Federal Reserve

In October of 2021, the Federal Reserve was embroiled in scandal. The heads of the Boston and Dallas Feds resigned following personal trading scandals that raised concerns about conflicts of interest and lax ethics guidelines. Further reports of potentially inappropriate trading by Chair Jerome Powell and Vice Chair Clarida rocketed across the business media due to these officials’ immense access to sensitive financial information and influence on monetary policy. Despite their decidedly questionable profiteering off pandemic panic, Powell and Clarida have since had their reputations effectively laundered by the media in a whitewashing effort that has attempted to clear them of all wrongdoing. To make matters worse, the Fed’s FOIA office is doing everything in its power to prevent internal documents relating to the scandals from reaching the light of day.

Soon after Biden renominated Powell, the ostensibly dovish Fed chair embarked on the most intense and sustained series of rate hikes in decades. We were told that this wouldn’t happen!

Inflation is falling, but Jerome Powell has nothing to do with it. Our democracy and climate face mounting instability—and he has everything to do with that.

We need a democratic process for appointing leaders of regional Fed banks.

Activists are pushing Fed vice chair Michael Barr and his deputy Kevin Stiroh to force the financial sector to take climate change seriously.

At the conclusion of the Kansas City Fed’s annual Jackson Hole Economic Symposium, Revolving Door Project Senior Researcher Kenny Stancil and Research Assistant Henry Burke released the following statement:

In advance of his Jackson Hole speech, the Fed chair has neglected his role of ensuring the safety and soundness of banks with substantial fossil fuel assets.

The Fed report is being written by Vice Chair for Supervision Michael Barr, whose own failures ought to be among the report’s focuses.

One of the flashing-red warning signs about SVB’s bad balance sheet was the huge cash advances it was taking out of the FHLBank system.

Despite years of our best advice, and indeed the better judgments of Sen. Elizabeth Warren and other progressives in Congress, government watchdogs like Americans for Financial Reform (AFR) and others, nearly one year ago President Joe Biden disappointed his responsibility to the public and to his own economic agenda by renominating Donald Trump’s hand picked head of the Fed: Jerome Powell. Biden bafflingly stuck by Powell despite his years of betraying labor unions, environmental groups and frontline communities, and the middle class. As a result, broad coalitions of folks concerned about the climate crisis, about the long term safety and stability of our financial system, about attacks on labor and the working class, about housing insecurity and the long term impacts of the pandemic, mobilized against Powell’s renomination because his storied track record of, well, making each of these things (and more!) worse.

As of now, Barr is assigned to investigate supervisory failures that occurred under his watch featuring a bank that catered in particular to the crypto and fintech industries which Barr was so active in immediately prior to revolving back into government. Barr is a walking conflict of interest. His central role in the investigation is damning

His defense of HAMP is that his hands were tied, but he seemingly went out of his way to handcuff himself.

Insider-trading can’t keep Powell’s right-hand man from becoming CNBC’s new favorite expert.