Fed's Williams vows more transparency after meeting with Fed Up
San Francisco Fed President John Williams has promised more transparency after a rare meeting with a coalition of...
San Francisco Fed President John Williams has promised more transparency after a rare meeting with a coalition of community and labor groups which also urged the U.S. central banker to keep interest rates low.
Williams largely dismissed their call to hold off on interest-rate hikes, repeating his mantra that monetary policy will depend on economic data. But he said the meeting earlier this week pushed him to "think a little more proactively" about how the Fed recruits and promotes top management.
"I want the Fed to be more transparent," Williams said in an interview. "We've learned along the way that this process of selecting presidents and other aspects of the Fed are not that clear to the public. We should make it more open."
While the San Francisco Fed is not searching for a president or first vice-president, "we want to make sure not only are we doing it right, but also in the future maybe to move the ball forward even further," he said.
He noted that the Minneapolis Fed's openness about its ongoing presidential search is one example to learn from.
The Fed's perceived opaqueness has drawn increasing fire in recent months, with Fed Chair Janet Yellen in testimony this week standing her ground against Congressional efforts to subject the Fed to more oversight. Regional Fed banks' executive searches are also under scrutiny for apparent insularity.
Williams said the meeting also reminded him that despite strengthening overall economic growth, there are "a significant number of people who are left behind and struggling."
One example is Ebony Isler, who ran a hairdressing business until recession-hit clients could not afford her services.
Now, as a part-time cashier at the San Francisco Giants' downtown ballpark, she relies on high-interest loans to bridge her paydays.
"I can't find a job that pays me enough to be self-sufficient," Isler said in an interview after she and a dozen other members of the non-profit group Fed Up met with Williams on Monday.
The group, which first grabbed national attention last summer when it crashed the Kansas City Fed's annual central bankers' meeting in Jackson Hole Wyoming, presented Williams a report arguing that as long as inflation and wage growth remains dull, the Fed should keep rates near zero. (/news/mind-gap-how-federal-reserve-can-help-raise-wages-america-s-women-and-men)
Williams regularly meets with bankers and chief executives.
Meeting with activists, he said, "helps you to think concretely about why are people out of the labor force, what are the problems they are facing."
The group has also sat down with Yellen, Kansas City Fed President Esther George and Boston Fed chief Eric Rosengren.
Source: CNBC
Why U.S. Cities Are Fighting to Attract Immigrants
Why U.S. Cities Are Fighting to Attract Immigrants
Backyard barbecues. Fireworks. A day off work. Among these traditions we look forward to on the Fourth of July, there...
Backyard barbecues. Fireworks. A day off work. Among these traditions we look forward to on the Fourth of July, there is an even more patriotic rite of passage: the oath immigrants take to become American citizens.
Read the full article here.
Joining Forces to Win
The Huffington Post - November 21, 2013, by Ana María Archila - As progressives, we need to dramatically increase our...
The Huffington Post - November 21, 2013, by Ana María Archila - As progressives, we need to dramatically increase our scale and reach to win. With the merger of the Center for Popular Democracy (CPD) and the Leadership Center for the Common Good (LCCG) in January 2014, we are poised to do just that. The stakes are high. The crisis in American society is severe: Inequality is now at the highest level ever recorded. In 2012, the top 1 percent of U.S. households received 19.3 percent of all household income.
The income gap between white and non-white America is growing even faster. Between 2005 and 2009, median white wealth declined by 16 percent, while median black wealth dropped by 53 percent and Latino wealth declined by 66 percent. Increasing economic inequality is being matched by increasing political inequality. Our democracy and the political participation of people of color, young people and the elderly are being eroded by state legislatures, with the tacit support of the Supreme Court.
All this would be much worse of course, if not for the work of the progressive organizations and movements that have fought inequality and racism for decades.
We can, and must, go farther and faster to fight inequality, the erosion of democracy and racial injustice. There is a growing opportunity to challenge the status quo and to build a society characterized by opportunity, equality and inclusion. Increasingly strong and assertive community organizations across the country are stepping up to demand better. Immigrant organizations, worker centers, progressive unions, elected officials and people of faith are envisioning and creating more inclusive and equitable cities and states, even in spite of our failed national politics.
The most successful community campaigns present a new vision for change, a creativity and fearlessness to promote policies many have thought unachievable, as well as a canny understanding of how to navigate local political forces.
My organization, the Center for Popular Democracy, works at the center of this emerging new politics, working to build the capacity and resilience of rooted, democratic, community-organizing institutions. We feel the urgency to grow our movement, to build new strength, to share organizing models and strategies more broadly, and to replicate campaigns and tactics that work to confront racial and economic inequality.
Just as our movement needs more power and reach, so do we. That's why we are merging with the Leadership Center for the Common Good to create a newly powerful Center for Popular Democracy on January 1, 2014. Our organizations' sister c4 organizations, Action for the Common Good and Center for Popular Democracy Action Fund will also merge to create a newly powerful Action for the Common Good. Part campaign center, part capacity builder, part policy shop, our merged and expanded organizations will work together to more effectively build the strength and capacity of democratic organizations to envision and advance a pro-worker, pro-immigrant, racial and economic justice agenda. From recent successes, we have a sense of what is possible when working communities are well organized, resourced and equipped to demand change. In New York, coalitions of community groups, progressive unions, and faith networks came together this year to secure a raft of impressive victories, from a raise in the state's minimum wage, to the adoption of paid sick days' legislation in New York City to the passage of pro-immigrant language access initiatives in both Nassau and Suffolk Counties on Long Island. And, in the face of fierce opposition from outgoing Mayor Bloomberg, CPD and our allies secured passage of new laws to stop the discriminatory policing tactics of the NYPD -- Stop and Frisk. CPD brought our policy expertise, strategy insights, and coalition coordination experience to these fights -- helping drive them to victory.
The New York victories mirror the work we are engaged in across the country -- in 27 states with more than 90 partners nationally. Through strategic and sustained local and state victories, driven by strong community and labor partners, and supported in important ways by CPD, we can secure tangible improvements in working people's lives and generate the upward pressure and momentum necessary to refocus national policy on furthering values of equity, opportunity and democracy for all.
Strong local organizations with a clear vision and an appetite for bold action are well able to scale up to win national victories when strategic opportunities present themselves. Last May, for example, the Home Defenders League, a project of LCCG and many close allies, staged a dramatic week of action which included civil disobedience by foreclosed homeowners at the Department of Justice as well as at other sites. Their actions tied together the simmering public outrage over the lack of prosecutions of Wall Street banks with a need to find relief for the hard hit families and communities. Five months later, reports of a pending $13 billion federal settlement with JPMorgan Chase suggest the long fight may be about to yield results.
The launch of the merged and expanded Center for Popular Democracy and Action for the Common Good is our ambitious move to help increase the strength, scale and reach of community organizing. Together, we are stronger. Together, we can build the power we need to win.
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Immigrants in US illegally see this election as crucial - See more at: http://www.timescolonist.com/immigrants-in-us-illegally-see-this-election-as-crucial-1.2472426#sthash.BroJZxQz.dpuf
Immigrants in US illegally see this election as crucial - See more at: http://www.timescolonist.com/immigrants-in-us-illegally-see-this-election-as-crucial-1.2472426#sthash.BroJZxQz.dpuf
NEW YORK, N.Y. - There was never any doubt Juana Alvarez's 18- and 20-year-old American-born daughters would be taking...
NEW YORK, N.Y. - There was never any doubt Juana Alvarez's 18- and 20-year-old American-born daughters would be taking part in the election this year. Alvarez did her best to see to that.
"I had two people I wanted to get registered and I registered them," Alvarez, a 39-year-old housekeeper in Brooklyn who came to the U.S. from Mexico as a teenager, said through a translator.
For Alvarez and the estimated 11 million other immigrants living illegally in the U.S., this is a potentially crucial election, with Republican Donald Trump talking about mass deportations and a border wall and Democrat Hillary Clinton pledging to support immigration reform and protect President Barack Obama's executive actions on behalf of immigrants.
Come Election Day, these immigrants will be watching from the sidelines, their future in the hands of others. Under the U.S. Constitution, only full citizens can vote; legal immigrants who are green card holders also are not allowed to cast a ballot.
Trump has spoken of fears of election fraud or that immigrants living illegally in the country might vote. More broadly, he has said all immigrants should play by the legal rules.
Alvarez and others like her say although they can't vote, they have been taking part in get-out-the-vote efforts among citizens.
In places like New York, California, Arizona and Virginia, they have been knocking on doors and making telephone calls, registering people, urging them to go to the polls, and telling their stories in hopes of persuading voters to keep the interests of immigrants in mind when they go into the booth.
"For me, it's important that those who can vote come out of the shadows and make their voices heard," Alvarez said.
Isabel Medina, a 43-year-old from Los Angeles who has been in the country illegally for 20 years and has three sons, two born in the U.S., has worked phone banks and taken part in voter registration drives for U.S. citizens, making sure that "even though they're frustrated, they are disappointed, they still realize it is really important, that they know the power that they have in their hands."
She says she emphasized the need to vote for all the races, not just the presidency, and the importance of taking part in referendums and propositions.
Even though these immigrants can't vote, their pre-Election Day efforts make a difference, said Karina Ruiz, 32, of Phoenix, who came to the U.S. illegally from Mexico when she was 15 and is acting executive director of the Arizona Dream Act Coalition, an immigrant-advocacy group that has been doing get-out-the-vote work.
"It is making an impact because those people who wouldn't vote otherwise, when they listen to my story and hear their vote does count and make a difference, they're encouraged to participate and be my voice," said Ruiz, who has a work permit and an exemption from deportation under Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy. That policy was created by executive order, one that could be undone by any president in the future.
"I think to myself: I could just vote once, if I had the power to," she said. But "if I can influence 50 to 60 people to go ahead and vote, that's my voice multiplied by a whole lot."
As for what will happen after Election Day, "the uncertainty, it is there, I don't know what's going to happen," said Medina, who avoids talking about the election with her U.S.-born sons because she doesn't want them to get scared that their parents might be deported. "I am worried, yes."
By Deepti Hajela
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Im Hinterhof eines Mythos
Silicon Valley - Sitz von Google, Facebook und Co.: If you can make it there, you'll make it anywhere. Was aber, wenn...
Silicon Valley - Sitz von Google, Facebook und Co.: If you can make it there, you'll make it anywhere. Was aber, wenn man es nicht schafft? Oder wenn man kein Hightech-Jünger ist, sondern einfach nur Busfahrer? Das Silicon Valley ist das krasseste Exempel der immer weiter auseinander driftenden US-Gesellschaft.
Das Silicon Valley ist die Pilgerstätte der Hightech-Jünger, ein Magnet für Talente aus aller Welt. Eingeklemmt zwischen Pazifik und San Francisco Bay, liegt die Heimat von Apple, Intel, Google, von Hewlett-Packard, Oracle, Facebook und etlichen weiteren Technologiefirmen - und von knapp drei Millionen Menschen. Während die Hard- und Softwarefirmen Spitzengehälter zahlen, fallen die Einkommen der weniger noblen Jobs.
Wer als Lehrer, Verkäufer, Busfahrer oder Maurer arbeitet, kann sich ein Leben im superteuren Silicon Valley kaum mehr leisten, die Zahl der "working poor" wächst - also derjenigen, die trotz Job in Armut leben. Auch die Zahl der Obdachlosen nimmt zu. Der soziale Abstieg kommt mitunter rasant: Eine Trennung, eine Firmenpleite oder ein Unfall können auch einen Aktienmillionär über Nacht zum Sozialfall machen. In den Hinterhöfen des Valley finden sich immer mehr Asyle und Ausgabestellen für Essen und Kleidung. Die Schlangen sind lang für die, die im Schatten des amerikanischen Traums leben.
Das Silicon Valley
"Silicon Valley" ist nur ein Spitzname. Weil Silicon – Silizium – der Grundstoff der Computerchips ist, die hier erfunden wurden. Computerchips, die längst auch in Smartphones, Autos, Spielzeug und Küchenmaschinen stecken. Das Silizium-Tal liegt zwischen San Francisco und San Jose auf einer Halbinsel, die im Westen vom Pazifik und den Santa Cruz Mountains begrenzt wird, im Osten von der San Francisco Bay und, dahinter, dem Höhenzug Diablo Range.
Source: Bayern
What the Overworked and Underemployed Have in Common
Huffington Post - October 7, 2014, by Robin Hardman - One morning last week I joined a small gathering in a conference...
Huffington Post - October 7, 2014, by Robin Hardman - One morning last week I joined a small gathering in a conference room at New York City's Baruch College to listen to a line-up of speakers and panelists talk on the subject of "Families and Flexibility." The event was sponsored by Scott Stringer, our NYC Comptroller, who has been promoting city-wide "right to request" legislation. In case you've missed them, right to request laws, currently on the books in many countries around the world and very slowly gaining traction here in the U.S., provide employees with the simple right to request a flexible schedule. Details--including who can ask and for what reasons, and how much leeway employers have in responding-- vary, but laws are already in place in San Francisco and Vermont, and legislation is pending in many other places--including the U.S. Congress.
Hence this event, which gave Comptroller Stringer an opportunity to strut his stuff; featured a closing keynote by Anne-Marie Slaughter, President and CEO of the New America Foundation; and allowed a number of smart policy-makers, advocates, researchers, corporate work-life champions and workers to weigh in with their stories and data. But perhaps the most noticeable aspect of the morning was what I'll call the Great Divide between the two panels that made up the bulk of the agenda.
The first panel featured political scientist Janet Gornick; A Better Balance co-president Dina Bakst; Families and Work Institute's Kelly Sakai-O'Neill, and work-life/flex champions from two accounting firms: Marcee Harris Schwartz of BDO and Barbara Wankoff of KPMG. Moderated by New York Times reporter Rachel Swarns, the panelists conducted an interesting, data-driven discussion about why flexibility matters and the very real problems many professional men and women face achieving any kind of work-life "balance." The ideas and concerns they raised were the important stuff that is often stressed in our national work-life conversation: The business benefits of a more flexible workplace. The negative impact of overwork on both families and society at large. The dark-ages state of parental leave laws in this country, especially in comparison with pretty much every other country in the developed world.
We listened to and discussed these topics for a full hour, grabbed some more coffee, and moved on to the second panel. I wished I'd worn my sneakers: it was a dizzying leap across a conceptual chasm.
The second panel featured A Better Balance's other co-president, Sheery Leiwant, as well as sociologist Ruth Milkman and Carrie Gleason, Director of the Center for Popular Democracy's Fair Workweek Initiative. It also featured a woman named Deena Adams, a single parent who, shortly after receiving a service award for loyalty, lost her job because she couldn't find child care to accommodate a sudden requirement that she start taking on overnight shifts. (A fifth panelist, Carrie Nathan, is a union activist and hourly employee at Macy's, which apparently has an exceptionally supportive system for shift scheduling.)
At this panel, moderated by Times labor reporter, Steven Greenhouse, we heard about the other end of the spectrum. We heard about things not usually talked about in the context of work-life and not talked about enough in any context. In contrast to the (very real) problems of professional workers--so many of whom feel overworked and short on time--we now focused on the growing legions of workers who aspire, most of all, to have a full-time job. The exploitation of the underemployed has become something of a science in recent years, as technology provides elaborate algorithms that can tell employers on a day-to-day--sometimes hour-to-hour--basis exactly how many employees they need on site and how many they can just tell to stay home. Many employers use this hyper-efficiency to move workers about like pieces on a chessboard, expecting them to be on call for the next move, whenever it may come.
Please understand what this means: employees must be ready, sometimes forty hours a week, sometimes 24/7, to drop everything and show up for their minimum wage job. They have to have child care available; they can make no permanent social or vacation plans; they cannot take a class. Generally, all this readiness leads to far less than full-time work and yet by definition also makes it impossible to take a second job. One man quoted in an article by Greenhouse talked about being told in a job interview that he'd have to be on call full-time but would be able to work no more than 29 hours/week. When he objected, the interview was over. Another described asking his employer to schedule his "wildly fluctuating" 25 hours/week at the same time each day so could find a second job--and promptly had his weekly hours cut to 12. A woman commuted an hour to her scheduled shift only to be told to go home (with no pay)--she wasn't needed today.
The overworked, the underworked. The Great Divide. It's odd to wrap the phrase "work-life" around the situations of these two groups of people, yet it does apply to both. Each ultimately comes down to a lack of control over one's own time. Each apparently stems from employers' mistaken belief that providing a modicum of flexibility and predictability is bad for business (as if stressed-out employees and high turnover were good for the bottom line). Each affects more than just the people involved--it affects our families, our friends and our communities.
The good news is that some of the "right to request" existing and pending legislation around the country focuses not just on flexibility but also on predictability. The tools are at hand to make changes that affect men and women on both sides of the chasm. Did I mention that it's National Work and Family Month? Come on, people, let's get going.
Robin Hardman is a writer and work-life expert who works with companies to put together the best possible "great place to work" competition entries and creates compelling, easy-to-read benefits, HR, diversity and general-topic employee communications. Find her and follow her blog at www.robinhardman.com.
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Why Is My Bank Teller Trying to Sell Me a Credit Card I Don't Want?
Mother Jones - April 9, 2015, by Josh Harkinson - Until recently, your typical banker was someone whose main job was to...
Mother Jones - April 9, 2015, by Josh Harkinson - Until recently, your typical banker was someone whose main job was to accept deposits, cash checks, and dispense basic financial advice. But now that job hardly exists anymore—at least not as we once knew it. Today's front-line bank workers—tellers, loan interviewers, and customer-service reps—earn far too little money to be considered "bankers" in the traditional sense of the word. And though they still collect and dispense money, their main job involves hawking credit cards and loans you probably don't need.
Many rank and file bank workers are seeing lower wages and more pressure to hawk financial products.Rank-and-file bank workers are both causes and symptoms of America's widening economic divide, says Aditi Sen, the author of Big Banks and the Dismantling of the Middle Class, a report released today by the Center for Popular Democracy. Based on union organizer interviews with hundreds of workers in the industry, Sen found that front-line bank workers often face quotas for hawking potentially exploitive financial products, often to low-income customers, even though the workers themselves barely qualify as middle class. "We can definitely see bank workers as part of the same continuum of issues facing all low-wage workers," she says.
Banks are, of course, notorious for squeezing profits from their employees and customers. In 2011, the Federal Reserve Board fined Wells Fargo $85 million for forcing workers to sell expensive subprime mortgages to prime borrowers. And in late 2013, a judge slapped Bank of America with a $1.27 billion penalty for its "Hustle Program," which rewarded employees for producing more loans and eliminating controls on the loans' quality.
Yet, by some accounts, these sorts of practices are getting worse. In a 2013 study by the union-backed Committee for Better Banks, 35 percent of low-level bank workers surveyed reported increased sales pressure since 2008, and nearly 38 percent stated that there was no real avenue in the workplace to oppose such practices. One HSBC bank employee, according to the study, reported that workers who failed to meet their sales goals had the difference taken out of their paychecks.
The increasing sales pressure comes at a time when the fortunes of the banks and their low-level workers have diverged widely. Bank profits and CEO pay have rebounded to near record levels while wages for front-line workers are stuck in the gutter.
And that's not all. Nearly a quarter of bank workers surveyed in 2013 reported that their benefits had been cut since 2008, and 44 percent reported that their medical and life insurance was inadequate. A recent University of California-Berkeley study found that 31 percent of bank tellers' families rely on public assistance at an annual cost of $900 million to taxpayers.
There are several factors in all of these woes. Mergers and consolidation have led some retail banks to shutter branches and lay people off. Many banks have outsourced customer-service jobs to overseas call centers, and the rise of internet and smartphone banking has further slashed demand for flesh-and-blood tellers. In other words, it's basically the same mix of foreign and technological competition that has concentrated wealth and depressed middle-class wages throughout the economy. And it means that banks can get away with paying people less, and demanding more in return.
But now the Committee for Better Banks is trying to cultivate common cause between low-level bank workers and the customers they're forced to target. The interviews featured in the new report show that many bank workers strongly oppose the sales quotas as unfair and exploitive. For instance:
A teller at a top-five bank reports that she is subject to stringent individual goals on a daily basis: If she does not make three sales-points (selling someone a new checking, savings, or debit card account) each day in a month, she gets written up.
Customer service representatives at a call center for another major bank report that each individual has to make 40 percent of the sales of the top seller to avoid being written up. Selling credit cards counts more towards sales goals than helping someone open up a checking account or savings account, thereby crafting skewed incentives based on the profitability of a product sold, not on how well it matched the needs of a customer.
"There was one guy who had three credit cards and I ended up pushing a fourth on him, even though I knew that was not good for him.""A lot of time people would call and already have one, two, or three credit cards with us," says Liz, a member of the Committee for Better Banks who worked in a Bank of America call center for five years and did not want to give her last name. "They might have a situation where they are low on funds and we end up pushing another credit card on them. There was one guy who had three credit cards and I ended up pushing a fourth on him, even though I knew that was not good for him; he would just be in more debt. But if didn't, I would end up being put in a reprimand."
On Monday, members of the Committee for Better Banks will converge in Minnesota's Twin Cities to deliver a petition to bank offices demanding better pay and more stable work hours for rank-and-file workers, and an end to sales goals that "push unnecessary products on our customers."
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Fed Language in DNC Platform Could Be Stronger, Activists Say
Fed Language in DNC Platform Could Be Stronger, Activists Say
The Democratic national platform’s language calling for a more diverse Federal Reserve and for the promotion of full...
The Democratic national platform’s language calling for a more diverse Federal Reserve and for the promotion of full employment is historically progressive, but it still could be stronger, some activists say.
Advocates on the “Fed Up” campaign, led by the progressive Center for Popular Democracy, are pleased that the platform — amended in a committee meeting over the weekend — includes language that supports banning commercial bankers from Fed leadership.
But the activists are still hoping for more explicit support bolstering the Fed’s mandate to promote “full employment,” said Jordan Haedtler, Fed Up’s campaign manager.
As it stands, the platform committee adopted an amendment to “protect and defend the Federal Reserve’s independence to carry out the dual mandate assigned to it by Congress — for both full employment and low inflation — against threats from new legislation.”
An amendment promoted by Fed Up would have sketched out a more detailed stance on full employment, but it failed 70-100 at the meeting. That amendment stated: “The Federal Reserve should be a fully public institution that serves the American people and pursues a genuine full employment economy that creates good jobs and rising wages for all.”
Haedtler said the platform’s language about protecting the the Fed from “the threat” of new legislation might actually be counterproductive. His group hopes to lay the groundwork for legislation overhauling the central bank during the next administration. It is likely, however, that the platform writers were referring to legislation from conservatives to abolish the Fed or severely shrink its capabilities.
“I appreciate that full employment is fleetingly mentioned, but the fact is that sound new legislation regarding the Federal Reserve is necessary,” Haedtler told Morning Consult in an interview.
Democrats in Congress have also pushed for more diversity in the Fed’s top layer. Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, ranking Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, pressed Fed Chair Janet Yellen during a recent hearing for a commitment to fixing the bank’s diversity problem.
“Diversity is an extremely important goal, and I will do everything I can to advance it,” she told him.
The words “full employment” haven’t appeared in a Democratic National Committee platform since 1988, Haedtler said. But Fed Up hopes to see the language bolstered further in the platform’s preamble.
“This is not as strong as past mentions of full employment in Democratic platforms going back several decades, where the fact that the Federal Reserve has a role in creating full employment is more fleshed out and a plan for how to get there is described,” he said.
The Fed Up activists also want to amend the platform to outline the Fed’s path to becoming a fully public institution.
By TARA JEFFRIES
Source
Diversas organizaciones en el área triestatal se preparan para manifestaciones en apoyo al trabajador inmigrante
Diversas organizaciones en el área triestatal se preparan para manifestaciones en apoyo al trabajador inmigrante
Este lunes, Día internacional del trabajo, se escucharán las voces de miles de inmigrantes indocumentados y sus aliados...
Este lunes, Día internacional del trabajo, se escucharán las voces de miles de inmigrantes indocumentados y sus aliados, que ha 100 días del mandato de Donald Trump, dicen sentirse cansados por el acoso del gobierno. Durante el 1 de mayo también se verán huelgas comerciales, paros laborales y manifestaciones estudiantiles.
Lea el artículo completo aquí.
Lobbyists Know the Fed Has Political Power
Lobbyists Know the Fed Has Political Power
Your editorial is exactly right about the lack of impartiality with “The Federal Reserve’s Politicians” (Aug. 29)....
Your editorial is exactly right about the lack of impartiality with “The Federal Reserve’s Politicians” (Aug. 29). While created by Congress, the Fed continues to act as though it is completely unaccountable to the people’s representatives.
As I pointed out to Chairwoman Janet Yellen during a congressional hearing last year, her own calendar reflects weekly meetings with political figures and partisan special-interest groups. Even more troubling, there is a long history of Fed chairs or governors serving as partisan figures in the Treasury or the White House before their appointment. So while the Fed is quick to decry any attempts at congressional oversight, it cannot credibly claim to be politically independent.
We need a rules-based monetary policy that doesn’t leave the Fed with the potential to push an ideologically driven agenda. To make the Fed truly free from politics, the Fed Oversight Reform and Modernization Act of 2015, which my colleagues and I have passed through the House, should be signed into law. The American people deserve transparency at the Fed and market-driven monetary policy that can finally restore confidence in our economy.
Rep. Scott Garrett (R., N.J.)
Glen Rock, N.J.
Your editorial accuses Fed Up, a group representing low-income black and brown communities, of politicizing the Fed, when big banks have always had undue access and influence over the Fed’s policies.
In fact, commercial banks literally own the Federal Reserve. Unlike nearly every other central bank in the world, the Fed isn’t a public institution but instead operates as a joint venture with the banking sector. It is not true that as long as this status quo of Wall Street domination continues, then the Fed is “independent,” but when the Fed Up campaign’s low-income people of color dare to join the monetary-policy conversation, then the Fed’s “independence” has been compromised.
You mention that retirees living off their retirement plans are suffering from a decade of near-zero interest rates. Presumably this refers to retirees who might have a hundred thousand or two tucked away for retirement. This is already far more than the low-wage workers who have joined our campaign will be able to accrue over a lifetime of working.
But let’s take the argument at face value. Even if the Fed were to raise interest rates up to 2%, that’s a mere $2,000 on $100,000 savings over a year. That won’t make much of a difference to how well a middle-class retiree lives, but hiking rates to that level prematurely could cut off struggling families—who are disproportionately people of color—from the added jobs and higher wages they so desperately need.
Shawn Sebastian
Fed Up Campaign
Brooklyn, N.Y.
Lobbying the Federal Reserve as if it is a legislature began with the Humphrey-Hawkins legislation and the Federal Reserve Reform Act of 1977. The chair of the Fed became politicized and conflicted as the act included mandated congressional grilling of the Fed chair, who is now required to stabilize prices, moderate long-term interest rates, while at the same time delivering low unemployment. These lofty goals can’t necessarily be simultaneously executed, as Paul Volcker showed so well when he attacked inflation, effectively saying that employment would rise with a solid economy that had price stability.
Mr. Volcker had the courage to take the abuse and address his critics as he followed a logical path and publicly explained it, but successive chairs have gradually focused more on pleasing the president who appointed them.
Rep. Kevin Brady’s idea for a commission to rethink the idea of the Fed is a good start. We now have about 40 years of increasing monetary, fiscal and employment messes, with a paralyzed Fed, unsustainable deficits and underemployment because politics tramples economic common sense.
Larry Stewart
Vienna, Va.
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6 days ago
6 days ago