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Telemundo – July 21, 2013 - Indocumentados en NYC podrán contar con un abogado sin pagar honorarios. ...
Telemundo – July 21, 2013 - Indocumentados en NYC podrán contar con un abogado sin pagar honorarios.
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2 Women Who Confronted Jeff Flake About Kavanaugh Vote in an Elevator Credited for 1 Week Delay
2 Women Who Confronted Jeff Flake About Kavanaugh Vote in an Elevator Credited for 1 Week Delay
Before Sen. Jeff Flake reversed his guarantee of a “yes” vote for Brett Kavanaugh and demanded an FBI investigation...
Before Sen. Jeff Flake reversed his guarantee of a “yes” vote for Brett Kavanaugh and demanded an FBI investigation into the allegations, he was confronted by two women who said they were survivors of sexual assault.
“Don’t look away from me. Look at me and tell me that it doesn’t matter what happened to me, that you will let people like that go into the highest court of the land and tell everyone what they can do to their bodies,” Maria Gallagher angrily told Flake.
Gallagher, 23, was accompanied by activist Ana Maria Archila, who broke through a group of reporters to speak with him in an elevator.
Read the full article here.
Activists confront Fed leaders to warn against rate hike
The liberal Center for Popular Democracy has launched a "Fed Up" campaign to urge the central bank’s chairwoman, Janet...
The liberal Center for Popular Democracy has launched a "Fed Up" campaign to urge the central bank’s chairwoman, Janet Yellen, and her team of policymakers against raising interest rates.
Many Fed watchers anticipate Yellen and her team to increase the interest rate, lowered to zero percent following the 2008 economic crisis to spur economic growth as soon as September, citing steady growth.
But the campaign, whose board includes members of the AFL-CIO and Service Employees International Union (SEIU), says that the economy hasn't recovered enough to adopt such a policy.
"The economy remains far too weak to slow it down. We shouldn't mince words — when the Fed raises interest rates, it's doing that to slow the economy down," said Ady Barkan, Fed Up campaign director, on a conference call with reporters.
He called the prospect of the Fed raising interest rates "an insane perspective to take and an insane policy to take at the moment."
The group is sending about 50 activists to the annual Economic Policy Symposium, which includes members of the Federal Reserve, global bankers and top economists. The activists will hold "Teach Ins" that coincide with the annual summit.
Among the planned events is one titled, "Do Black Lives Matter to the Fed?" — a nod to the national movement to highlight policies that disproportionately hurt the African-American community.
Some progressives criticized Yellen’s testimony in the House last month, when she was asked what Fed officials could do to lower the African-American unemployment rate.
At 9.5 percent, the African-American unemployment rate remains significantly above the 5.3 percent national unemployment rate.
"There really isn’t anything directly that the Federal Reserve can do to affect the structure of unemployment across groups," Yellen answered at last month's hearing. "There’s nothing we can do about any particular group.”
Barkan said that Yellen "was wrong to say there's nothing the Fed can do to help African-Americans."
He argued that Fed officials could help African-Americans and minorities by adopting an agenda that focuses less on pricing bubbles in the markets and more on lowering unemployment, a tactic that would mean keeping interest rates low.
Activists associated with the Black Lives Matter movement have grabbed headlines in recent months for its aggressive questioning tactics to Democratic presidential candidates.
"We hope very much to engage with Federal Reserve officials into these conversations," Barkan said.
Source: The Hill
Activist Group Presses for Diversity on Fed Boards
Activist Group Presses for Diversity on Fed Boards
An activist group on Monday named a slate of candidates it would like to see placed on the boards overseeing the...
An activist group on Monday named a slate of candidates it would like to see placed on the boards overseeing the regional Federal Reserve banks, saying these people would promote diversity at the central bank and de-emphasize the influence bankers have on policy makers.
The slate of candidates is in large part aimed at addressing what the left-leaning Center for Popular Democracy’s Fed Up campaign sees as a lack of minority and female representation in the leadership ranks of top central bank officialdom.
“Regional Banks’ boards are disproportionately white, male, and from the corporate and financial sectors,” the group said in a report. “Regional Banks have continually selected bank directors without transparency or public input, and most directors’ backgrounds suggest that they are likelier to be familiar with the interests of the wealthy than with the interests of low-income individuals and communities of color,” the group said.
The Federal Reserve’s Shifting Makeup
The group identified a slate of candidates drawn from academia, think tanks and unions who could serve as directors at the 12 regional bank districts. These prospective candidates are mainly women or people of color. None are bankers or financial market participants.
The group also said the continued role of bankers on boards continues to create conflicts of interest between the Fed and regulated financial institutions. “The potential for conflicts of interest will remain high as long as commercial banks and financial institutions continue to dominate Fed leadership,” Fed Up said in its report.
Fed Up’s Candidates
The boards overseeing the regional Fed banks have long been a flashpoint. While the Washington-based Board of Governors, now led by Chairwoman Janet Yellen, is explicitly part of the government, the 12 regional banks exist as quasi-private institutions overseen by boards composed of a legally mandated mix of bankers, community members and business representatives.
The most public responsibility of these boards is to guide the selection of new regional bank presidents and to reapprove these officials when their terms are up. Directors from institutions regulated by the Fed aren’t involved in this process, but they were until several years ago.
The regional Fed boards also help oversee regional Fed operations and provide intelligence on local economic conditions. Most Fed bank presidents have spoken very favorably of their boards and have pointed out these directors have no influence and have no special access to Fed monetary policy-making.
The Fed Up campaign has been pressing the central bank for some time on diversity issues, to some successes. In May many congressional Democrats signed a letter to Chairwoman Janet Yellen expressing concern about what they saw as a lack of diversity among the Fed’s top officials and boards of directors. Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton also expressed support for getting bankers off Fed boards.
The Fed countered then that it is done a lot to improve diversity and that it would work to do even better in the future.
And speaking in early June with reporters, Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan acknowledged the problem, saying “diversity, racial diversity, ethnic diversity of all kinds leads to better decision making and greater performance. That’s something we should be striving for at the Fed.”
Earlier this year, former Minneapolis Fed leader Narayana Kocherlakota indicated in a blog post that a lack of African-American representation in policy-making positions may have caused officials to pay insufficient attention to the needs of this group during the financial crisis.
By MICHAEL S. DERBY
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Is There Such a Thing as Healing after Ferguson?
Fusion - August 27, 2014, by Alicia Menendez - Earlier this week, the family of Michael Brown held a funeral for their...
Fusion - August 27, 2014, by Alicia Menendez - Earlier this week, the family of Michael Brown held a funeral for their son. The funeral was attended by the families of Emmet Till, Trayvon Martin, Sean Bell, Oscar Grant and Jordan Davis. Their stories are all similar, so why does this keep happening?
Fusion's Alicia Menendez spoke with CPD's Policy Advocate Josie Duffy about the way the media portrays black men. As peace returns to Ferguson, the question is: How does the community begin to heal?
Immigrant advocates attack banks for financing private prisons
Immigrant advocates attack banks for financing private prisons
“Private prison companies and their Wall Street financiers stand to benefit from policies that increase detentions,...
“Private prison companies and their Wall Street financiers stand to benefit from policies that increase detentions, separate families, and cause irreparable harm to immigrant children," said Ana María Archila, Co-Executive Director of the Center for Popular Democracy, in a statement.
Read the full article here.
Is 'Audit the Fed' going mainstream?
Is 'Audit the Fed' going mainstream?
Auditing the Federal Reserve, a financial reform long pushed by the libertarian right, just got a boost this week from...
Auditing the Federal Reserve, a financial reform long pushed by the libertarian right, just got a boost this week from an unexpected quarter: A respected Dartmouth economist who issued a new proposal to impose transparency and oversight on the nation’s powerful central bank.
Though largely dismissed by mainstream economists, “Audit the Fed” has become an applause line for central banking skeptics like Sen. Rand Paul, who believe the Federal Reserve wields too much power too secretly. In recent years the idea has spread from right-wing politicians to the conservative mainstream, and even critics on the left: A Senate vote on Paul’s “Audit the Fed” legislation in January garnered 53 votes. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) voted for that bill and has pushed for increased transparency at the Fed to the delight of campaign crowds suspicious that the central bank is rigged in favor of Wall Street.
This week, the Fed Up campaign, a 30-month-old group of labor and community organizations pushing for more openness at the Fed, released its own platform for reforming the Fed’s governance structure, including a new idea for an audit—or "annual review"—that could give the idea more mainstream credibility.
The author is Andrew Levin, an economist now at Dartmouth College who has decades of experience at the Fed and a reputation as a thoughtful observer of the institution. While most financial insiders have long dismissed “Audit the Fed” as an unserious political slogan from people unversed in economics, Levin’s proposal has provoked a more serious reckoning with Fed transparency. And increasingly, economists are coming to the same conclusion: More sunlight might do the central bank some good.
“The Fed is overly sensitive about reviewing its policies,” said Joseph Gagnon, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics who has worked at the Fed off-and-on for the past 30 years.
At issue is whether decisions made by the top officials of the Fed should be open to review by the Government Accountability Office (GAO). Technically speaking, the Fed is already audited – it’s subject to the same GAO scrutiny of its operations as any other federal agency. But its most influential decisions, deliberations on monetary policy that attract global attention and can move stock markets dramatically, are conducted in secret by a dozen top Fed officials. Seven of them, known as Fed governors and based in Washington, are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. The remaining five spots are reserved for the presidents of the 12 regional Fed banks on a rotating basis. Collectively known as the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), the group generally meets eight times a year, with minutes released three weeks afterwards. Transcripts of those meetings are released on a five-year lag, effectively sealing its deliberations in the short-term.
Because banks ultimately own the regional Fed banks, and have a say in nominating many of their directors, critics say this structure leaves the door open for favoritism to Wall Street, and needs outside scrutiny to ensure it properly balances its dual mandate of stable inflation and full employment. Supporters say the Fed's relative independence is a virtue, and worry its monetary decisions would be worse in the long run if its officials constantly felt Congress breathing down their necks.
The more traditional right-wing “Audit the Fed” legislation would call for a GAO audit of the Fed within 12 months of passage, and thereafter enable any lawmaker or congressional committee to request an audit of the central bank, including the FOMC’s monetary policy decisions, whenever they wanted.
In his new plan, Levin proposes something slightly different: it would require the GAO to conduct a review of all aspects of the Fed, including monetary policy, but make the review annual and determined by GAO staff rather than Congress. “[Paul’s legislation] just seemed like a way to threaten the Fed,” said Levin.
His proposal would also call for seven-year term limits for Fed officials and reform the process that the regional Fed bank presidents are selected. Though he recoiled against terming the GAO review an “audit,” his proposal would give the GAO new powers to examine different aspects of the Fed, as it does with other agencies in the federal government. Instead of called by Congress, it would be annual and determined by agency staff. “From one year to the next, it might focus on some aspects of the Fed's operations. One year, maybe it would focus on monetary policy strategy and communications,” Levin said. “Another year, maybe it wouldn't spend much time on that.” The results would be publicly available.
Narayana Kocherlakota, the former president of the Minneapolis Federal Reserve, expressed support for the idea of regularly scheduled GAO audits of the Fed’s monetary policy. He didn't take a position on earlier audit proposals, but echoed Levin’s concern that allowing lawmakers to request a GAO audit “would be very bad and would lead us down a bad path where essentially Congress was running monetary policy.”
The Federal Reserve declined to comment on Levin’s plan. But Fed Chair Janet Yellen and other Fed officials have aggressively attacked prior proposals to increase oversight over the FOMC’s deliberations. In January, before the Senate voted on Paul’s legislation, Yellen sent a letter to Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Minority Leader Harry Reid opposing the bill. “These reviews could only serve to create public doubt about the conduct and independence of monetary policy,” she wrote.
“All of that criticism does apply to my proposal,” Levin said after reading those lines from Yellen’s letter. But he argued that such oversight is necessary in a democracy. He added, “After all, the Congress is the Fed’s boss.”
Levin enters this debate with considerable experience. He spent two decades as an economist for the Fed and then was a special adviser to then-Chairman Ben Bernanke and then-Vice Chair Yellen from 2010 to 2012. He also advised many other central banks, including the European Central Bank, the Bank of Canada and the Bank of Japan. Those policy bona fides mean he’s being taken seriously even by people who have dismissed previous “Audit the Fed” proposals.
“Levin knows a lot about the internal workings [of the Fed] that I don’t,” said Jared Bernstein, the former top economist to Vice President Joe Biden and a frequent critic of “Audit the Fed” proposals. “He’s not coming at this from the perspective of some radical protester.”
The underlying question is whether an annual review by GAO—not one triggered by individual lawmakers or committees—will cause the Fed to be influenced by politics in its monetary policy decisions. To some extent, that already happens. The Fed, like every institution, faces criticism from an array of politicians, outside economists, and pundits. “Independence is not as black and white as many people make it seem,” said Kocherlakota.
Finding the right balance between giving the Fed room to make independent policy and holding it accountable is a constant challenge—one that extends beyond “Audit the Fed" proposals. Sanders, for instance, has proposed that FOMC transcripts be released within six months, instead of the current five years.
Few serious Fed watchers, however, have spent much time developing detailed ideas for increased Fed transparency. “I felt like there was a vacuum in the discourse,” Levin explained.
Levin’s reforms are unlikely to become law anytime soon: Lobbying efforts around such a change would be fierce, and groups like the Fed Up campaign are likely to be heavily out-spent by Wall Street banks skeptical of changes intended to reduce their influence over Fed decisions. The Federal Reserve would likely oppose the reforms as well.
By DANNY VINIK
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The Fed should rethink how its conducts monetary policy
The Fed should rethink how its conducts monetary policy
There is a growing sentiment that the Federal Reserve needs to change the principles by which it manages our economy. ...
There is a growing sentiment that the Federal Reserve needs to change the principles by which it manages our economy. Federal Reserve officials are saying it. Community organizations, labor unions, and think tanksare saying it. And on Friday, 20 of the country's most prominent economists released a joint letter saying it.
Read the full article here.
Progressive Candidates Are Pulling the Democratic Party Left, Whether the Establishment Likes It or Not
Progressive Candidates Are Pulling the Democratic Party Left, Whether the Establishment Likes It or Not
One of the candidates taking on the establishment is Kerri Harris, who is running to unseat Sen. Tom Carper, a Democrat...
One of the candidates taking on the establishment is Kerri Harris, who is running to unseat Sen. Tom Carper, a Democrat from Delaware. Harris, who is a community organizer with the Center for Popular Democracy and an Air Force veteran, has been hammering Senator Carper on his decision to partner with Republicans to dismantle Dodd-Frank -- the law passed in the wake of the financial and housing crisis.
Regional Feds' head-hunting under scrutiny over insider bias, delays
Efforts to fill top positions at some U.S. Federal Reserve regional branches are casting a spotlight on a decades-old...
Efforts to fill top positions at some U.S. Federal Reserve regional branches are casting a spotlight on a decades-old process that critics say is opaque, favors insiders, and is ripe for reform.
Patrick Harker took the reins as president of the Philadelphia Fed this week, in an appointment that attracted scrutiny because he served on the committee of directors that interviewed other prospective candidates for the job he ultimately took.
The Dallas Fed has been without a permanent president for more than three months as that search process stretches well into its eighth month. And the Fed's Minneapolis branch abruptly announced the departure of its leader, Narayana Kocherlakota, more than a year before he was due to go, with no replacement named to date.
The delays and reliance on Fed employees in picking regional Fed presidents can only embolden Republican Senator Richard Shelby to push harder for a makeover of the central bank's structure, which has changed little in its 101 years.
A bill passed in May by the Senate Banking Committee that Shelby chairs would strip the New York Fed's board of its power to appoint its presidents. And it could go further, given the bill would form a committee to consider a wholesale overhaul of the Fed's structure of 12 districts, which has not changed through the decades of shifting U.S. populations and an evolving economy.
The bill is part of a broader conservative effort to expose the central bank to more oversight, and some analysts saw the Philadelphia Fed's choice as reinforcing the view that the Fed needs to open up more to outsiders.
Nine of 11 current regional presidents came from within the Fed, a proportion that has edged up over time. Twenty years ago, seven of 12 were insiders.
"The process seems to create a diverse set of candidates in which the insider is almost always accepted," said Aaron Klein, director of a financial regulatory reform effort at the Bipartisan Policy Center.
Since it was created in 1913, the central bank's decentralized structure was meant to check the power of Washington, where seven Fed governors with permanent votes on policy are appointed by the White House and approved by the Senate.
The 12 Fed presidents who are picked by their regional boards usually vote on policy every two or three years, and they tend to hold more diverse views.
Former Richmond Fed President Alfred Broaddus told Reuters the regional Fed chiefs have more freedom "to do and say things that may not be politically popular" because they are not politically appointed. "On the other hand, there is the question of legitimacy since they are appointed by local boards who are not elected."
"TONE DEAF"
Two-thirds of regional Fed directors are selected by local bankers, while the rest are appointed by the Fed's Board of Governors in Washington.
Critics question how well those regional boards - mostly made of the heads of corporations and industry groups meant to represent the public - fulfill their mission.
Last year, a non-profit group representing labor unions and community leaders organized by the Center for Popular Democracy, urged the Fed's Philadelphia and Dallas branches to make the selection of their presidents more transparent and to include a member of the public in the effort.
Philadelphia's Fed in particular proved "tone deaf" in its head-hunting effort, said Lou Crandall, chief economist at Wrightson ICAP in Jersey City, New Jersey.
Harker was a Philadelphia Fed director when the board started looking to replace president Charles Plosser, who left on March 1, and he was among the six directors who interviewed more than a dozen short-listed candidates for the job, according to the Philadelphia Fed.
But on Feb. 18, Harker floated his own name, recused himself from the process and a week later his colleagues on the board unanimously appointed him as the new president.
While the selection follows Fed guidelines and was approved by its Board of Governors, it raised questions of transparency and fairness.
"The Philadelphia Fed's search process might have made perfect sense in a corporate environment, but is obviously problematic for an official institution," said Crandall.
The board's chair and vice chair, Swathmore Group founder James Nevels and Michael Angelakis of Comcast Corp, respectively, declined to comment, as did Harker.
Peter Conti-Brown, an academic fellow at Stanford Law School's Rock Center for Corporate Governance, and an expert witness at a Senate Banking Committee hearing this year, proposed to let the Fed Board appoint and fire regional Fed presidents or at least have a say in the selection process.
In the past, reform proposals for the 12 regional Fed banks have focused on decreasing or increasing their number and their governance.
Changes to the way the regional Fed bosses are chosen could strengthen the influence of lawmakers at the expense of regional interests.
For now, delays in appointments of new chiefs force regional banks to send relatively unknown deputies to debate monetary policy at meetings in Washington, as Dallas and Philadelphia did last month when the Fed considered raising interest rates for the first time in nearly a decade.
The Minneapolis Fed still has time to find a new president before Kocherlakota steps down at year end.
"For now the Fed criticism is just noise, mostly from Republicans," said Greg Valliere, chief political strategist at Potomac Research Group. "But once the Fed begins to raise interest rates ... then the left will weigh in as well."
(Additional reporting Ann Saphir in San Francisco; Editing by Tomasz Janowski)
Source: Reuters
3 days ago
3 days ago