. At the RNC, meanwhile, Milwaukee County’s Sheriff David Clarke, a black man, tried to calm the nerves of the largely white audience, assuring them that Donald Trump can restore law and order and put an end to the “anarchy” that BLM inspires.
The platform released today emphasizes the movement’s independence from party politics and its desire to prioritize solutions that address root causes over the quick fixes more likely to win a presidential candidate’s support or move through an obstructionist Congress. For example, the nearly 40 policy recommendations include the following (quoting the group’s August 1 press release):
Demilitarize law enforcement, end money bail, end deportations, and end the systematic attack against Black youth, and Black trans, gender non-conforming and queer folks.
Immediately pass state and federal legislation that requires the U.S. to acknowledge the lasting impacts of slavery, and establish and execute a plan to address those impacts.
“Democrats and Republicans are offering anemic solutions to the problems that our communities face,” said Marbre Stahly-Butts, a member of the eight-person Movement 4 Black Lives leadership team that steered the collaborative research and writing process over a year-long period. “We are seeking transformation, not just tweaks.”
Recommendations such as those above may strike some as too broad, too pie-in-the-sky. But the vision statement offers greater depth for readers who want to know how to translate the words into on-the-ground action. The section on demilitarization of law enforcement links to more information on bills in New Jersey and New Hampshire that could be used as model legislation for other states. There’s advice on how to use federal law to demand that local elected officials reject military-grade equipment for police departments and that university presidents do the same with regard to campus police. What may seem at first glance like dreamy rhetoric that lacks the teeth to ensure real change is actually a toolkit for anyone ready to do the long-term work of running local or state-based advocacy campaigns.
Some such campaigns are active but unknown to people newer to organizing and activism. The collaborators behind this project want to change that by highlighting existing campaigns on the newly launched Movement 4 Black Lives website alongside the vision statement. More than two dozen black-led organizations, including Black Youth Project 100 (BYP100), the BlackOut Collective, the Center for Media Justice, the Million Hoodies Movement for Justice, and Southerners on New Ground, co-authored the vision statement through the year-long process, said Stahly-Butts, who is also a policy advocate at the Center for Popular Democracy. “Those of us who have been inside this movement have seen there’s work happening across the country,” she said. Together they set out to answer the question: “How do we amplify what’s already happening?”
Authors of the Vision for Black Lives say policy is just one of many necessary tactics. Protest, direct action, advancing conversations that critique norms around race, gender, and sexuality are all part of the movement’s work as well, said Thenjiwe McHarris, another member of the eight-person leadership team that guided the process. But articulating a set of demands then advocating for those demands to be met is critical too. Throughout their collaboration, the co-authors referred to earlier policy statements, such as the Black Radical Congress’s Freedom Agenda and the Black Panther Party’s 10-point platform in an effort to better understand similar black-led policy efforts that had come before.
“It builds on the legacy of the black radical tradition,” McHarris said of the document released today.
By DANI MCCLAIN
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Yet Another Subsidy for the Big Banks
But there’s a bigger risk-free payout the Fed makes to big banks, one set to rise exponentially as the economy improves...
But there’s a bigger risk-free payout the Fed makes to big banks, one set to rise exponentially as the economy improves. In fact, according to the Congressional Budget Office, hundreds of billions of dollars that would otherwise go into the federal Treasury will leak out to banks, including branches of foreign banks, in the coming years. If Congress needs to find money to pay for new programs, they could cancel the Fed’s recent practice of paying interest on bank reserves.
For nearly 100 years, the Federal Reserve managed the nation’s monetary policy without paying interest on reserves, including the 10 percent of the value of loanswhich banks are required by law to park at the Fed. But in 2006, Congress passed the Financial Services Regulatory Relief Act, authorizing interest payments. It was actually an old idea first promoted by conservative economist Milton Friedman.
Friedman thought that required reserves without compensation constituted a hidden tax on the financial industry. He also believed the strategy would make it easier for central banks to engage in monetary policy. If the Fed offered an interest rate on excess reserves just above the federal-funds rate (a.k.a. the rate banks use to lend to each other), then it makes more financial sense for banks to leave their money there. It sets a floor for the federal-funds rate, in other words, giving the Fed more control over its range. It also helps the Fed expand its balance sheet, critical to engaging in monetary interventions like quantitative easing.
Under the 2006 law, interest on reserves wasn’t supposed to kick in until 2011, but Congress moved up the date three years when it passed the law authorizing the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). The Fed set the interest rate on all reserves at a skinny 0.25 percent, which produces a small payout on required reserves. But excess reserves above the 10 percent requirement, which banks never left at the Fed until 2008, exploded as the Fed’s balance sheet expanded. From virtually nothing seven years ago, excess reserves hover around $3 trillion today.
Who owns these excess reserves? As the Cleveland Fed noted in a report last week, more than 80 percent come from the top 100 largest banks. U.S. branches of foreign banks, primarily from the European Union, have about $1 trillion in excess reserves parked at the Fed.
The Fed’s audited financial statement indicates that they have paid banks $25.2 billion in interest on reserves from 2008 to 2014. That number jumped from $2.1 billion in 2009 to $6.7 billion in 2014, a three-fold increase. The entire time, the interest rate has been the same: 0.25 percent. But that’s subject to change.
As the economy improves, the Fed is clearly angling to raise the federal-funds rate, which has been stuck around zero since 2008. Fed officials have already indicated they will accomplish this mostly through recalibrating interest on reserves. At theirSeptember 2014 policy meeting, Fed Chair Janet Yellen said the central bank would “move the federal-funds rate into the target range … primarily by adjusting the interest rate it pays on excess reserve balances.” While the interest rate on required reserves may stay constant, the Fed would raise the interest rate on excess reserves, allowing interbank lending only to rise so far.
In effect, interest on excess reserves is equivalent to the federal-funds rate. And the higher the interest rate goes, the more money banks make from the Fed. You can see this most clearly in Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projections of Fed remittances.
Any money the Fed makes on investments gets returned to the federal Treasury. And business has been good for the Fed of late. They remitted $99 billion in 2014 and a projected $102 billion this year. But CBO’s latest update predicts that number will fall drastically, to $76 billion in 2016, $40 billion in 2017, and just $17 billion in 2018. The lion’s share of the difference comes from the Fed paying out their earnings to banks, with higher interest on reserves as they hike rates.
While it’s hard to pinpoint the totals because the CBO doesn’t separate out interest on reserves, by marking the difference between 2015 and subsequent years we can estimate that the Fed could deliver anywhere from $20 billion to $50 billion a year to banks, risk-free. That’s an enormous amount of money, based on the claim that interest on reserves is somehow an indispensible strategy for monetary policy, even though the Fed thrived for 91 years without such a tool.
This shift in how monetary policy is conducted occurred with practically no debate. Fed officials are reportedly worried about the “optics” of their exit plan, with its unjust enrichment of the largest banks. But outside of a few libertarians, nobody has raised alarms yet.
One progressive group that’s challenged the Fed from the left was stunned to learn that, in addition to depressing the economy, an interest-rate hike would have a secondary effect as a silent bank bailout. “Clearly this is under-covered, because I haven’t heard about it,” said Ady Barkan with the Center for Popular Democracy, director of Fed Up, a grassroots organization pushing the central bank to adopt pro-worker policies. “But we shouldn’t be shocked. It is the rule that the Fed prioritizes helping banks, and has over the last seven years.”
There are other ways to control monetary policy besides interest on excess reserves, unless you believe that the Fed was impotent from 1917 to 2008. For instance, the Fed could reduce their balance sheet, rather than letting it contract through attrition, the current strategy. That would reduce the money supply, which shows what a pickle the Fed has gotten itself into with its expanded balance sheet. But the Minneapolis Fed, at least, downplayed the risks of gradual asset sales into a global market.
Another option is to hold off on raising rates, allowing the balance sheet to slowly contract and encouraging banks to recirculate excess reserves into the economy by creating favorable conditions for more profitable investments. “It’s incomprehensible to us to think that the economy is getting too healthy too quickly,” said Barkan of Fed Up.
Members of Congress, who created this mess by authorizing interest on reserves, could take it away too, and in so doing could create a large pay-for that could be transferred into productive projects. You could potentially fund an entire six-year highway bill simply by eliminating interest on reserves.
We don’t even know if the Fed’s rate-raising strategy will work without drawbacks, as it’s never been tested. But if “working” equals paying the largest banks hundreds of billions in unearned money, the Fed should figure out something else.
These Cities Aren’t Waiting for the Supreme Court to Decide Whether or Not to Gut Unions
These Cities Aren’t Waiting for the Supreme Court to Decide Whether or Not to Gut Unions
In the face of the Janus case, local elected officials across the country are renewing our efforts to help workers...
In the face of the Janus case, local elected officials across the country are renewing our efforts to help workers organize—in traditional ways, and in new ones. Brad Lander is a New York City Council Member from Brooklyn and the chairman of the board of Local Progress, a national association of progressive municipal elected officials. Helen Gym is a Councilmember At Large from Philadelphia and Vice-Chair of Local Progress, a national network of progressive elected officials.
Read the full article here.
NYC pagará por abogados en casos de deportación
El Diario - July 18, 2013, by Claudia Torrens - Nueva York se prepara para dar otro paso en su tradición de ayuda a...
El Diario - July 18, 2013, by Claudia Torrens - Nueva York se prepara para dar otro paso en su tradición de ayuda a inmigrantes: planea pagar los abogados de oficio que necesitan cuando se encuentran en una corte de inmigración y enfrentan la deportación.
Algunos inmigrantes con o sin papeles en la ciudad que enfrenten la expulsión de Estados Unidos podrán a partir de finales de este año o el 2014 presentarse frente al juez de inmigración con un abogado de oficio pagado con fondos municipales, reduciendo así sus posibilidades de ser deportados porque ya no estarán solos en la corte. Activistas, un magistrado federal y funcionarios locales planean anunciar el viernes que la ciudad ha destinado $500,000 a financiar un programa piloto que ofrecerá representación legal a inmigrantes.
Brittny Saunders, de la organización Center for Popular Democracy, dijo a The Associated Press que esta es la primera vez que un programa así se implementa en una municipalidad de Estados Unidos.
"La intención que tenemos a través de este programa piloto es lograr información sobre los beneficios que la representación legal supone tanto para un individuo en detención y enfrentando la deportación como para su familia, su comunidad y la ciudad entera", dijo Saunders. "Esperamos que este programa sea un modelo para otras comunidades alrededor del país".
Inmigrantes que acaban en las cortes de inmigración y que enfrentaban la deportación no tienen derecho a ser defendidos por un abogado de oficio. Pueden contratar a un abogado privado pero muchos inmigrantes no tienen el dinero para pagar por ese servicio. Es por ese motivo que la ciudad, varios activistas y un juez federal interesado en el tema llamado Robert Kaztmann han unido esfuerzos para ofrecer ayuda a inmigrantes en esta situación.
Saunders dijo que en el estado de Nueva York una media de 2,800 inmigrantes se encuentra anualmente en proceso de deportación sin acceso a asistencia legal.
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State of the Union 2015 Address Response: National Groups Respond to Obama on Immigration, Economy, Climate Change and Racial Inequality
Latin post - January 21, 2015, by Michael Oleaga - The National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (...
Latin post - January 21, 2015, by Michael Oleaga - The National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) welcomed Obama's efforts to improve the economy and education for Latinos, and all other Americans.
"These policies can allow more Latinos to rebound from the economic troubles experienced in recent years and pursue their piece of the American Dream, resulting in a more skilled work force and an expanded middle class that is able to 'do their fair share' and fully contribute to our nation's prosperity," added NALEO in a statement.
On immigration, NALEO said passing comprehensive immigration reform, which should include a pathway to citizenship, will help undocumented immigrants integrate with U.S. life and contribute to the growing economy and shrinking deficit.
"Action to bring immigrants who have played by the rules fully into our economy and democracy is not only the right thing to do, but also the smart thing to do," added NALEO. "Immigrants who learn English can on average quadruple their annual incomes, resulting in increased revenues at the state and federal level and a more skilled workforce that will reinforce our ability to prosper in the new global economy."
The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), the largest organization comprising of unions, commended the president for advocating for working families.
"The President's focus on raising wages through collective bargaining, better paying jobs, a fairer tax code, fair overtime rules, and expanded access to education and earned leave sent the right message at the right time," said AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka. "So did his embrace of union apprentices and immigrants who want to achieve the American Dream. The President has again demonstrated his strong commitment to creating an economy that truly works for all working people."
Trumka said income inequality remains one of the biggest challenges despite the world's wealth being in "the hands of a very few." He also said the time has come for Congress to address minimum wage.
On climate change, 350.org, an organization which address the issue and opponent of the Keystone XL pipeline, gave their support for the president.
"He said we need to think beyond a single pipeline, and made a strong case for developing sustainable, clean energy sources like wind and solar," said 350.org Executive Director May Boeve. "The President is clearly beginning to think about his climate legacy, and he clearly understands that it depends on rejecting Keystone XL."
Boeve said this year's State of the Union address was a vast improvement compared to previous speeches, specifically the 2011 address which had no mention of climate change. She acknowledged climate change was addressed among a few paragraphs and attributed to last September's People's Climate March for increasing awareness of the issue.
Center for Popular Democracy Co-Executive Director Ana Maria Archila applauded Obama's progress but said a "range of daunting crises" still exists for U.S. workers, communities of color and immigrants. Archila noted the crises include climate change, racial injustice, and immigrant and workers' rights.
"The president's speech barely addressed racial inequalities and the discriminatory policing that threatens far too many communities of color," said Archila. "The president was right to point out 'different takes on Ferguson and New York,' but families of color who wonder if they, and their children, are safe when crossing paths with the police need stronger national leadership to confront police impunity."
Archila recognized Obama's emphasis for a higher federal minimum wage, child care, and paid sick leave for working families. She added that full-time workers should not be stuck in poverty or encounter the inhumane choice between a paycheck and caring for their family.
"We commend the president for speaking from the right place and with the right intentions. We will continue to fight to build an innovative, pro-worker, pro-immigrant, racial and economic agenda. The work ahead of us is real, and we are moving forward," said Archila.
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Stringer nails contractor who stole $1.7 million from immigrant workers
Stringer nails contractor who stole $1.7 million from immigrant workers
After getting away with stealing money from his immigrant employees’ paychecks for years, a major contractor who worked...
After getting away with stealing money from his immigrant employees’ paychecks for years, a major contractor who worked city projects across the five boroughs was slapped on Monday with a $3.2 million fine and barred from doing business with the city and state for five years.
A six-year investigation carried out by the New York City Comptroller’s Office used undercover video, subpoenas, union records and a city agency paper trail to uncover the kickback scheme, Comptroller Scott Stringer said in a statement on Monday.
Stringer said K.S. Contracting Corporation and its owner, Paresh Shah, cheated dozens of immigrant workers out of their pay and benefits.
Shah told the city he was paying his workers the prevailing wages required under the New York State Labor Law. In reality, however, only about half of the workers received paychecks. Those who did were required to cash the checks and then surrender the money to company supervisors. Those supervisors would take a cut and then redistribute the leftover cash to employees , including those who did not receive paychecks, paying them at rates significantly below prevailing wages.
Before getting their money, many of the workers were required to sign a paper stating that they were, in fact, being paid the prevailing wage.
One supervisor was surreptitiously filmed in the act of counting workers’ surrendered cash in the front seat of his car. (See video at brooklyneagle.com.)
K.S. Contracting reported that it paid its workers combined wage and benefit rates starting at $50 per hour (or roughly $400 a day plus benefits) but actually paid daily cash salaries starting at just $90 per day and going, in some cases, as high as $200.
Part of the paper trail the Comptroller’s Office investigators uncovered in building a case against K.S. Contracting Corporation. Photo courtesy of the Office of the ComptrollerPart of the paper trail the Comptroller’s Office investigators uncovered in building a case against K.S. Contracting Corporation. Photo courtesy of the Office of the Comptroller
Between August 2008 and November 2011, the company cheated at least 36 workers out of $1.7 million in wages and benefits on seven New York City public works projects. The majority of the workers were immigrants of Latino, South Asian, or West Indian descent.
Stringer said that the need to stand up for immigrants was especially important in the time of President Trump.
“Contractors might think they can take advantage of immigrants, but today we’re sending a strong message: my office will fight for every worker in New York City,” he said.
The brazen scheme had gone on for years; an employee first filed a complaint with the office in May 2010.
K.S. Contracting was named as one of the worst wage theft violators in New York in a report by the Center for Popular Democracy in 2015. The full details of what was going on came out at a four-day administrative trial in May 2016.
The company, incorporated in New Jersey, was awarded more than $21 million in contracts by the city’s Departments of Design and Construction, Parks and Recreation and Sanitation between 2007 and 2010. Projects included the District 15 Sanitation Garage and the Barbara S. Kleinman Men’s Residence in Brooklyn, the Morrisania Health Center in the Bronx, the 122 Community Center in Manhattan, the North Infirmary Command Building on Rikers Island, Bronx River Park, and various city sidewalks in Queens.
K.S. Contracting is not the only contractor to rip off its immigrant employees. Since taking office in 2014, Comptroller Scott M. Stringer’s Bureau of Labor Law has assessed more than $20 million and barred 40 contractors from state and city contracts due to prevailing wage violations, according to the Comptroller’s Office.
A number of workers’ rights groups and immigrant organizations praised the comptroller’s investigation.
"At a time when exploitative employers are feeling increasingly emboldened by Trump’s hateful rhetoric, it is imperative that our city's leaders are taking a strong stance in defense of immigrant workers,” Deborah Axt, executive director of Make the Road New York, said in a statement.
“Too many employers in New York City exploit minority and immigrant workers. And it’s no secret that many immigrant workers are fearful of retaliation for standing up for their rights, especially in an environment where they are afraid of being deported,” said Lowell Barton, organizing director of Laborers Local 1010, LiUNA!
By Mary Frost
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How Janet Yellen Is Embracing The Fed’s Role In Racial Justice
How Janet Yellen Is Embracing The Fed’s Role In Racial Justice
Oh, what a difference a year can make. Last July, Federal Reserve chairwoman Janet Yellen endured criticism for House...
Oh, what a difference a year can make.
Last July, Federal Reserve chairwoman Janet Yellen endured criticism for House testimony in which she seemed to imply that there was little the Fed could do to address the disproportionately high African-American unemployment rate.
Not so on Tuesday. In her semi-annual testimony to the Senate Banking Committee, Yellen emphasized that the failure of the economic recovery to reach communities of color influences the Fed’s decision-making, and made a strong commitment to improving diversity at the central bank.
“Jobless rates have declined for all major demographic groups, including for African Americans and Hispanics,” Yellen said, according to her prepared remarks. “Despite these declines, however, it is troubling that unemployment rates for these minority groups remain higher than for the nation overall, and that the annual income of the median African-American household is still well below the median income of other U.S. households.”
Yellen’s policy argument has not fundamentally changed. It is the Fed’s job to maximize employment in the economy as the whole, she says, and it lacks the tools to target particular communities. And the Fed chief has clarified since last summer that she takes seriously how the Fed’s adjustment of interest rates can have an especially big impact on African Americans and Latinos, who have higher jobless rates.
But Yellen’s remarks and actions on Tuesday represent the Fed’s greatest demonstration yet that it is putting the concerns of communities of color front and center on its agenda.
The Fed Up campaign, a coalition of progressive groups that has led the push to make the Federal Reserve more responsive to workers in general, and communities of color in particular, was pleased with the focus of Yellen’s testimony.
“Each time since Yellen spoke last July, when she got pushback over what she said, she has gotten a little bit better,” said Jordan Haedtler, Fed Up’s campaign manager. “Now she is proactively showing that the Fed is assessing this data and does take this data into account.”
Diversity is an extremely important goal and I will do everything I can to further advance it.
This week’s hearings, held every six months in both chambers of Congress — the House will hold its hearing on Wednesday — are an opportunity for the Fed chair to update lawmakers about the overall state of the economy. As part of the briefing, the Fed releases an accompanying monetary policy report summarizing its economic assessment and research.
For the first time, the Fed chose to devote a section of its report to whether the “gains of the economic expansion [have] been widely shared.” That section focused on how the recovery affected different races and ethnicities differently.
The results are discouraging. Despite years of job growth, the rates of full-time work for African Americans and Latinos are a few percentage points lower than they were before the recession, while the rates among white and Asian-American workers have more or less reached pre-recession levels. And the median income of black households, which took the biggest hit of any group during the recession, has also been slower to recover, reaching only 88 percent of what it was in 2007, compared with about 94 percent for the other three groups.
Responding to a question about the new section from Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Yellen insisted that weighing the disparate impact of economic growth on a range of different groups is a key part of the Fed’s mission.
“There are very significant differences in success in the labor market across demographic groups,” she said. “It is important for us to be aware of those differences and to focus on them as we think about monetary policy and the broader work that the Federal Reserve does in the area of community development and trying to make sure that financial services are widely available to those that need it, including low- and moderate-income [households].”
Yellen also recognized the importance of diversity — of race, gender, professional background and ideology — within the Fed’s ranks in ensuring the bank remains sensitive to a broad array of Americans’ economic experiences.
She touted her creation of a task force in the Fed to improve its gender and ethnic diversity, but acknowledged there is more to be done.
“Diversity is an extremely important goal and I will do everything I can to further advance it,” Yellen said.
Progressive groups and their allies in Congress trying to make the Fed more accountable to the public have focused on increasing diversity and reducing Wall Street’s influence at the central bank. Eleven senators, including Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and 116 House members sent a letter to Yellen on May 12 urging her to prioritize the diversity of Fed officials, especially at the 12 regional Fed banks, which are privately owned. (Hillary Clinton expressed similar sentiments in a statement later that day.)
The makeup of the regional Fed bank boards is important because they are dominated by the big banks and have free reign to appoint their presidents. The regional Fed bank presidents hold five seats on the Federal Open Market Committee, the central bank panel that adjusts the benchmark interest rate. Currently, regional Fed presidents make up half of the FOMC’s influential votes.
As a result, the Fed officials with the power to raise interest rates and effectively increase unemployment are selected by people who are disproportionately white, male and from the finance and business sectors.
In the interests of changing that, the Fed Up campaign on Monday released a slate of 39 candidates for the regional Federal Reserve bank boards of directors. The candidates not only reflect racial and gender diversity, but also come exclusively from academic institutions, community groups and labor organizations.
“On racial and gender diversity there has been modest progress, though it has not taken place at the rate we would like to see,” Haedtler said. Haedtler added that there is even greater room for improvement when it comes to the diversity of professional backgrounds of board members and other top Fed officials, an area where he said there has been “regression” under Yellen’s watch.
By Daniel Marans
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Charter School Foes Slam Corbett for $30 million Loss, Call for Moratorium
New Pittsburgh Courier - October 2, 2014, by Christian Morrow - Protestors from Action United, supported by the Service...
New Pittsburgh Courier - October 2, 2014, by Christian Morrow - Protestors from Action United, supported by the Service Employees International Union, the Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers and the Pittsburgh Interfaith Impact Network rallied outside Gov. Tom Corbett’s Pittsburgh office this morning demanding a moratorium on charter school approvals and funding.
A companion rally was held in Philadelphia.
The call comes in the wake of a report compiled by Action United, Integrity in Education, and the Center for Popular Democracy that claims Pennsylvania charter schools have lost $30 million to fraud in the last 17 years.
“Pennsylvania children and families have been robbed by charter school operators to the tune of $30 million,” said Action United board member Ted Stones.
He urged Corbett to quit “expanding a broken system without the oversight and integrity our children deserve.”
The group then marched to the Urban Pathways charter school, which was selected because last November state Auditor General Eugene DePasquale asked the FBI to investigate allegations that the school misused thousands in funds on top-flight catering for board meetings, expensive restaurants, and board retreats to exclusive resorts.
The Pennsylvania Coalition of Public Schools issued a statement supporting investigations of charter school fraud, but said Action United’s report leaps to “sweeping conclusions about the entire charter school sector based on only 11 incidents over the course of almost 20 years.”
It ignores, the statement read, actual fraud and fiscal mismanagement in (public school) districts over the same time period “which dwarf the charter school allegations in terms of misuse of taxpayer funds.”
The report’s recommendations for achieving more transparency and accountability should be applied to all schools, the coalition said, otherwise it “would just be an example of pursuing a political agenda.”
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Former Fed Adviser, Activists Lay Out a Plan for Change at the Fed
Former Fed Adviser, Activists Lay Out a Plan for Change at the Fed
A former Federal Reserve adviser is joining with an activist group to argue for overhauls at the central bank that they...
A former Federal Reserve adviser is joining with an activist group to argue for overhauls at the central bank that they say would distance it from Wall Street and make its activities more transparent and accountable to the public.
Dartmouth College economics professor Andrew Levin—special adviser to Ben Bernanke and Janet Yellen between 2010 and 2012 when they were Fed chairman and vice chairwoman—is pressing for the overhaul with Fed Up coalition activists.
Dartmouth College economics professor Andrew Levin, special adviser to then Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke between 2010 to 2012, is pressing for the overhaul with Fed Up coalition activists. Many of the proposed changes target the 12 regional Federal Reserve Banks, which are quasi-private and technically owned by commercial banks in their respective districts.
“A lot of people would be stunned to know” the extent to which the Federal Reserve is privately owned, Mr. Levin said. The Fed “should be a fully public institution just like every other central bank” in the developed world, he said in a conference call announcing the plan. He described his proposals as “sensible, pragmatic and nonpartisan.”
The former central bank staffer said he sees his ideas as designed to maintain the virtues the central bank already brings to the table. They aren’t targeted at changing how policy is conducted today. “What’s important here is that reform to the Federal Reserve can last for 100 years, not just the near term,” he said.
That said, what is being sought by Mr. Levin and the activists is significant and would require congressional action. Ady Barkan, who leads the Fed Up campaign, said the Fed’s current structure “is an embarrassment to America” and Fed leaders haven’t been “willing or able” to make changes.
A Federal Reserve spokesman declined to address the proposal.
Mr. Levin wants the 12 regional Fed banks to be brought fully into the government. He also wants the process of selecting new bank presidents—they are key regulators and contributors in setting interest-rate policy—opened up more fully to public input, as well as term limits for Fed officials.
Mr. Levin’s proposal was made in conjunction with the Center for Popular Democracy’s Fed Up coalition, a group that has been pressuring the central bank for more accountability for some time. The left-leaning group has been critical of the structure of the regional banks, and has been pressing the Fed to hold off on raising rates in a bid to make sure the recovery is enjoyed not just by the wealthy, in their view.
The proposal was revealed on a conference call that also included a representative from Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign, although all campaigns were invited to participate.
Mr. Levin says the members of the regional Fed bank boards of directors, the majority of whom are selected by the private banks with the approval of the Washington-based governors, should be chosen differently. The professor says director slots now reserved for financial professionals regulated by the Fed should be eliminated, and that directors who oversee and advise the regional banks should be selected in a public process involving the Washington governors and local elected officials. These directors also should better represent the diversity of the U.S.
Mr. Levin also wants formal public input into the selection of new bank presidents, with candidates’ names known publicly and a process that allows for public comment in a way that doesn’t now exist. The professor also wants all Fed officials to serve for single seven-year terms, which would give them the needed distance from the political process while eliminating situations where some policy makers stay at the bank for decades. Alan Greenspan, for example, was Fed chairman from 1987 to 2006.
With multiple vacancies in recent years, the selection of regional bank presidents has become a hot-button issue. Currently, the leaders of the New York, Philadelphia, Dallas and Minneapolis Fed banks are helmed by men who formerly worked for or had close connections to investment bank Goldman Sachs.
Mr. Levin called for watchdog agency the Government Accountability Office to annually review and report on Fed operations, including the regional Fed banks. He also wants the regional Fed banks to be covered under the Freedom of Information Act. A regular annual review hopefully would insulate the effort from perceptions of political interference, Mr. Levin said.
By Michael S. Derby
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2 days ago
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