Update 341: Trump Seeks to Put Moore on FRBRaising Independence, Qualifications Questions On Friday, President Trump nominated Stephen Moore to a 14-year term as a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors to fill one of two open Fed Board seats. Moore is a former Trump employee who some fear is woefully unprepared not …
Update 340: Middle Class Cash & Credit CrunchCase Studies, Problems and Policy Solutions The long-awaited, much discussed, often feared inversion of the yield curve — where long-term yields fall below short-term ones — occurred at about 1 pm ET this afternoon. As we have discussed, this is a widely recognized harbinger of recession, news that …
Update 339 • In Memoriam • Prof. Alan Krueger Labor Economist Applied Actual Facts to Policy Princeton Professor of Political Economy Alan Krueger passed away this weekend at the age of 58, leaving behind a breadth of work and critical thinking that challenged mainstream economic discipline and gave rise to a new form of applied …
Update 338 — “Activities-Based” Designation: Red Herring from FSOC Gets Hearing at SBC With April Fool’s Day coming up, one might believe a Trump Treasury proposal seeks greater regulatory focus on systemically risky financial activity, were one to read last week’s FSOC proposal (Authority To Require Supervision and Regulation of Certain Nonbank Financial Companies). But …
Red Herring from FSOC Gets Hearing at SBC (March 15) Read More »
Update 337 — Federal Paid Leave Policy: Unreformed Since America was Great Again The last major federal legislation on family and medical leave — the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) — was in 1993 under President Bill Clinton. A big step forward for families and workers, FMLA nevertheless excludes from coverage over 40 percent …
Update 336: House Passes H.R. 1 by 234-193 No Ds Dissent; Long March Ahead in Senate Earlier today, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 1, a comprehensive political reform measure that would greatly expand ballot access, help level the campaign finance playing field, and codify ethics rules across all branches of government. The vote …
Update 335 — The Labor Participation Rate: After the Shouting, What Have We Learned? We tear ourselves away from the House floor debate on H.R. 1 — the anti-corruption political reform package scheduled for a vote on final passage at 11 a.m. on Friday — to provide a labor market update focused on the labor …
Update 334: Hitting Hill for Humphrey-Hawkins;Powell Cites Concerns, Holds Rates in Place This Tuesday and yesterday, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell appeared before Senate and House Committees to report, as the Fed Chair does semi-annually, on the state of the economy and monetary policy. In his July 2018 testimony, Chairman Powell painted a picture of …
Fed Chair Powell Cites Concerns, Holds Rates in Place (February 28) Read More »
Update 333: Bronx Cheer for Amazon in Queens City Loses Site in Firm’s Preemptive Break-Up In honor of the opening of spring training, we pause to remember the words of Casey Stengel, manager of the New York Mets, who played and mostly lost, compiling the worst record in baseball history in 1962, in Queens: “Come …
Update 332 — The BB&T/SunTrust Merger: Bank Consolidation Gains, Thanks to S. 2155? Virtually every major sector and industry in the American economy has seen increasing concentration and reduced competition over the last several decades and banking is no exception. Trump era deregulation has accelerated this trend and last year’s S. 2155 and its implementing …
