38 Triangle area leaders now urge ‘No’ vote on all 6 constitutional amendments
38 Triangle area leaders now urge ‘No’ vote on all 6 constitutional amendments
More than three dozen Triangle area mayors and council members now publicly oppose six constitutional amendments on the...
More than three dozen Triangle area mayors and council members now publicly oppose six constitutional amendments on the ballot Nov. 6. Thirty-eight leaders from Apex, Carrboro, Chapel Hill, Durham, Garner, Hillsborough, Holly Springs, Morrisville, Raleigh, Chatham County, Orange County and Wake County governments have signed a letter criticizing the amendments’ “potentially damaging impact.” The letter was released Thursday by Local Progress and Common Cause NC.”
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Want to combat inequality? Look to the Fed.
Undermining the central bank's responsibility to promote maximum employment would be a mistake....
Undermining the central bank's responsibility to promote maximum employment would be a mistake.
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Who’s running our schools anyway?
After reading about Gov. Walker’s plan to close some Green Bay public schools and replace them with charters, I’m...
After reading about Gov. Walker’s plan to close some Green Bay public schools and replace them with charters, I’m beginning to believe the takeover of our public schools by big business and legislators like Walker is proceeding very well.
They say our public schools are failing. That’s not fully true. Some are, but it’s because of poverty. We don’t fund them adequately to overcome student poverty-related problems.
No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, and Common Core were composed and implemented by Bill Gates and other member of the 1 percent without input from parents, teachers of early childhood students and early education experts.
The educational expectations, of especially very young children, are causing children great stress, enough to make them throw up, cry and get sick. The standardized testing by Pearson (a British multinational corporation) is a hoax. It has no background in education or teaching children. Its record of mistakes in the test questions, correcting tests, and delivering them on time is dismal.
I remember in the ’70s standardized testing was dropped all over the country because the tests were considered an inaccurate method of measuring the whole learning process. They basically measure memorization. Now they’re back and they’re quick, inaccurate and expensive.
The complaint of parents, teachers, children and administrators are growing louder because of excessive homework. Health care professionals are saying the stress of overburdening students causing sleeping problems is unhealthy. The curriculum being used now relies on demand-and-push as a method of teaching. I call it abusive because that method doesn’t respect the personhood of the student who becomes a yes person, not a creator.
In my teaching experience, I found children love to learn if they are presented with material they are mentally, physically and developmentally ready for.
We had a school in De Pere called the Wisconsin International School. It left with very little notice to parents and children. Teachers were out paychecks. A friend lost nearly $1,000 she paid as a retainer fee for the next year. They are suing but to little avail.
A year ago, the Center for Popular Democracy issued a report demonstrating “charter schools in 15 states ... had experienced over $100 million in reported fraud, waste, abuse and mismanagement. Now there are millions of new alleged and confirmed cases of financial waste, fraud, and mismanagement reported.”
But we don’t yet have the necessary law to protect us from dishonesty in charter schools. How come?
Sen. Dave Hansen said, “Wisconsin taxpayers cannot afford to pay for two systems, much less a system of private schools that are not held accountable for providing their students quality education.”
We need our public schools to care for all our students. Finland, a world leader in education, manages it with great success.
Peggy Burns of Green Bay has a bachelor’s degree in kindergarten-primary education, a master’s degree in elementary eduction and 24 graduate credits in early childhood/educational exceptional needs.
Source: Green Bay Press Gazette
Former Yellen Adviser Proposes Sweeping Reform of Fed System
A former aide to Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen has broken ranks with his former employer and issued a blueprint...
A former aide to Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen has broken ranks with his former employer and issued a blueprint for a sweeping reform of the U.S. central bank, including regular government audits and shorter term limits for policy makers.
Dartmouth College professor Andrew Levin targeted four areas of change for the Federal Reserve system: make the Fed a fully public institution; ensure the process of picking regional Fed presidents is transparent; set seven-year term limits for regional presidents and Board governors; and make the entire Fed subject to external review.
The proposals were taken up by the union-backed activist group Fed Up, which promoted them Monday in a conference call with journalists, and come during an election year where the central bank has been a campaign topic.
“There is one key principle in this document which is the Fed needs to become a public institution,” Levin said. “Pragmatic, reasonable Fed reform should be able to be passed by the Congress, by both parties. That is my hope.”
The Dartmouth professor worked two decades at the Fed, and was a special adviser from 2010 to 2012 to former chairman Ben S. Bernanke, and Yellen when she was vice chair, according to his biography page at the university.
Legislative Plans
Republicans in the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives last year proposed legislation that included reforms of the central bank, though none has become law. Fed spokeswoman Michelle Smith declined to comment.
As recently as February, Yellen said that while the Fed might be structured differently if it were created today, she believed it still worked well and wasn’t “broken.”
“Of course the structure could be something different and it’s up to Congress to decide that -- I certainly respect that,” she said at a Senate hearing. “I simply mean to say I don’t think it’s broken the way it is.”
The Fed system, which sets interest rates for the U.S. economy, is made up of a Board of Governors in Washington and 12 regional Fed banks. It was created by an act of Congress, yet private banks hold stock in the regional Fed institutions as a result of the way the capital structure was set up when the Fed was born more than a century ago.
“The Federal Reserve is the only central bank that I know of that isn’t a fully public central bank,” Levin said in an interview.
Levin said the 12 regional banks should become fully public entities, meaning they have to somehow eliminate or repurchase the stock they have issued to private member banks. He also proposed banning anyone affiliated with financial institutions overseen by the Fed from serving as a regional Fed director.
Three Classes
Each regional Fed has a nine-member board of directors which includes three Class A directors who represent private member banks, three Class B directors picked by the private banks to represent the public -- typically local business people -- and three Class C directors chosen to represent the public by the Fed board in Washington.
The presence of financial interests on Fed boards has been a long-standing source of criticism. Currently, for example, James Gorman, chairman and chief executive of Morgan Stanley, sits on the New York Fed Board as a Class A director.
Prior the passage of the Dodd-Frank financial reform act in 2010, Class A directors also helped pick the 12 regional Fed bank presidents, subject to the approval of the board in Washington. That potential conflict of interest, with bankers appointing their own supervisors, was limited by Dodd-Frank, which restricted the selection process to Class B and Class C directors.
Levin said the current system of picking Fed presidents, which is led by regional board directors, is too secretive. He recommended the reserve bank boards accept nominations from the public, publish a list of eligible nominees, and then engage in a “selection process that involves genuine public participation.”
The Dartmouth professor also said that the entire Fed system should be subject to “external reviews” and disclosure requirements “just like every other key public agency.”
“The Government Accountability Office should produce a regular annual review of all aspects of the Fed’s policies, procedures, management, and operations,” Levin wrote in his proposal. The Fed has strenuously objected to calls by Republican lawmakers that monetary policy decisions be subject to GAO audit. In the interview, Levin said the GAO should focus on the management and operations of the Fed system, “not so much on monetary policy.”
“Part of the financial crisis was due to mismanagement in the division of supervision at the Fed,” Levin said in an interview. GAO reviews would provide assurance to the public and Congress that the “Fed is a well-managed organization,” he said.
By Craig Torres
Source
The Fed Just Inched Closer To Raising Interest Rates
The Federal Reserve announced on Wednesday that it will keep interest rates at or near zero for now, but implied it...
The Federal Reserve announced on Wednesday that it will keep interest rates at or near zero for now, but implied it would soon raise them, alarming left-leaning activists and economists concerned about stagnant wages.
The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), which is the central bank’s body responsible for managing key interest rates, said in a statement that its decision was based on the conclusion that interest rates of zero to 0.25 percent -- known as the “zero lower bound” -- were still needed to “support continued progress toward maximum employment and price stability.” The statement refers to the Fed’s dual mandate to both pursue full employment and keep inflation low through its control of the money supply.
The FOMC said that inflation in particular continues to remain too low to warrant an interest rate hike.
“Inflation continued to run below the Committee's longer-run objective, partly reflecting earlier declines in energy prices and decreasing prices of non-energy imports,” the committee said in the statement.
However, the Fed also indicated in its statement that it is optimistic about the pace of economic growth, buoying expectations of a rate hike in September when the FOMC meets next. Many analysts have been predicting that the Fed would raise rates as soon as September, or at least before the year’s end.
The FOMC statement noted that “economic activity has been expanding moderately in recent months. The labor market continued to improve, with solid job gains and declining unemployment.”
The Fed has kept the primary interest rate it controls near zero since December 2008.
Many activists and economists, including the left-leaning nonprofit Center for Popular Democracy’s Fed Up campaign, believe that the Fed has prioritized the inflation half of its dual mandate at the expense of full employment. They argue against raising rates before unemployment gets low enough for employers to raise wages. And they are especially considered that unemployment rates remain disproportionately high in communities of color.
The Fed Up campaign was pleased that the Fed did not raise rates on Wednesday, but called the lack of a rate hike a “low bar,” since it was not even expected by most observers. Instead, the campaign emphasized its frustration with the FOMC statement for ignoring signs of slack in the job market.
“The FOMC statement hails ‘solid job gains,’ but does not mention that the most recent job figures showed a slowdown in wages,” said Jordan Haedtler, deputy campaign manager for Fed Up. “The downward trend in wages is a major reason why the Fed should not raise interest rates in 2015.”
Source: Huffington Post
Why the Fed should target underemployment, not unemployment, as it sets interest rates
Why the Fed should target underemployment, not unemployment, as it sets interest rates
Members of the Fed Up Coalition protest during the Jackson Hole economic symposium in 2015....
Members of the Fed Up Coalition protest during the Jackson Hole economic symposium in 2015.
See the photo here.
Texas Gives The Green Light To Racial Profiling
Today, a judge in San Antonio will be hearing opening arguments on a lawsuit against Senate Bill 4, a law passed in...
Today, a judge in San Antonio will be hearing opening arguments on a lawsuit against Senate Bill 4, a law passed in Texas last month that is the single biggest attack on immigrants this country has seen in decades. SB 4 commands police to search the papers of anyone who looks like an immigrant and levels hefty fines and even jail time for law enforcement officers who resist. Under SB 4, even campus police will have the power to do random searches, transforming college campuses, traditionally a site of sanctuary, into a source of terror.
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CPD's Connie Razza Joins MSNBC's Melissa Harris-Perry to Discuss the Strength of the Dollar
Melissa Harris-Perry - March 22, 2015 - How does the strength or weakness of the dollar affect average Americans?...
Melissa Harris-Perry - March 22, 2015 - How does the strength or weakness of the dollar affect average Americans? Joshua Steiner and CPD's Director of Strategic Research Connie Razza join to discuss.
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¿A qué se exponen los dreamers arrestados por desobediencia civil en las protestas por DACA?
¿A qué se exponen los dreamers arrestados por desobediencia civil en las protestas por DACA?
“Aguilera fue una de cerca de 80 personas que fueron arrestadas el pasado lunes por bloquear las calles alrededor del...
“Aguilera fue una de cerca de 80 personas que fueron arrestadas el pasado lunes por bloquear las calles alrededor del Congreso, en una gran manifestación para pedir protección permanente para los jóvenes indocumentados del país. Unas 900 personas participaron del evento, según cifras dadas por los grupos que la organizaron, entre ellas el Center for Popular Democracy (CPD). "Muchas veces los consejeros legales les recomiendan que no tomen ese riesgo si tienen DACA. Pero muchas veces ellos dicen, ‘Entiendo los riesgos y estoy tomando esta decisión’", asegura Hilary Klein, quien maneja los programas de justicia para inmigrantes del CPD. "Creo que es un ejemplo de cómo los dreamers en esta batalla han liderado el camino con su valentía y su dignidad", agregó.”
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I Was Detained in a Hellish Private Prison—And Wall Street Corporations Are Behind It All
I Was Detained in a Hellish Private Prison—And Wall Street Corporations Are Behind It All
As a report, “Bankrolling Oppression,” from the Center for Popular Democracy, Make the Road New York, New York...
As a report, “Bankrolling Oppression,” from the Center for Popular Democracy, Make the Road New York, New York Communities for Change, Enlace International, and The Strong Economy for All Coalition, uncovers, these corporations provide large loans and a revolving line of credit to private prison companies, which depend on debt to sustain their business model. JPMorgan alone holds $167 million in debt, which is 62 percent larger than the second biggest lender to these companies. And these companies’ shareholdings in GEO and CoreCivic have increased enormously since Trump’s election.
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