Tag Archives: that-the-fed

Inflation Finally Starting to Hit Healthy Levels

by TraceeCothran Posted on March 31, 2017

Mother Jones

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It’s finally happened. The PCE measure of price inflation has breached the 2 percent barrier:

Over at the Wall Street Journal, Eric Morath comments: “That is a healthy signal for the economy, showing excess capacity and high unemployment that long held inflation near historically low levels have finally abated. Firmer inflation could give Fed policy makers leeway to consider additional interest-rate increases this year.”

That’s a refreshing change from the usual reaction of “ZOMG! Inflation is nearing 2 percent!” Nonetheless, like a broken record, I’ll point out that (a) core inflation is still under 2 percent and barely increasing at all, and (b) 2 percent is not a “target.” Not in the sense of something you should never exceed, anyway. It’s a target for average inflation, and the average since the end of the Great Recession has been 1.5 percent. More recently, the average over the past two years has been 0.8 percent. It’s going to be a while before we make up for so many years of too-low inflation.

Of course, it’s also true that the Fed’s target probably should be 3-4 percent, but that’s a post for another day.

Link:  

Inflation Finally Starting to Hit Healthy Levels

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Elizabeth Warren to Fed: Stop Delegating on Enforcement

by RayIokkidgk Posted on February 12, 2014

Mother Jones

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On Tuesday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) called on the heads of the Federal Reserve, the US central bank that sets monetary policy and helps regulate Wall Street, to take a more active role in bank oversight.

The Fed metes out dozens of penalties against banks each year, for infractions including faulty foreclosure practices and inadequate money laundering protections. But the seven board members—including newly-minted Fed chair Janet Yellen—who head the Federal Reserve rarely vote on penalty and enforcement decisions. Of the roughly 1,000 formal enforcement actions taken by the Federal Reserve over the past 10 years, only 11 were voted on by the board. The rest were delegated to Fed staff, sometimes even mid-level employees. Warren, who sits on the Senate banking committee, and Cummings, the ranking member of the House oversight and government reform committee, have been critical of this arrangement, arguing that the delegation of authority results in penalties that are too lenient. On Tuesday, the two Democrats sent a letter to Yellen asking her to tighten the Fed’s rules governing when the Board of Governors may delegate regulatory decisions, and when they must take important supervisory duties into their own hands.

“We respectfully request that the Fed…require that the Board retain greater authority over the Fed’s enforcement and supervisory activities,” Warren and Cummings wrote. “We believe that increasing the Board’s direct role in overseeing enforcement and supervision would strengthen the Fed’s efforts to reduce systemic risk in our financial system.”

The two note that the Fed Board gives more attention to monetary policy decisions than to its other mandate, bank oversight: “While the Board votes on every important decision the Fed makes on monetary policy, the board rarely votes on the Fed’s important supervisory and enforcement policy decisions.” Other Wall Street regulators, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), require that all bank penalties be approved by their head panels.

In their letter, Warren and Cummings ask Yellen to require the Fed board to vote on any penalty agreement that exceeds $1 million or that involves changes in bank management. They also urge that all board members be notified before staff members enter into an enforcement action against a bank.

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Elizabeth Warren to Fed: Stop Delegating on Enforcement

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