CPD IN THE NEWS

The week of October 14 was a busy one for economic reports. It was also a busy week for the talking heads inside the Federal Reserve. Note that the most recent speeches this past week, even after having only three of 10 votes in September for a hike, still show a bias for the Fed to raise rates.

With the November Federal Open Market Committee meeting scheduled just days ahead of the election, the odds makers (the federal funds futures) are now focusing on a December rate hikes — but not quite 100% of a chance, at least ahead of Friday’s Janet Yellen speech.

Fed Chair Yellen gave the luncheon keynote address at the Boston Fed’s 60th Economic Conference. This was titled “The Elusive Recovery,” which may not sound hawkish at all. Still, she did not directly address interest rate hikes in her speech. But Yellen did say that the Federal Reserve may need to run a “high-pressure economy” to reverse damage from the 2008 to 2009 crisis that depressed output. In short, Yellen fears that our economic potential is slipping, and it may require aggressive steps to rebuild economic growth.

Eric Rosengren, president of the Boston Federal Reserve, said on Friday that the odds of a rate hike were very high in December. His view is that unemployment has fallen faster than expected and he is not worried about inflationary dangers.

Also on Friday, Loretta Mester, president of the Cleveland Fed, participated in a round table discussion with the Common Good Ohio (in Cleveland), which is affiliated with the Center for Popular Democracy’s Fed Up Campaign. Mester has been on the record in recent weeks as saying that the jobs market and inflation are enough to justify a rate hike.

Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia President Patrick Harker said on Thursday that the uncertainty stemming from the U.S. presidential election might be an argument for delaying a rate increase, at least until after the November ballot. Hint: December.

Neel Kashkari, president of the Minneapolis Fed, has tried to remain on the sidelines for vocalizing rate hike talk outside of what Yellen says. Still, on Thursday he talked about more sluggish growth and maintained that the Fed and other agencies need a remedy for the “too big to fail” banks.

William Dudley, president of the Federal Reserve of New York, sounded a tad more dovish. His take is that the Fed can be gentle with gradual rate hikes. He also pointed out that the Fed is not political when making interest rate decisions.

Esther George, head of the Kansas City Fed, did not address the economy nor rate hike views when speaking on Wednesday. Still, she did talk about the need for better bank cybersecurity and security of payments. George is considered one of the more hawkish Fed presidents.

Chicago Fed President Charles Evans was deemed as being noncommittal on Monday when he spoke. Still, he was signaling a December hike: “December could be an appropriate time to do it, but I don’t see any urgency either.” That was in a CNBC interview.

Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer spoke on October 9 and spoke about gross domestic product somehow recovering to 2.75% for the second half of 2016, a higher view than average. Fischer has been more hawkish of late and said that September’s decision was a close call. He said that he expects inflation to rise and that gradual rate hikes would be sufficient to get to Fed back to a neutral stance.

By Jon C. Ogg          

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President Donald Trump officially made his first mark on the Federal Reserve on Thursday, when the Senate voted 65-32 to approve his first and only nominee to the central bank’s board.

Randal Quarles, a private equity investor and veteran of the Treasury Department, will also take over as the Fed's top banking regulator as the first appointee to the position of vice chairman of supervision, a role created by the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act.

Read the full article here.

The Daily Signal - December 17, 2014, by  Kate Scanlon - Federal Reserve chairwoman Janet Yellen met with several left-leaning groups last month to discuss monetary policy. Now, several conservative organizations are asking for the same opportunity.

Twenty representatives from more than a dozen conservative groups hand-delivered their request to the Federal Reserve last week seeking a meeting with Yellen.

The groups, led by American Principles in Action, include Americans for Tax Reform, the Jack Kemp Foundation and Citizens for Limited Government.

The letter states that “thought leaders from the center-right” deserve the same opportunity because “the left by no means has a monopoly on concern for unemployment and wage stagnation.”

Steve Lonegan, director of monetary policy at American Principles in Action, told The Daily Signal:

Monetary policy is at the root of economic stability, critical for assuring equitable prosperity for all Americans. Conservatives are committed to building a sound economy where everyone, rich and poor, can grow and prosper.

The left has met with Janet Yellen in an effort to influence monetary policy. Conservatives cannot sit back and allow liberals to have sole voice with the Federal Reserve System.

Conservatives have the science, history, facts and philosophy for advancing good money that assures equitable prosperity for all Americans.

In November, Yellen met with representatives from several left-leaning groups, including  The Center for Popular Democracy, a group that, according to its website, works with “high-impact base-building organizations, organizing alliances and progressive unions” to advance a “pro-worker, pro-immigrant, racial and economic justice agenda.”

Ady Barkan, an attorney with the center, told the Associated Press that she thought Yellen and other Fed officials “listened.”

“It was a very good conversation,” said Barkan. “They listened very intently, and they asked meaningful follow-up questions.”

According to The Daily Caller, the closed-door meeting was a source of frustration for conservatives because “the press was shut out of the meeting and no transcript made available.”

According to Bloomberg, the Nov. 14 meeting also included Fed governors Stanley Fischer, Jerome Powell and Lael Brainard.

The letter from the conservative groups argues that they deserve a similar meeting because “an evenhanded insight on achieving our shared goal of job creation and economic mobility would facilitate steps toward realization of this mutual objective.”

You can read the full letter here.

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THE KANSAS CITY Federal Reserve’s annual symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, attracts central bankers, economists and the global elite. The past two years, some new faces came to Jackson Hole: low-wage workers who object to the Fed raising interest rates when too many at the bottom rungs of the economic ladder still struggle.

This year, somebody appears to be ensuring that ordinary people won’t disrupt the party.

The Fed Up campaign, a coalition that brought the workers to Jackson Hole in 2014 and 2015, has filed a formal complaint with the departments of Justice and the Interior, along with the National Park Service, because their hotel reservations for this year’s conference were mysteriously canceled.

Despite paying in advance for spots at the 385-room Jackson Lake Lodge, the Grand Teton Lodge Company told the campaign July 26 that their reservations would not be honored, citing a “computer glitch.” Grand Teton operates the lodge, a publicly owned facility, under a contract with the National Park Service.

Thirty-nine members of the coalition planned to attend this year, but the lodge said computer glitch resulted in overbooking its rooms by 18. Instead of spacing that out among all Jackson Lake lodge guests, the company cancelled all 13 of the Fed Up campaign’s rooms. So nearly three-quarters of the cancelled reservations belonged to the Fed Up group, even though they were told when they booked that 100 rooms were still available at the lodge.

“There is no legitimate explanation for the company’s decision,” wrote Fed Up campaign chair Ady Barkan in the complaint, which alleges possible violations of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the First Amendment right to peaceable assembly. “This is egregious and disparate treatment.”

The coalition’s reservations were made in the names of staffers for three of its member organizations – the Center for Popular Democracy, the Economic Policy Institute, and the Center for Economic and Policy Research – using work email addresses.

In an email statement, Alex Klein, vice president and general manager of Grand Teton Lodge Company, said: “This summer we encountered an error with our booking system that resulted in our Jackson Lake Lodge property being oversold by 18 rooms for three peak nights in August. We worked proactively and diligently with guests to relocate them to our nearby Flagg Ranch property, and offered to keep them on a wait list for available rooms should there be cancellations at the Jackson Lake Lodge. We regret inconveniencing any of our guests.”

The Jackson Hole symposium takes place from August 25-27. The event typically features a highly anticipated speech by the Federal Reserve chair – Janet Yellen is expected this year.

In 2014 and 2015, Fed Up brought unemployed workers and local activists to Jackson Hole to highlight how the economy has left behind communities of color and to urge the Fed to hear their voices. Last year, they held an alternative conference in Jackson Hole lodge conference rooms, featuring economists like Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz.

This year, Fed Up planned to hold a teach-in outside of the lodge, and secured permits for a protest. They still expect 120 members, their largest contingent ever, to attend the proceedings, but they will have to stay in alternative accommodations that are a 20- to 30-minute drive away, separate from symposium guests and the press.

The majority of Fed Up members planning to attend the conference are African-American and Latino, which is why the campaign wants the Justice Department to investigate the matter as a violation of laws ensuring nondiscriminatory treatment in public accommodations. They also want to know if the Kansas City Federal Reserve was at all involved with the decision.

Kansas City Federal Reserve President Esther George has consistently drawn criticism from the Fed Up coalition for wanting to raise interest rates and slow down the economy.

The lodge’s general manager told Fed Up that their reservations were pulled because they were booked in a group of 13, making it easier to cancel them. This, the campaign believes, also violates First Amendment rights to freedom of assembly.

“I recognize that our presence is not desired by either the company or the organizers of the symposium,” Barkan wrote. “But the physical and virtual segregation of Federal Reserve decision-makers far away from the voices and opinions of working class people of color is precisely what the Fed Up coalition is trying to dismantle.”

The incident comes at a sensitive time for the Federal Reserve, which has already been criticized by 127 members of Congress for a lack of diversity among its leadership, which is disproportionately white, male, and either current or former executives of large corporations and financial institutions. Activists believe this homogeneity in race, gender, and background drives central bank decisions that cater to the wealthy and neglect communities of color.

Barkan’s letter to Justice and the Interior concludes: “Once again, the voices and faces of working class people of color have been marginalized … and an opaque, inaccessible, and incredibly powerful quasi-governmental institution has received a bit more insulation from the opinions of the people over whose lives it has so much power.”

The Intercept has reached out for comment to the Justice Department, the Interior Department, and the National Park Service, but did not immediately hear back.

Top photo: National Park Rangers stand silhouetted inside the lobby of Jackson Lake Lodge during the Jackson Hole economic symposium in August 2015.

By David Dayen

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