“At a time when the Federal Reserve is starved for new, more well-rounded thinking, it is troubling that its opaque, secretive process for selecting its leadership could only yield a candidate cut from the same cloth as so many previous appointments: Wall Street and the highest echelons of corporate America. This was an opportunity for the Fed – especially the traditionally inaccessible Dallas Fed – to embrace a more transparent processes and to choose a president who can bring a new, more inclusive perspective that can foster a real recovery for communities in Dallas and beyond. Instead, the Dallas Fed selected a veteran of Goldman Sachs who is currently a director at the headhunting firm that was hired to fill this position. Neither the process nor the result serves the public interest. The Fed should do much better. 

“The process in Dallas has been especially worrying from the beginning. Outgoing President Richard Fisher convened a committee of former Fed presidents to advise on the selection process, in possible contravention of Dodd-Frank. There were reports of candidates being subjected to ideological litmus tests. The Dallas Fed shut out the Fed Up coalition – made up of community, labor, and consumer organizations – since December and refused to even acknowledge our simple requests for basic transparency, even as the Dallas Fed presidency remained vacant for the past 5 months.

“The self-dealing is reminiscent of the similarly opaque process in Philadelphia: Patrick Harker was a member of the very search committee that selected him as the next President of the Philadelphia Federal Reserve. The revolving door in the Federal Reserve continues to spin, with Richard Fisher leaving the Dallas Fed to work at Barclay’s Bank (which pleaded guilty to serious financial crimes), and a Goldman Sachs banker coming in.

“In the meantime, the people of Texas are still struggling with stagnant wages and enormous racial disparities. And the Fed still seems primed to intentionally slow down the economy later this year. With multi-millionaire Wall Street bankers in its highest leadership positions, how could the American people expect anything else?”

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The Center for Popular Democracy promotes equity, opportunity, and a dynamic democracy in partnership with innovative base-building organizations, organizing networks and alliances, and progressive unions across the country. CPD builds the strength and capacity of democratic organizations to envision and advance a pro-worker, pro-immigrant, racial justice agenda.