Blackstone and JPMorgan CEOs still under pressure over Trump
Blackstone and JPMorgan CEOs still under pressure over Trump
Trump's business advisory councils have been dissolved. But protestors aren't done yet with JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon...
Trump's business advisory councils have been dissolved. But protestors aren't done yet with JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon and Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman.
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Immigrant rights demonstrators find locked doors at Bank of American HQ
Immigrant rights demonstrators find locked doors at Bank of American HQ
A group of about a dozen activists tried to deliver a list of demands at Bank of American Headquarters in Charlotte...
A group of about a dozen activists tried to deliver a list of demands at Bank of American Headquarters in Charlotte Monday but found the doors locked as they attempted to enter the building. A security guard accepted a letter from the group.
It was part of the grassroots fight to shield Mecklenburg County’s estimated 54,000 undocumented immigrants from deportation.
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Insurer To Cover Dying Activist’s Breathing Machine After Twitter Campaign
Insurer To Cover Dying Activist’s Breathing Machine After Twitter Campaign
The California-based insurance company HealthNet agreed to cover a breathing assistance machine for Ady Barkan, a 34-...
The California-based insurance company HealthNet agreed to cover a breathing assistance machine for Ady Barkan, a 34-year-old progressive activist afflicted with ALS, after his complaints about the company went viral on Twitter.
The company had initially refused to cover the costs of the machine on the grounds that it was “experimental,” according to Barkan.
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Mayoral Hopefuls Cool to Plan to Lift Up Low-Wage Workers
Labor Press - February 13, 2013, by Marc Bussanich - While the city’s economy has been recuperating from the Great...
Labor Press - February 13, 2013, by Marc Bussanich - While the city’s economy has been recuperating from the Great Recession, low-wage workers in the city face enormous difficulties in making ends meet in one of the nation’s most expensive cities. A new report, Workers Rising, reveals policy decisions the next mayoral administration can make to improve conditions and pay for low-wage workers.
Presented at a symposium on low-wage worker organizing at the Murphy Institute, the authors of the report, UnitedNY and The Center for Popular Democracy, write that the city should raise standards by guaranteeing at least five days of paid sick leave. The city should also regulate high-violation industries, establish a Mayor’s Office of Labor Standards to investigate complaints by workers and pass a resolution that’ll allow the city to pass a higher minimum wage than the state.
According to the report, the city’s economy is shedding living wage jobs, but is adding low-wage, service sector jobs such as restaurants (42,000) and retail trade (27,000).
Prince Jackson works as a security officer for the Air Serv Corporation at Kennedy airport and is part of a committee of security officers organizing for better pay and the appropriate equipment to do their jobs that ensures the safety of passengers.
He worked all night, but said it was important for him to be at the event.
“I’m very tired, but I will do anything that I can do to raise the standards for my fellow workers at the airport.”
Alterique Hall is a retail worker who said he’s behind his rent because he’s paid very low wages.
“It’s difficult. Some days I just want to lie down and cry because I’m being paid and treated poorly. We need to fight for higher wages to better our futures,” said Hall.
A car wash worker who worked for seven years at a carwash owned by John Lage in SoHo, owner of multiple carwashes throughout the city, will soon be laid off because Lage is selling the property to a developer. The workers at the SoHo facility voted to join the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union in November, but Lage said the property was up for sale before the election.
Council Member Gale Brewer welcomed the proposal to create a local office for labor standards.
“All the other cities and states that have paid sick leave have such an office. Right now, the only way to get a complaint on many of these issues is on a complaint-by-complaint basis. There isn’t currently any organization; the state doesn’t have enough staff. You need a local office that will be a partner with the employee and employer to come up with safe standards,” Brewer said.
Also joining Ms. Brewer were two mayoral hopefuls—Public Advocate Bill de Blasio and former comptroller and 2009 mayoral candidate, William Thompson. They both said they support the movement to help low-wage workers, but they did not say they would enact the authors’ proposals if elected mayor.
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Dems to Fed: Increase your diversity
Dems to Fed: Increase your diversity
Democrats in Congress are pushing the Federal Reserve to emphasize diversity when filling top policymaking roles. In a...
Democrats in Congress are pushing the Federal Reserve to emphasize diversity when filling top policymaking roles.
In a new letter sent to Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen, the lawmakers noted that the overwhelming majority of top central bank positions are filled by white men, and they urged a rapid change.
“The importance of ensuring that such positions are filled by persons that reflect and represent the interests of our diverse country cannot be overstated,” they wrote. “When the voices of women, African-Americans, Latinos, Asian Pacific Americans, and representatives of consumers and labor are excluded from key discussions, their interests are too often neglected.”
The letter, spearheaded by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) and Rep. John Conyers Jr. (Mich.), garnered signatures from 11 senators and 116 House Democrats. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a Democratic presidential contender, signed the letter, as did every Democrat in the Congressional Black Caucus.
Hillary Clinton jumped into the fray as well, issuing a statement Thursday echoing that message and calling for reforms at the Fed to limit Wall Street input.
"Secretary Clinton believes that the Fed needs to be more representative of America as a whole as well as that commonsense reforms -- like getting bankers off the boards of regional Federal Reserve banks -- are long overdue," said a campaign spokesperson.
The members called for the Fed to consider a range of factors when filling upcoming vacancies, including a candidate's ethnicity, economic and professional background.
They note that while unemployment has fallen sharply over the last several months, minority groups still fall behind. White unemployment is 4.3 percent, Hispanic unemployment is 6.1 percent, and black unemployment is 8.8 percent.
The lawmakers noted that every member of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), which sets the nation’s interest rate policy, is white.
In response to the lawmaker critique, the Fed said it was committing to boosting diversity, and touted its recent efforts along those lines.
"We have focused considerable attention in recent years on recruiting directors with diverse backgrounds and experiences," said a Fed spokesperson. "By law, we consider the interests of agriculture, commerce, industry, services, labor, and consumers. We also are aiming to increase ethnic and gender diversity. "
Thursday’s letter is the latest in a growing leftward push to influence the Fed, as liberals view the central bank as disproportionately influenced by input from Wall Street. With the economy on the mend and the Fed eyeing upcoming interest rate increases, they argue that too many Americans lower on the economic scale are not yet feeling those economic gains and need more support from the central bank.
Yellen was previously asked about diversity at the Fed at a congressional hearing earlier this year, and she committed to look into the matter.
Did you know 67% of all job growth comes from small businesses? Read More
A top priority for the lawmakers is ensuring increased diversity at the 12 regional Fed banks scattered across the country. Those banks occupy five rotating seats on the FOMC. But their boards are mostly filled by commercial banks, which directly back each institution.
Democrats have said for years that the arrangement ensures that the financial sector enjoys a prime seat in communicating with the Fed. Thursday’s letter noted that no regional bank head is black or Latino, and no African-American has ever helmed a regional Fed bank in the organization's 100-year history.
By Peter Schroeder
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Seattle Unanimously Passes an 'Amazon Tax' to Fund Affordable Housing
Seattle Unanimously Passes an 'Amazon Tax' to Fund Affordable Housing
Nearly 40 elected city officials from all corners of the U.S., including from metros bracing for Amazon HQ2 like Boston...
Nearly 40 elected city officials from all corners of the U.S., including from metros bracing for Amazon HQ2 like Boston, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, Miami, New York City, and Washington, D.C., signed an open letter on Monday urging Seattle City Council to stay the course and criticizing Amazon’s tactics during the head tax debate.” “This is particularly concerning to us given Amazon’s approach to the competition for HQ2, in which the company has promoted a bidding war of jurisdictions competing with each other to offer greater incentive packages,” the letter read. “If Amazon were serious about its support for strong affordable housing solutions, it would fully back this tax proposal and chip in to help address Seattle’s homelessness crisis. By threatening Seattle over this tax, Amazon is sending a message to all of our cities: We play by our own rules.”
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NYC Council Progressive Caucus Backs Keith Ellison for DNC Chair
NYC Council Progressive Caucus Backs Keith Ellison for DNC Chair
The City Council’s dominant Progressive Caucus—led by Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito—announced their endorsement today...
The City Council’s dominant Progressive Caucus—led by Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito—announced their endorsement today of Minnesota Congressman Keith Ellison for chairman of the Democratic National Committee.
As Democrats look to recover from a devastating Election Day, Ellison is vying to lead the party against former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean and South Carolina chairman Jaime Harrison. Ellison, the first Muslim-American ever elected to the House of Representatives, has attracted the support of Sen. Charles Schumer and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, whom the congressman backed for the presidency in defiance of most party leaders.
Now the Progressive Caucus, whose 19 members mostly though not unanimously favored Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary, has added its backing to the Midwestern lawmaker’s bid.
“The members of the Progressive Caucus Alliance are proud to add our voices to those in support of Keith Ellison for Chair of the Democratic National Committee,” the group said in a press release today. “Congressman Ellison has been a true progressive champion in Congress, and has demonstrated the grit and tenacity that we’ll need for the tough fights ahead.”
Dean, who headed the DNC from 2005 to 2009, has asserted that the organization needs a chair who can attend to party business full-time. The Democrats have suffered severe setbacks over the past eight years under chairs who held elected office, most recently the controversial Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz.
The former Green Mountain State governor and 2004 presidential candidate has highlighted the success of his “50-state strategy” in yielding the first Democratic majority in Congress in 22 years in 2006.
More important for the Council’s Progressive Caucus, however, are Ellison’s two turns as keynote speaker at “Local Progress” gatherings of low-level left-leaning officials. This, the caucus asserted, showed an emphasis on building a party bench at the most basic levels of government.
“As municipal legislators, we are especially enthusiastic about his emphasis on progressive politics at the local level,” their statement said. “Congressman Ellison recognizes that progressive politics matter at the most local of levels: to families seeking a job that pays the bills, to kids from low-income families hoping to go to college, and to parents worried about whether their kids of color will be treated fairly by the criminal justice system. He knows the difference it makes to unite action at the local, state and federal levels, and why it is important to build strength among City Council members and other local elected officials.”
Ellison’s bid also comes as many Democrats, including Schumer, have argued the party needs to increase outreach to blue collar white voters in depressed industrial areas. But the Progressive Caucus insisted the “incredibly divisive national atmosphere” President-elect Donald Trump’s incendiary anti-immigrant rhetoric has created demands party leadership that will stick up for minorities.
“We need a leader who will stand firm against hatred, bias, discrimination, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia,” the Council members’ release said. “The members of the Progressive Caucus Alliance know that Congressman Ellison will be that type of leader, and we enthusiastically support his bid for Chair of the DNC.”
“We are enthusiastic that he will be [the] first Muslim-American DNC Chair,” it added.
Disclosure: Donald Trump is the father-in-law of Jared Kushner, the publisher of Observer Media.
By Will Bredderman
Source
Amendment critics need to move beyond partisan spin
Amendment critics need to move beyond partisan spin
The N.C. Republican Party has endorsed all six amendments. The Democratic Party opposes all six. Cawley delivered his...
The N.C. Republican Party has endorsed all six amendments. The Democratic Party opposes all six. Cawley delivered his remarks during a news conference organized in connection with two left-of-center groups: Local Progress and Common Cause. One can guess which side those groups have chosen in the amendment debate.
Read the full article here.
Fed Up With Being Shut Out of Federal Reserve, Activists Descend on Summit
Specifically, the coalition is warning against the very real prospect of higher interest rates, saying a rate hike...
Specifically, the coalition is warning against the very real prospect of higher interest rates, saying a rate hike would slow the economy and harm those for whom the so-called "recovery" has been weakest, including poor people, women, and communities of color.Instead, the coalition is calling on the Fed to ditch those plans and give vulnerable communities, including "tens of millions of Black Americans who are still struggling," a say in economic policy.
Fed officials have for months signaled an intent to raise short-term interest rates—which were slashed to zero in 2008 in an effort to spur spending and investment—as soon as this fall or winter. As the Washington Post reported Thursday, reported wage growth "combined with the strong hiring and a rapidly falling unemployment rate, gave the Fed hope that the economy would be able to withstand the first rate hike in nearly a decade by the end of the year."
But recent volatility in stock markets in the U.S. and globally, as well as internal policy disagreements, are leading some economic observers to predict that the Fed may now beless likely to set a rate hike at its September meeting.
Regardless, the Fed Up campaign—anchored at the Center for Popular Democracy and supported by 25 groups including the Economic Policy Institute, Demos, and the AFL-CIO—says raising interest rates would be foolhardy.
And they're in Wyoming to make that view known. According to the Huffington Post, "Fed Up's member organizations brought over 100 primarily low-income grassroots activists from across the country for the gathering. It's a dramatic increase from its inaugural visit to Jackson Hole last year, when the campaign brought a group of 10 activists."
As Sam Ross-Brown wrote at the American Prospect this month, "Fed Up's goal is a more 'pro-worker' Federal Reserve, and their first step is stopping the Fed from hiking interest rates before wages and employment have a chance to catch up with the recovery. Building on a similar action last year, the coalition began circulating a petition this week demanding the Fed keep rates low until wages and employment rise."
"There is no data supporting the Fed's push for higher interest rates," said Ady Barkan, campaign director for Fed Up. "While they toy with halting the recovery, there is a crisis of stagnant wages and a lack of good jobs."
According to Whose Recovery? A National Convening on Inequality, Race, and the Federal Reserve—the Fed Up Coalition's policy agenda for three days of teach-ins and workshops in Jackson Hole—a rate hike would slow down the economy so that there are fewer new jobs and workers have less power to negotiate raises.
"By raising interest rates, the Federal Reserve will make it more expensive for us to pay our credit card, student loan, car, and mortgage payments," the Fed Up campaign says. "That means we will have less money in our pockets to buy the goods and services we need. And that will have a terrible ripple effect throughout the economy: businesses will earn less revenue, so they will lay off workers (or avoid hiring new workers) and they won’t be able or willing to give workers any raises. With bad job prospects and stagnant wages, working families won’t earn enough to buy the goods and services they need, which starts the whole cycle again."
"If this sounds like a terrible idea," the coalition continues, "that's because it is."
The Fed Up perspective is supported by economist Joseph Stiglitz, who spoke alongside the grassroots activists at an event on Thursday. The same day, Stiglitz wrote in an LA Timesop-ed:
It is hard to see why the Fed would choose slower job and wage growth for most Americans just to protect against the theoretical risk of moderately higher inflation. But, then again, it's often hard to understand the Fed's policy choices, which tend to contribute to widening inequality in the United States.
Too often, after the end of one recession, the Fed, fearing inflation, has used monetary policy to dampen the economic expansion. Its maneuvers keep inflation low but unemployment higher than it otherwise would be, negatively affecting all workers, not just those out of a job. Workers in jobs face greater stresses, downward pressure on wages and diminished opportunities for upward career mobility. The costs of higher unemployment are borne disproportionately by people in lower-income jobs, who also tend to be disproportionately people of color and women.
Beyond the particulars of interest rates and inflation, however, the Fed Up Coalition iscalling for the central bank to facilitate more robust public engagement and greater transparency, given its position as "arguably the nation's most powerful economic actor."
"For far too long, our communities have been isolated from the Federal Reserve’s policy choices," the coalition writes in Whose Recovery? "Monetary policy has been left up to the bankers and the economists, with the public largely shut out and confounded by its seeming complexity."
Unsurprisingly, the document continues, "[t]he consequences of this disengagement have been profound. For the past 45 years, with only a few exceptions, the Federal Reserve has set policy that benefits banks and harms borrowers, helps employers and hurts workers, and privileges the voices and needs of corporate elites rather than those of America's working families."
Source: CommonDreams
“The People’s Fed”: Manufacturing Popular Support for Global Theft
“The People’s Fed”: Manufacturing Popular Support for Global Theft
How does one get invited to attend one of the most exclusive palavers on the planet? Well, if it’s the annual Jackson...
How does one get invited to attend one of the most exclusive palavers on the planet? Well, if it’s the annual Jackson Hole economic summit sponsored by the Federal Reserve System, it’s virtually a prerequisite that one belong to that elite fraternity of beings known as central bankers. Or a pointy-headed professor with a certified globalist bent. Or, it seems, a loudmouthed, obnoxious street radical with a Marxist-Leninist “social justice/economic democracy” bent.
So, if you’re a screaming activist with the Center for Popular Democracy, apparently, you have an open door, a welcoming hand, and a place at the table with the Jackson Hole uber-elite.“Federal Reserve officials sought to reassure a group of labor activists that the central bank isn’t going to cool down the economy just as a stronger labor market is reaching a broader swath of Americans,” reported the Wall Street Journal on August 26.
Here is an excerpt from the Journal’s report:
“We’re going to run [the economy] hot, get the unemployment rate down lower,” San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank President John Williams said at an unprecedented meeting with activists from the Campaign [sic for Popular Democracy’s Fed Up Campaign.
The meeting of activists and high-ranking Fed officials took place shortly before the start of the Kansas City Fed’s high-profile policy conference in Jackson Hole, Wyo. Central bankers in attendance included Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen’s two top lieutenants, New York Fed President William Dudley and Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer....
The left-leaning activist group Fed Up publicly met with eight Federal Reserve presidents Thursday to discuss inequality and interest rates during the central bank's annual meeting in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
Serious, responsible critics of the Fed of a conservative/libertarian bent would never receive similar cordial treatment, of course. That’s understandable, since they want to restrict the power of the Fed, or abolish it altogether. The left-wing activists, on the other hand, want to expand the power of the Fed, and to use those expanded powers to further socialize our economy and society. That is surprising to many people, but it shouldn’t be; it’s completely in line with Karl Marx’s handbook. The fourth plank in Marx’s 10 planks of the Communist Manifesto calls for “Centralization of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.” Bingo: That’s the Federal Reserve.
So, what is the Center for Popular Democracy (CPD) and who is supporting it and its Fed Up Campaign? Not surprisingly, one of its major supporters is the Ford Foundation, which has been notorious for funding “progressive,” socialist, pro-communist, and outright communist organizations and individuals for more than seven decades. Also, among the CPD financial angels is the Open Philanthropy Project, which has generously funded CPD’s Fed Up Campaign, it boasts, to the tune of at least $2 million. And it has pledged millions more.
In our previous report on the Fed’s conference last weekend (Jackson Hole’s Gangsters and Banksters: What Are They Planning?) we utilized the Fed’s official list of conference attendees to underscore the fact that the Fed’s top echelon officials and advisers hail almost entirely from that elite cabal of globalist one-worlders, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). Moreover, we pointed out, this confirmed a virtually non-stop control of the Fed by CFR members since the Fed’s inception, under the guidance of elite Wall Street banker Paul Warburg, who was also a founder of the CFR.
The same CFR hands are at work in the creation of the Astroturf Fed Up Campaign posing as a grassroots “opposition” force to the Fed. The Ford Foundation and many of the other tax-exempt foundations supporting this faux CPD effort are longtime funding arms for the globalist agenda. Ditto for many of the other controlled opposition groups that CPD/Fed Up list as their “Partners.” Here is a partial list of those CPD partners, most of which would scarcely exist, if not for the activist cash they regularly receive from their globalist paymasters they pretend to oppose:
Arkansas Community Organization
Living United for Change in Arizona
ACCE Institute (Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment)
Working Partnerships USA
CASA de Delaware
New Florida Majority
Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights
Good Jobs Now
Neighborhoods Organizing for Change
TakeAction Minnesota
New York Communities for Change
Common Good Ohio
CASA de Pennsylvania
Ohio Organizing Collaborative
Texas Organizing Project
Wisconsin Jobs Now
Clearly, as with #BlackLivesMatter and the many other Astroturf “progressive” organizations funded by billionaire George Soros (a CFR member and CFR President's Circle corporate supporter), the Fed Up Campaign is another example of CFR Insiders providing simultaneous pressure from above and below to effect social/political/economic/moral revolution.
By William F. Jasper
Source
13 hours ago
13 hours ago