Democratic Lawmakers Say Fed Should Increase Its Diversity
Democratic Lawmakers Say Fed Should Increase Its Diversity
The predominantly white male composition of Federal Reserve leadership is facing criticism from Democratic elected...
The predominantly white male composition of Federal Reserve leadership is facing criticism from Democratic elected officials who believe the institution doesn’t adequately reflect the demographics of the nation it is meant to serve.
The legislators said in a letter to Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen on Thursday that central bank leaders also are drawn too frequently from business and financial backgrounds. The letter to Ms. Yellen received support from the leading Democratic candidate for the White House, Hillary Clinton.
Eleven senators and 116 members of the House of Representatives signed the letter, which was organized by Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Rep. John Conyers Jr. of Michigan. No Republicans participated, although they were given the opportunity to do so.
“Given the critical linkage between monetary policy and the experiences of hardworking Americans, the importance of ensuring that such positions are filled by persons that reflect and represent the interests of our diverse country, cannot be understated,” the letter said. “When the voices of women, African-Americans, Latinos, and representatives of consumers and labor are excluded from key discussions, their interests are too often neglected.”
While the Fed has made “some progress” on diversity issues, the central bank has “considerable work to do” to comply with its legal mandate to represent the interests and diversity of the American people, the letter said.
The Fed said in a statement that it “is committed to fostering diversity—by race, ethnicity, gender, and professional background—within its leadership ranks.” It added that when it comes to the members of the regional boards, “by law, we consider the interests of agriculture, commerce, industry, services, labor, and consumers. We also are aiming to increase ethnic and gender diversity.”
The Fed also cited a rise in both racial and gender diversity on the regional Fed boards, with 46% of all directors now meeting the label of “diverse.”
In February, Ms. Yellen also addressed the issue in testimony to Congress, saying officials in Washington are “constantly attentive in its oversight of the reserve banks to the issue of diversity of representation on those boards. And it has improved considerably.”
The legislators’ letter follows a report earlier in the year from the Center for Popular Democracy’s left-leaning Fed Up Coalition, which took a look at the Washington-based Fed governors, regional bank presidents and boards of directors overseeing the 12 regional banks. That report flagged the fact that even as the Fed is now led by a woman, three of five current governors are men, and all are white. Of the 12 regional Fed bank presidents, 11 are white, two are women, and one is Indian-American. The last black person to hold a top leadership role at the Fed was Roger Ferguson, a vice chairman who left in 2006.
Fed governors are nominated by the president and are subject to Senate approval. Regional Fed bank presidents are nominated by their local boards by members representing firms not regulated by the central bank, subject to the approval of the Fed board in Washington.
The Clinton campaign said the central bank is indeed ripe for change. “The Fed needs to be more representative of America as a whole,” it said in a statement, adding that “commonsense reforms—like getting bankers off the boards of regional Federal Reserve banks—are long overdue.”
Much of the criticism over Fed diversity centers on the make-up of the regional bank boards of directors, which are populated by members of the private sector and oversee the operations of the Fed banks.
The makeup of Fed bank president ranks has been criticized for other reasons as well. The leaders of the New York, Philadelphia, Dallas and Minneapolis branches have all worked for investment bank Goldman Sachs in some capacity.
The Federal Reserve in recent years has faced criticism from both sides of the political spectrum. Many on the right have been angered by the central bank’s aggressive stimulus actions and its role in bailouts of the financial system, and some have wanted to audit the central bank’s process for making monetary policy and force the Fed to set policy based on an explicit and simple rule.
On the left, some have said the Fed has pursued policies that have promoted income inequality and the interests of the financial sector. The low level of diversity has become a more prominent concern in recent months in part because of the report from the Fed Up Coalition.
Meanwhile, former Minneapolis Fed President Narayana Kocherlakota said in a blog post in January that a lack of black representation at the Fed appears to have left central bankers insufficiently attuned to the economic troubles of the African-American community.
The Fed has become an issue in the presidential campaign. Last week, presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump said he likely would replace Ms. Yellen if he were president. On the Democratic side, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont has long been a critic of the Fed.
By MICHAEL S. DERBY
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‘May You Die in Pain,’ Voter Tells GOP Lawmaker
An angry voter had harsh words for Rep. Doug LaMalfa, R-Calif., at a town hall meeting on Monday: "May you die in pain...
An angry voter had harsh words for Rep. Doug LaMalfa, R-Calif., at a town hall meeting on Monday: "May you die in pain," the voter said, scolding the California Republican for his support of a House GOP plan to repeal Obamacare.
The biting remark from the elderly constituent, who was holding a sign that read "Lackey for the Rich!" was one of several intense moments from a passionate group of about 400 residents during the gathering in Chico, according to The Los Angeles Times.
Read the full article here.
For the undocumented, life looks different outside a sanctuary city
For the undocumented, life looks different outside a sanctuary city
The marker between two territories is not just a line on a map. Norma Casimiro knows this all too well. Seventeen...
The marker between two territories is not just a line on a map. Norma Casimiro knows this all too well. Seventeen years ago, she left her home state of Morelos, Mexico, with a young son. Since then, she has lived in Westbury, New York, a suburban town in Nassau County with a population of just over 15,000. She lives in a studio in a sublet single-family home with her husband, who is also undocumented, and their eight-year-old daughter who was born in the United States.
Now, in the aftermath of the presidential election, Casimiro is anxious. Westbury is 11 miles from Queens, which means 11 miles from the protections that a so-called "sanctuary city" offers undocumented immigrants.
"We’ve never really considered moving to the city because we have jobs here and we feel as if we’re a part of the community," Casimiro said. "But it does sometimes cross our minds because of what could happen after January 20."
She knows that New York City would provide better public services for her and her family. "You can feel safer over there," she said, "especially after I heard Mayor (Bill) De Blasio say he would defend all New Yorkers, regardless of their immigration situation."
Living in the middle-class suburbs comes with a number of everyday difficulties, like limited transportation, scant social programs and high cost of living. Now, Casimiro feels even more vulnerable, anxious over the president-elect’s campaign threat to deport millions of undocumented immigrants. She also lives in fear that Trump’s anti-immigration policies may leave her son without the benefits of DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals), a type of administrative relief from deportation created during the Obama administration.
Since the election, she's perceived a change in the way people in the community look at her. "I have noticed some disapproving looks that left me with a bad taste," she said. "In Westbury, there are more Latinos than in other parts of the island and you feel safer. But I still feel afraid of going to some stores alone."
She and her family know that Westbury law enforcement has collaborated with the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the past. That's why the family generally avoids any type of conflict and rarely goes out at night.
Once, Casimiro had an incident while cleaning a house in the area, which left her shaken.
“I was taking the trash out ... and the alarm went off in the neighbor’s home," she said. "The police cornered me and asked me lots of questions. They asked for my ID. I wish I had one of those IDs they give out in New York. I told them I didn’t have it on me because the owner had brought me in her car. Luckily, the babysitter, who speaks good English, came and intervened on my behalf."
In 2014, the Nassau Sheriff’s Department ceased cooperation with ICE and stopped holding immigrants in jail for longer than allowed by law. The Sheriff’s Department also adopted a set of recommendations, such as that agents not ask anyone about their immigration status.
The organization Make The Road New York explains the difference between living in a city or the suburbs. "The very structure of a city offers more protection because of the existence of public transportation, a more dense population and lots of diversity," organizer Natalia Aristizabal said. "The mere fact of being surrounded by neighbors in an apartment building makes people feel safer than living in an isolated house."
New York City offers access to social programs and diverse community centers. A policy, passed last year, states that municipal IDs can be used as official identification and to open bank accounts. There are also a number of reliable lawyers for low-income people at risk of being deported.
Legislation also exists in New York that prohibits the Department of Corrections from sharing information about any prisoner with ICE before sentencing. Nor can other law enforcement agencies provide the federal government with any information about the immigration status of New Yorkers.
These protections disappear outside the boundaries of the five boroughs. And Long Island’s geography does not help. Immigrants usually own a car because of the lack of public transport, but driving without a license creates risk. "The racial profiling techniques used in the past to intercept a Latino in a vehicle and automatically report their immigration status are well known," said Walter Barrientos, the lead organizer for Make the Road New York in Long Island. "In some places, measures have been taken to control these actions, but not so much in Nassau."
Scattered infrastructure and lack of diversity facilitate more discrimination. "This isn’t Manhattan," Barrientos said. "It’s really easy to see who does and who doesn’t have papers here. It’s those who drive old cars or are walking towards the train station."
Nassau’s Police Department reported 32 hate crimes in 2015. The department also reports an uptick in these types of attacks since the election. "Over the last few months, our people have clearly seen how there are people who are incorrigible when it comes to expressing who they do not want in their neighborhoods," Barrientos said.
In Nassau, legal advice for immigrants is almost non-existent. So it's difficult to explain, for instance, that pleading guilty to a traffic violation could affect an immigration process. "Any problem with the justice system opens a door to deportation. This is the biggest fear of our community: that Trump’s promise to deport all immigrants with a criminal history may come true."
Ana Maria Archila, co-executive director of the Center for Popular Democracy, said it is important now to find creative ways to defend people against a Trump administration that "seeks to fulfill their promise of harassing immigrants." This includes establishing a network of allies within the community who are "willing to turn their homes into 'sanctuaries' where people can stay and feel safe," she said.
In the meantime, Norma Casimiro waits. In nearly 20 years of living in the United States, she has never felt so insecure about her future and the future of her children. "All we can do is fight so that our voices are heard," she said. "And hope that someday we will enjoy the same protections as those in New York City."
By María F. Blanco
Source
City Municipal ID Cards Could Boost Immigrant Business
Crain's New York Business - July 8, 2014, by Chris Bragg - An initiative creating an identification card for New York...
Crain's New York Business - July 8, 2014, by Chris Bragg - An initiative creating an identification card for New York City residents could allow hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants to open bank accounts, where identification is required. That is just one way the law could boost the city's economy, according to advocates for the card, though thorny security concerns for the city remain unresolved.
Aimed at making life easier for the city's half-million undocumented immigrants, the bill to create a municipal identification card was passed by the City Council last month, and Mayor Bill de Blasio is expected to sign it. A secondary impact could be boosting immigrants' spending and entrepreneurship, say advocates.
"The multiplier effect of the municipal ID is going to be huge because of the financial empowerment aspect," said Steven Choi, executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition. "People who don't have IDs or a bank account can't participate in the financial system."
Applicants for the cards, which the city is expected to begin issuing in late 2014 or early 2015, will have to prove their identities with birth certificates or passports from any country. They will also have to prove their city residency with documents such as utility bills or pay stubs.
The cards will include a person's name, picture, address and date of birth. But questions remain whether that will be enough for banks, which have security concerns and have not yet publicly committed to accepting the IDs. For one, undocumented immigrants do not have Social Security numbers.
Mr. Choi believes these immigrants could apply for Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers (ITINs), a tax-processing number for which foreign workers can apply. Banks currently have inconsistent polices on whether to accept ITINs in lieu of Social Security numbers, but Mr. Choi thinks that having the city government's full weight behind the initiative will prod the institutions to accept them.
Banks have concerns about the cards being secure enough, and fear that accounts could be used for money laundering. Whether or not banks large and small decide to accept the ID cards will likely rest on the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and state Department of Financial Services giving their sign-offs, according to Brian Blake, vice president of Spring Bank, a community lender that focuses primarily on low-income and underserved neighborhoods.
"There are a lot of banks that have flexibility above the minimum requirements to open an account, and below that minimum there's no flexibility," Mr. Blake said. "We try to be as open-minded as possible, as far as the regulators allow."
Although the City Council overwhelmingly passed the bill, the measure faced opposition from the chamber's three Republican members, who cited security concerns. Republicans in Albany are set to make the cards a campaign issue in the 2014 election, saying they legitimize immigrants who are here illegally and create the potential for fraud and abuse.
Another key question is whether a broad swath of New Yorkers—not just undocumented immigrants—will apply for the municipal ID cards. Advocates say that for immigrants to avoid being stigmatized, card ownership must extend beyond those living here illegally.
To that end, the city is planning on putting benefits such as discounts to museums on the cards.
That could encourage a whole new population to take in New York's cultural institutions—including both undocumented immigrants and citizens—although the details have yet to be worked out. Cities that have passed municipal ID laws, such as San Francisco, Los Angeles and New Haven, Conn., have employed these incentives.
Signing leasesThe cards are also intended to ease holders' abilities to sign leases and give them access to government buildings, which often require identification, said Andrew Friedman, co-executive director of the Center for Popular Democracy, a New York-based group that released a study on the impact of similar laws around the country.
That could make it easier for entrepreneurial immigrants to deal with regulators and other gatekeepers of the area's economy.
"For immigrant-owned small businesses and vendors seeking to open and get a license, it makes a huge difference," Mr. Friedman said.
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The Heartland Wants More New Americans
In 2016, over 970,000 people applied for U.S. citizenship—the highest point point in two decades. That was 24 percent...
In 2016, over 970,000 people applied for U.S. citizenship—the highest point point in two decades. That was 24 percent higher than 2015, and 9.2 percent more than 2012, when the last presidential election was held.
Read the full article here.
‘School Choice’ Mantra Masks the Harm of Siphoning Funds from Public Education
Ask an education “reform” proponent about any issue facing public education and the answer is always the same: “school...
Ask an education “reform” proponent about any issue facing public education and the answer is always the same: “school choice.” Whether they’re championing charter schools, vouchers or Education Savings Accounts (ESAs), advocates prefer to frame the debate around the right of parents to send their child to a better-performing school. This is merely a smokescreen to divert attention away from what school choice is really about: the transfer of public money to the private sector without accountability or transparency.
Many school choice campaigns are bankrolled by a faction of incredibly wealthy conservative donors and political groups, including the Koch Brothers and the American Legislative Exchange Council (better known as ALEC). Their agenda is clear: dismantle public education.
But it’s a safe bet you won’t hear their names during National School Choice Week (Jan 25-30). What you will hear is a lot of people parroting messages about “freedom,” “innovation,” “options,” even “civil rights” – buzzwords that underpin the campaigns to expand charter schools, vouchers and ESAs across the country. But the jargon masks the devastating impact these policies have had on public education, particularly on those students who are supposed to benefit the most.
Unaccountable Charter Schools: The Truth Hurts
Many people support the idea behind charter schools, but how many are aware of the mounting troubles the charter industry has experienced lately? Probably not enough. Proponents work very, very hard to maintain a facade of success and transparency in the face of evidence that many of these schools operate without any oversight, while wasting taxpayer money and fostering inequity and racial segregation.
Take the North Carolina State Board of Education, which just this month rejected the Department of Public Instruction’s annual report on charter schools as “too negative.” Dominated by school privatization stalwarts, the board is determined to prevent any meaningful oversight of the state’s charters and demanded revisions to the report before it could be submitted to the legislature.
North Carolina educator Stuart Egan took the board to task in an open letter to Lt. Governor and board member Dan Forrest: “Overall, charter schools seem to lack diversity and operate under a different set of rules according to the report you are trying to squelch. The fact is that many of the charter schools you have enabled are perpetuating segregation and are not accomplishing what you advertised they would do,” Egan wrote.
Given the magnitude of waste and fraud in the sector, it’s unsurprising why many charter operators are hiding from accountability and regulation. And according to a new study, the expansion of unregulated charter schools, particularly in urban communities, is beginning to resemble the effort a decade ago to pump up bad mortgages that eventually blew up the economy.
“Supporters of charter schools are using their popularity in Black, urban communities to push for states to remove their charter cap restrictions and to allow multiple authorizers,” Preston Green III of the University of Connecticut and co-author of “Are We Heading Toward a Charter School ‘Bubble’?: Lessons from the Subprime Mortgage Crisis” told EduShyster. “At the same time, private investors are lobbying states to change their rules to encourage charter school growth. The combination of multiple authorizers and a lack of oversight is creating an abundance of poor-performing schools in low-income communities.”
Vouchers: Who Is Really Benefitting?
According to the 2015 PDK/Gallup poll, a whopping 70 percent of Americans oppose school vouchers. They see it for what it is: a privatization scheme that subsidizes tuition for students in private schools. And perhaps they are aware that there is no conclusive evidence that vouchers improve student achievement. The public is also not fooled by the often-repeated falsehood that vouchers are primarily benefitting disadvantaged students.
In Scott Walker’s Wisconsin and Mike Pence’s Indiana, where vouchers have expanded dramatically, promises that the programs would serve low-income students in failing schools didn’t last. “That tale quickly and methodically changed,” said Teresa Meredith, president of the Indiana State Teachers Association. By 2015, only 2 percent of participants [in the voucher program] had attended an ‘F’ public school.
“The most expansive voucher program in America has become an entitlement program which, in large part, now benefits middle class families who always intended to send their children to private (mostly religious) schools and taxpayers are footing the growing bill,” Meredith said.
Education Savings Accounts (or Vouchers on Steroids)
In 2015, Nevada lawmakers were hoping to blaze a new trail for school choice with a new gambit, education savings accounts (ESA), which allow parents to claim more than $5,000 in state funds each year and use it for any qualified education expense. This includes religious-based private schools, but also a variety of other services, all with little or no oversight over student outcomes. In addition, states impose no quality controls on the textbooks, curriculum, tutoring, or supplemental materials that parents can purchase with ESA funds.
Education savings accounts exist in five states, but Nevada became the first to pass a bill that offered them to every public school student regardless of family income. Very few private schools in the state, however, have tuition low enough to be covered by the $5,100 or $5,700 provided annually by ESAs. Wealthier parents can supplement their own income to pay for the tuition, but for lower-income families private school will remain largely out-of-reach.
Earlier this month, a state judge slapped an injunction on the program. In his ruling, District Judge James Wilson said the law diverted public funds to pay for private school tuition and was therefore unconstitutional. The decision will be appealed because advocates have vested a lot in the scheme. ESAs are unquestionably the new school choice battleground and are being pushed in a growing number of states with proponents deploying the usual tropes about “freedom” and “flexibility” to mask their real impact: erosion of public school funding, fewer education resources, wider achievement gaps and increased segregation.
Real Innovation That Works
The good news is that a growing number of communities are finding solutions to struggling schools and achievement gaps that benefit all students, not just some. Educators and parents are working together to expand the community schools model, which is currently present in nearly 5,000 schools nationwide. When public schools extend services and programs beyond the school day, creating strong learning cultures and safe and supportive environments for both students and educators—in effect becoming community “hubs” – student outcomes improve. In 2015, Minnesota educators were instrumental in persuading the legislature to pass a bill creating a grant program for “Full-Service” Community Schools and other states may soon follow suit. To learn more about community schools, read “Investing in What Works” by the Southern Education Foundation and the Annenberg Institute for School Reform.
Source: NEA Today
A Blow to Voting Rights in Illinois
Last week, Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner rejected bipartisan legislation that would set up a system of Automatic Voter...
Last week, Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner rejected bipartisan legislation that would set up a system of Automatic Voter Registration and make it easier for millions of Illinois residents to exercise their right to vote.
It is disappointing that Gov. Rauner would stand in the way of such visionary reform, especially when the need to protect voting rights is front and center in the national consciousness. Court decisions in the past month from North Carolina to Kansas have rolled back laws that put unnecessary and discriminatory restrictions on the right to vote. These decisions specifically called out lawmakers for leaning on illusory claims of voter fraud to support voter IDs and other discriminatory obstacles to voting, obstacles that disproportionately hurt communities of color.
Rauner used the same misleading arguments to justify blocking the law, singling out the possibility of non-citizen voting – even though voter fraud by citizens and non-citizens alike is miniscule, in Illinois and elsewhere. But Rauner ignored that fact, instead tapping into a dangerous national narrative used to spread fear and hatred against immigrants and other minority groups.
Automatic voter registration, in fact, makes registration more secure and more accurate. Voter restrictions, not the phantom menace of voter fraud, are the real threats to our democracy.
We hoped that Gov. Rauner would reject such specious claims and put himself on the side of more access to voter registration, not less.
Rauner’s veto comes just days after a lawsuit was filed to try to block the state’s 2015 same-day voter registration law from going into effect this November. Like automatic voter registration, same-day registration reduces unnecessary barriers to registration so that all eligible voters can make their voices heard. The attack on same-day registration resembles recent efforts to suppress voter registration and turnout in other states.
Now, with this one-two punch, Illinois’s democracy could take a hit, closing off viable paths to the polls for many of its citizens.
Rather than maintaining unnecessary barriers, lawmakers should be expanding access to the franchise. After all, we have seen what happens without such proactive efforts. In the past few years, 17 states enacted new laws restricting the right to vote, emboldened by a 2013 Supreme Court decision that gutted decades-old protections against discriminatory voting rules.
Until this veto, Illinois was set to go down a different path. A majority of Illinois lawmakers, Democrats and Republicans, came together to strengthen our democracy. They supported a commonsense law that would simply add eligible citizens to the rolls by default when they sign up for a driver’s license or change their address – while including safeguards to ensure only eligible voters could be signed up and an option for residents to opt out of registration. The Illinois law would sweep aside barriers to registration that have disproportionately hit communities of color, young people and low-income communities for far too long.
In passing the law, the Illinois General Assembly followed in the footsteps of four other states who have passed automatic voter registration: Oregon, West Virginia, Vermont and California. And with automatic voter registration under consideration in a slew of states across the country, the Illinois law could serve as a model for other states to follow.
However, this veto doesn’t mean we should sit back and accept defeat. The right to vote—and a fair, efficient, and modern registration system that allows everyone to access that right—is too important for all of us not to fight for.
Later this year, the Illinois General Assembly will consider overriding the veto in a special session. We urge Illinois lawmakers from both sides of the aisle to once again stand up and ensure automatic voter registration goes into law.
Yet the message Gov. Rauner sent with his veto will not go unheard. He has put himself firmly on the side of those seeking to weaken voting rights, rather than strengthen them.
We hope the Illinois lawmakers who worked hard to pass this important legislation will vote in a different direction this fall. With the stakes high, it is critical Illinois ensures all eligible citizens can exercise their right to vote.
By Lawrence Benito and Emma Greenman
Source
Bad deals with Wall Street are costing the city as much as $1 billion a year
NY Daily News - December 2, 2013, by Phyllis Furman - Coalition urges city to change its relationship with banks as a...
NY Daily News - December 2, 2013, by Phyllis Furman - Coalition urges city to change its relationship with banks as a way to address income inequality.
Wall Street has put the squeeze on the city to the tune of $1 billion, a report due out Tuesday claims.
As much as $723 million worth of unnecessary fees and bad deals, coupled with $300 million in bank subsidies should be rejiggered, says a study from a new left-leaning coalition called New Day, New York Coalition.
"New York City could be saving $1 billion annually just by changing the way it does business with Wall Street," one of the report's authors, Connie Razza, director of strategic research initiatives at the Center for Popular Democracy, told the Daily News.
The study, dubbed "Leveraging New York's Financial Power to Combat Inequality," kicks off a week of events organized by the group, culminating in a rally set for Thursday at Foley Square.
The coalition, whose members include veterans of Occupy Wall Street, labor unions such as 1199SEIU, and faith organizations, says its goal is to "draw attention to the ways Wall Street and big corporations continue to siphon resources away from average New Yorkers and point toward solutions that would help reduce inequality and build economic fairness."
Mirroring a key campaign theme of Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio, the report notes the huge disparity between the city's haves and have-nots, with the 1% controlling a whopping 40% of the city's income.
The city and its pension funds have tremendous leverage that can be used to bridge the gap, the study says: $350 billion that travels through the financial system.
"We should be using that leverage to demand a different relationship" with Wall Street, Razza said.
Among the key findings: the city, its pension funds and the MTA pay $563 million in Wall Street fees each year.
Rather than pay out megabucks to Wall Street big shots, the city should set up an in-house group to manage its pension assets and bond offerings, the report recommends.
That suggestion comes on the heels of a recent city report that showed fees paid by New York City pension funds surged by 28% to $472.5 million in the year ended June 30.
The idea of bringing the management of the city's money in-house isn't new.
New York's former chief investment officer, Larry Schloss, recommended just that before he recently stepped down. A number of public pension funds in Canada, including Ontario's $126 billion teachers' pension fund, have already moved in that direction.
But achieving that goal here is a long shot, said Leo Kolivakis, publisher of Pension Pulse Blog.
"Attracting and retaining qualified managers to manage money in-house is a huge challenge," Kolivakis told the News.
Patrick Muncie, a spokesman for Mayor Bloomberg, noted the financial services industry's crucial contributions to the local economy.
"The financial services sector is a critical driver of New York City's economy, providing more than 400,000 jobs and generating $3 billion in tax revenue last year alone," he said.
A spokesman for outgoing New York City Comptroller John Liu said the report encapsulates many of the comptroller's efforts, including "better and more cost-effective in-house management of pension assets."
The report "effectively and succinctly aggregates the real underlying issues of deepening inequality," Liu said in a statement.
Reps for de Blasio and incoming New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer, declined to comment.
Other recommendations of the report include holding banks to firm commitments to improve the community in exchange for the $300 million a year they receive in subsidies.
pfurman@nydailynews.com
What they want:
*Renegotiate financial deals to save up to $725 million each year
*Hold banks to commitments in exchange for $300 million in subsidies
*Banks should write down underwater mortgages to keep 86,000 families in their homes
SourceLa campaña anti-Trump señala a empresas que apoyan su política
La protesta popular contra las políticas antiinmigrantes y antitrabajadores de Donald Trump se amplía y desde ayer ha...
La protesta popular contra las políticas antiinmigrantes y antitrabajadores de Donald Trump se amplía y desde ayer ha empezado a tener en su objetivo a empresas que hacen posible su agenda con sus inversiones o alineándose con la Administración.
El Center for Popular Democracy y Make the Road New York han lanzado una campaña contra nueve empresas entre las que están JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Disney, Goldman Sachs, IBM, Uber, Blackstone y Boeing. Algunas están en la lista por hacer donaciones a la inauguración de la actual presidencia o estrechar relaciones con la Administración. Otras por ser inversores en las empresas que construyen y operan cárceles privadas para inmigrantes.
Lea el artículo completo aquí.
As the Stock Market Swings
Yet it’s hard to escape a vague sense of unease. The swoon that began a week before last was quickly attributed, at...
Yet it’s hard to escape a vague sense of unease. The swoon that began a week before last was quickly attributed, at least in part, to China’s economic problems. Just as quickly, many investors and policy makers concluded that China’s leaders would manage those problems in ways that would allow the global economy to chug along. But what if they don’t? A prolonged slowdown is more likely to provoke social unrest in China than in other developed economies, because stability there has been based on high growth rather than political and other institutional arrangements. The prospect of social unrest, in turn, raises economic and national-security concerns not raised by economic crises elsewhere.
Closer to home, market volatility has significantly reduced the odds that the Federal Reserve will begin to raise interest rates at its next meeting in mid-September. A delay is nothing to lament, because the still significant slack in the labor market would make an increase this year premature. The Fed has generally played down the potential impact of China and other international headwinds, while asserting that the negative effects of low oil prices and a strong dollar were likely to be temporary. But these forces are proving potent and long lasting — further reason to give the Fed pause.
Renewed stock market downdrafts could disrupt the economy, and the Fed’s plans, in other ways. The recovery in housing is an important gauge of economic health. But this year, the big increases in sales and prices have come at the high end of the market, where investment wealth is assumed to be more of a factor in the decision to buy than wages and salary. The very real possibility is that if the stock market falters again, so too will the housing market.
Economic fundamentals today are no different than they were before the market took a walk on the wild side. Inflation is well below the Fed’s target of 2 percent. Unemployment is still higher than it was before the last recession and wages have shown no signs of rising. The economy is being propelled forward by consumers and other advantages, and being held back by insufficient government spending and other disadvantages.
It all works out to an economy growing at 2.5 percent. At that modest pace, the United States cannot be of much help if other economies falter. But it can rebound from a market swoon, at least for now.
Source: New York Times
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