#Martin Appelbaum

[bauerntanz]

Emsland-Mallorca

#Emsland-#Mallorca. @bantam111 lag mit seiner Vermutung richtig. Nazi Jens Hessler, ehedem aus #Lingen, ist Teil des Rechtsrock-Musiknetzes, das vergangene Woche polizeilich ausgehoben wurde.

Bantam111 heißt der Twitteraccount von Reinhard Markus. Er schrieb nach den Medienberichten über die Durchsuchungen in der rechten Musikszene diesen Tweet: Gibt es da einen Bezug zu #Lingen? Mallorca macht mich stutzig. Durchsuchung auch auf Mallorca: Bundesweite Razzia gegen rechtsextreme Musikszene https://t.co/gcIopgypn0 via @derspiegel — Reinhard Markus (@bantam111) October 26,…

[virtue-boy]

“‘We had such a beautiful Army, it was the most beautiful Army in the world. And what did they do with the Army? They sent them to war!’ This quip, which could easily have represented Jewish humor, is well known in Austria today. Although a joke, it reveals that even a hundred years ago, war was considered a legitimate means in the pursuit of securing political interest. Following the explosion of ethnic nationalism in the whole of Europe and the catastrophe of the Second World War, this multi-ethnic approach of the Habsburg Monarchy became questionable, if not dubious. Appelbaum’s latest work on diversity, presented here, deploys the example of Jewish soldiers and their devoted loyalty to illustrate how a multi-ethnic and religiously grounded State, can be viable—despite its subsequent political destruction. The confirmation of this principle of inclusion and diversity is presently observed in the existence of the European Union.” — Ministerialrat Magister rer.soc.oec. Martin Senekowitsch, Oberst der Reserve

i read this book recently and it was really interesting. relatively speaking the austro hungarian empire had the most tolerant policies towards jews out of the european powers at the time

[rjzimmerman]

One person I dislike almost as much as trump is Tom Perez, the Chair of the Democratic National Committee. He is part of the “old” Democratic Party machine, strongly supported by the usual cast of characters, including President Obama. He needs to disappear.

Excerpt from this story from Common Dreams/EcoWatch:

Despite mounting pressure on the party to craft a 2020 platform that includes ambitious climate policies, Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez on Monday announced a drafting committee that, in the words of journalist Emily Atkin, "snubs progressive climate activists again."

Perez's announcement followed reporting that Democratic Party leadership was "irked" when the DNC Council on the Environment and Climate Crisis released policy recommendations for the platform on June 4 that are bolder than the proposals in presidential candidate Joe Biden's climate plan. Party insiders told Reuters the panel is an "insurgent" group that is not "taken seriously."

Several climate advocacy groups have endorsed the panel's recommendations, including Greenpeace USA on Tuesday. Charlie Jiang, a campaigner for the group, declared that "as we confront the interwoven crises of climate change, white supremacy, and Covid-19, we must demand nothing short of a visionary, transformative agenda from Democratic leadership."

Perez, for his part, said in a statement that "crafting our party platform is important work, and I'm confident that the members of this committee will engage Americans in a substantive dialogue of ideas and solutions that will articulate our party's vision for the country and mobilize voters in every community to elect Joe Biden."

However, the positions and backgrounds of those charged with drafting that Democratic Party's platform suggest the final version could fall far short of climate activists' demands.

As Atkin detailed in her HEATED newsletter Tuesday:

[The] majority of people on the drafting committee are Gen Xers and Baby Boomers (average age: 55) who have either have no history of prioritizing climate; aren't on record as supporting the Green New Deal; and/or haven't signed the No Fossil Fuel Money pledge. There's only one person on the drafting committee who could credibly considered a climate-focused Democrat. There are more big bank executives on the Democratic platform drafting committee than there are climate activists or millennials.

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms will chair the drafting committee, Biden adviser Carmel Martin will be a non-voting member, and Rep. Barbara Lee (Calif.) will be an ex-officio member. The other members are Tony Allen (Del.), Stuart Appelbaum (N.Y.), Rep. Katherine Clark (D-Mass.), Sen. Tammy Duckworth (Ill.), Rep. Sylvia Garcia (Texas), Heather Gautney (N.Y.), Don Graves (Ohio), Rep. Deb Haaland (N.M.), Analilia Mejia (N.J.), Josh Orton (Wis.), state Sen. Jose Javier Rodriguez (Fla.), Julianne Smith (D.C.), Richard Trumka (Penn.), and former Gov. Tom Vilsack (Iowa).

[jewish-privilege]

“Eileh Ezkarah for Pittsburgh” by Rabbi Jonathan Perman in collaboration with Rabbis Tamar Elad Appelbaum and Martin Cohen with nekudot (vowels) by Tova Admon of Hillel Academy of Pittsburgh and typesetting by David Zvi Kalman.  

[luditarebelde]

The exhibition title is taken from a term coined by Korean American artist Nam June Paik who is considered to be the founder of video art. Paik is credited with an early usage (1974) of the term "electronic super highway" in application to telecommunications: "The building of new electronic super highways will become an even huger enterprise. Assuming we connect New York with Los Angeles by means of an electronic telecommunication network that operates in strong transmission ranges, as well as with continental satellites, wave guides, bundled coaxial cable, and later also via laser beam fiber optics: the expenditure would be about the same as for a Moon landing, except that the benefits in term of by-products would be greater”. In the 1970s, Paik imagined a global community of viewers for what he called a Video Common Market which would disseminate videos freely. The Whitechapel Gallery in London presents this major exhibition bringing together over 100 works to show the impact of computer and Internet technologies on artists from 1966 to 2016. Arranged in reverse chronological order, Electronic Superhighway begins with works made at the arrival of the new millennium, and ends with Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T), an iconic, artistic moment that took place in 1966. Key moments in the history of art and the Internet emerge as the exhibition travels back in time. The exhibition runs from 29 January to 15 May 2016 featuring new and rarely seen multimedia works, together with film, painting, sculpture, photography and drawing. The full list of artists included in Electronic Superhighway (2016-1966) are: Jacob Appelbaum / Cory Arcangel / Roy Ascott / Jeremy Bailey / Judith Barry / Wafaa Bilal / Zach Blas / Olaf Breuning / James Bridle / Heath Bunting / Bureau of Inverse / Technology (B.I.T.) / Antoine Catala / Aristarkh Chernyshev / Petra Cortright / Vuk Ćosić / Douglas Coupland / CTG (Computer Technique Group) / Cybernetic Serendipity / Aleksandra Domanović / Constant Dullaart / Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.) / Harun Farocki / Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige / Celia Hempton / Camille Henrot / Gary Hill / Ann Hirsch / Nancy Holt and Richard Serra / JODI / Eduardo Kac / Allan Kaprow / Hiroshi Kawano / Mahmoud Khaled / Oliver Laric / Jan Robert Leegte / Lynn Hershman Leeson / Olia Lialina /Tony Longson / Rafael Lozano-Hemmer / Jonas Lund / Jill Magid / Eva and Franco Mattes / Model Court / Vera Molnar / Mouchette (Martine Neddam) / Manfred Mohr / Jayson Musson / Frieder Nake / Joshua Nathanson / Katja Novitskova / Mendi + Keith Obadike / Albert Oehlen / Trevor Paglen / Nam June Paik / Jon Rafman / Evan Roth / Thomas Ruff / Alex Ruthner / Jacolby Satterwhite / Lillian F. Schwartz / Peter Sedgley / Taryn Simon / Frances Stark / Hito Steyerl / Sturtevant / Martine Syms / Thomson and Craighead / Ryan Trecartin / Amalia Ulman / Stan VanDerBeek / Steina and Woody Vasulka / Addie Wagenknecht / Lawrence Weiner / Ulla Wiggen / The Yes Men / Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries. This video was created and produced by ARTtouchesART. It displays the work of the artists mentioned above on the track of The Chemical Brothers - 'Asleep from Day' featuring Hope Sandoval. This video is our tribute to the video art scene of the last 50 years.

[orbemnews]

Amazon Workers’ Union Drive Reaches Far Beyond Alabama Players from the National Football League were among the first to voice their support. Then came Stacey Abrams, the Democratic star who helped turn Georgia blue in the 2020 election. The actor Danny Glover traveled to Bessemer, Ala., for a news conference last week, where he invoked the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s pro-union leanings in urging workers at Amazon’s warehouse there to organize. Tina Fey has weighed in, and so has Senator Bernie Sanders. Then on Sunday, President Biden issued a resounding declaration of solidarity with the workers now voting on whether to form a union at Amazon’s Bessemer warehouse, without mentioning the company by name. Posted to his official Twitter account, his video was one of the most forceful statements in support of unionizing by an American president in recent memory. “Every worker should have a free and fair choice to join a union,” Mr. Biden said. A unionizing campaign that had deliberately stayed under the radar for months has in recent days blossomed into a star-studded showdown to influence the workers. On one side is the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union and its many pro-labor allies in the worlds of politics, sports and Hollywood. On the other is one of the world’s dominant companies, an e-commerce behemoth that has warded off previous unionizing efforts at its U.S. facilities over its more than 25-year history. The attention is turning this union vote into a referendum not just on working conditions at the Bessemer warehouse, which employs 5,800, but on the plight of low-wage employees and workers of color in particular. Many of the employees in the Alabama warehouse are Black, a fact that the union organizers have highlighted in their campaign seeking to link the vote to the struggle for civil rights in the South. The retail workers union has a long history of organizing Black workers in the poultry and food production industries, helping them gain basic benefits like paid time off and safety protections and a means to economic security. The union is portraying its efforts in Bessemer as part of that legacy. “This is an organizing campaign in the right-to-work South during the pandemic at one of the largest companies in the world,” said Benjamin Sachs, a professor of labor and industry at Harvard Law School. “The significance of a union victory there really couldn’t be overstated.” The warehouse workers began voting by mail on Feb. 8 and the ballots are due at the end of this month. A union can form if a majority of the votes cast favor such a move. Amazon’s countercampaign, both inside the warehouse and on a national stage, has zeroed in on pure economics: that its starting wage is $15 an hour, plus benefits. That is far more than its competitors in Alabama, where the minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. “It’s important that employees understand the facts of joining a union,” Heather Knox, an Amazon spokeswoman, said in a statement. “We will provide education about that and the election process so they can make an informed decision. If the union vote passes, it will impact everyone at the site and it’s important associates understand what that means for them and their day-to-day life working at Amazon.” The company, which went on a huge hiring spree last year as homebound customers sent its sales to a record $386 billion, recorded more than $22 billion in profit. In Alabama, some workers are growing weary of the process. One employee recently posted on Facebook: “This union stuff getting on my nerves. Let it be March 30th already!!!” The situation is getting testy, with union leaders accusing Amazon of a series of “union-busting” tactics. The company has posted signs across the warehouse, next to hand sanitizing stations and even in bathroom stalls. It sends regular texts and emails, pointing out the problems with unions. It posts photos of workers in Bessemer on the internal company app saying how much they love Amazon. At certain training sessions, company representatives have pointed out the cost of union dues. When some workers have asked pointed questions in the meetings, the Amazon representatives followed up with them at their work stations re-emphasizing the downsides of unions, employees and organizers say. The meetings stopped once the voting started, but the signs are still up, said Jennifer Bates, a pro-union worker in the warehouse. In this charged atmosphere, even routine things have become suspect. The union has raised questions about the changing of the timing of a traffic light near the warehouse where labor organizers try to talk to the workers as they are stopped in their vehicles while leaving the facility. Amazon did ask county officials in mid-December to change the light’s timing, though there is no evidence in the county records that the change was made to thwart the union. “Traffic for Amazon is backing up around shift change,” the public records stated as the reason the county altered the light. Amazon regularly navigates traffic concerns around its facilities, and wasting unpaid time in congested parking lots is a frequent gripe of Amazon workers in Facebook groups. But the retail workers’ union president, Stuart Appelbaum, questioned the timing of the request in Bessemer, coming as it did at the height of the organizing. “When the light was red we could answer questions and have a brief conversation with workers,” he said. Last week, the union questioned an offer the company made to the Alabama warehouse workers to pay them at least $1,000 if they quit by late March. Mr. Appelbaum accused the company of trying to entice employees to leave before the vote ended. “They are trying to remove the most likely union supporters from their work force by bribing them to leave and give up their vote,” he said in an interview. But “The Offer,” as it’s known among employees, was the same that Amazon made to workers at all of its warehouses around the country. It is an annual program that lets the company reduce its head count after the peak holiday shopping season without layoffs. It has been in place since at least 2014, when Jeff Bezos wrote about it in a shareholder letter. “Once a year, we offer to pay our associates to quit,” Mr. Bezos said at the time. “In the long run, an employee staying somewhere they don’t want to be isn’t healthy for the employee or the company.” Mr. Appelbaum was not swayed. He said he believed that Amazon had chosen to make the offer across all of its warehouses when it did in order to help eliminate possible “yes” votes in Bessemer. President Biden stopped short of urging the Amazon workers to unionize, but his statement instantly raised the stakes of an already momentous campaign. “Let me be really clear,” Mr. Biden said. “It’s not up to me to decide whether anyone should join a union. But let me be even more clear: It’s not up to an employer to decide that, either. The choice to join a union is up to the workers. Full stop.” He added, “Workers in Alabama and all across America are voting on whether to organize a union in their workplace. This is vitally important — a vitally important choice.” And it is one, he said, that should be made without intimidation or threats. Despite the union’s suspicions, it has not filed any formal complaints with the National Labor Relations Board, Mr. Appelbaum said. Typically, unions can raise objections to a company’s tactics before an election and the labor board can step in. If a complaint were to be filed, the labor board could potentially determine that the election is invalid because of Amazon’s actions. But after working for months to build support inside and outside the Amazon warehouse, the last thing the union wants is for the labor board to intervene and rule that the election must be held again. The voting has already been taking place in Bessemer for nearly a month. Mr. Sachs, of Harvard Law School, said that despite Mr. Biden’s admonishments of companies’ interfering in elections, the current labor law does allow Amazon to hold certain mandatory meetings with workers to discuss why they shouldn’t unionize and enables the company to post anti-union messages around the workplace. “It is very helpful that the president is calling out these tactics, but what we need is a new labor law to stop companies from interfering,” he said. It is rare for such a large union election to be held by mail. Over Amazon’s objections, the labor board required a mail-in vote after determining that federal election monitors would be at risk of contracting Covid-19 if they had to travel to Bessemer to oversee in-person voting. By pushing back aggressively against the union, Amazon risks angering Democrats in Washington, many of whom are already calling for more antitrust scrutiny of big tech companies, whose businesses have grown even larger in the pandemic. Amazon has mounted a public campaign supporting legislation to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour, buying prominent ads in The New York Times, The Washington Post and other publications. In his video on Sunday, President Biden specifically mentioned how unions can help “Black and brown workers” and vulnerable workers struggling during the economic crisis brought on by the pandemic. Ms. Bates, 48, one of the leaders of the union drive, started working at the Bessemer warehouse in May. She said she felt insulted by some of Amazon’s anti-union efforts, particularly the company’s statements to the staff that they would be required to pay nearly $500 in union dues every year. Because Alabama is a right-to-work state, there is no such requirement that a union member pay dues. “It angers me a little bit because I feel like they know the truth and they won’t tell the truth and are taking advantage because they know employees come from a community that is looked on as Black and low income,” said Ms. Bates, who is Black. “It felt really horrible that you would stand there and mislead people intentionally. Give them the facts and let them decide.” Source link Orbem News #Alabama #Amazon #Drive #reaches #union #Workers

[fefefernandes80]

Drone Awards anunciou as melhores fotografias criadas com drone em 2020

Jim Picôt

Drone Awards 2020 anunciou os vencedores da competição de 2020. O grande vencedor foi Jim Picot da Autrália com uma linda foto de natureza. A galeria com as melhores fotografias é realmente fascinante e só comprova que a junção de tecnologia e arte sempre gera resultados interessantes. São 10 categorias abordando desde casamento até abstrato. Esse ano inclusive com uma categoria sobre a rotina com a Covid-19. Foram milhares de inscrições com fotos de 126 países. Veja os vencedores desse ano.

Joseph Cheires

Dmitrii Viliunov

Martin Harvey

Khanh Phan

Tomer Appelbaum

Tomasz Kowalski

Bachir Moukarzel

Hong Jen Chiang

Alessandra Meniconzi

Paul Hoelen

James Rushforth

Mehmet Aslan

Mohamed Azmeel

Lukasz Rajs

Krzysztof Krawczyk

Roberto Corinaldesi

Mark Carwardine

  Mehmet Aslan

Pawel Zygmunt

  Boyan Ortse

Md Tanveer Hassan Rohan

Tugo Cheng

Rafal Ganowski

Tobias Froehner

Dominic Lemoine

Davide Lopresti

Azim Khan Ronnie

Brad Walls

    The post Drone Awards anunciou as melhores fotografias criadas com drone em 2020 appeared first on FHOX.

Texto Original Publicado em: – Fhox

Via: Blog da Fefe

[magdyelsaies]

Wir sind der Polizei, der Staatsanwalt, der Richter, Das Amtsgericht und mehr...mit diese Worte hat die SPD Nutten und Zuhältern des Justiz Systems in Niedersachsen mich am 15.12.2010 bedroht...meine Entscheidungen seit 15.12.2010 bis 26.06.2020 hat sich nicht geändert..und die Mitbeteiligten Richter und Staatsanwälte versprochen dass ich von denen eine Exemplare für alle Nutten und Zuhältern in die Welt machen, von Thailand bis nach Nienburg inklusive die Dorfnutte am Kläranlage Wunstorf, sie und jeder der sie in diesem Betrug und Amtsmissbrauch helfen wird. 1) Jörn Wedemeier. 2) Timo Goldmann 3) Christoph Hessel 4) Max Conrad. 5) Volker Ohlhagen 6) Heidi Marohn, 7) Dr. pallenberg. 8) Richterin Erdlenbruch 9) Richter Knapper 10) Lukas Veith. 11) Martin Appelbaum 12)Obergerichtsvollzieher Abelmann 13) Oberamtsanwalt Wilkeninng 14) ...den Rist folgte noch.. https://www.instagram.com/p/CB5OqNLAM5F/?igshid=hshxxc59bq60

[reportingfromthefield]

MUSEO LAVAZZA UNIVERSO from Tamschick Media+Space GmbH on Vimeo.

In April 2018 the coffee producer Lavazza opened its new headquarters "Nuvola Lavazza" in Turin, attracting a large interest from the general public. TAMSCHICK MEDIA + SPACE produced the audiovisual centrepiece for the museum designed by RAA-London, which incorporates the theme of the cloud, in Italian "nuvola. Integral to its title, the cloud stands for movement and reflection, for transparency and also for the dimension of time.

Visitors to the museum descend down a linear staircase into an oval 8 m high "room within a room", the boundaries of which are defined by thousands of threads hanging down from the ceiling, illuminated from floor to ceiling by all-round by radiant projections. The visitor is invited to move the curtain by touching or walking through it, thus increasing the dynamics of the moving projection. Even from the outside the transparency and illumination of the delicate light body is tangible. Like a light sculpture, the haptic space also visually appears in the adjacent museum areas. The projected animations tell of the artistic associations of the place and ritual of coffee, from the milestones of the Lavazza company as well as of their awareness of innovation and aesthetic drive. The philosophy of the family business centres on the idea of sharing a moment of enjoyment, with people always at the heart. As a symbol of this, an interactive oval table is the focus of the spatial installation, which functions as a meeting point and communication centre.

At the start of the museum tour each visitor receives an espresso cup, equipped with a data-storage device. The sequence of the immersive 360° projection can be controlled by placing the cup on the interactive table surface. Four animations are available, each of which tells a different side to the Lavazza story, such as the origin of coffee, a sensory depiction of coffee plants in the semi-shade of living rainforests, or those from urban worlds, people and inspirations that are closely linked to the enjoyment of coffee viewed from the centre of an Italian piazza. During the course of a virtual day, light, shadows and historical and contemporary black-and-white photographs drift across the piazza’s classic facade. In the end, every story dissolves back into the cloud universe.

Client Luigi Lavazza S.p.A. Tasks TMS Creative direction, Concept, Motion Design, 3D/Film Production, Implementation, Projectmanagement, Interaktive Table Concept and Filmproduction Creative Direction Charlotte Tamschick Art Direction Natalie van Sasse van Ysselt, Marc Oßwald Project management and Postproduction Supervision Martin Backhaus Concept Mattis Völker, Riccardo Torresi Motion Design Markus Gonser, Mattis Gutsche, Björn Fiekert Music/Sounddesign Not A Machine, Hamburg Lead Agency / Scenography

Ralph Appelbaum Associates Table Programming/Interaction NEO s.r.l. Projection Hardware/Technical Implementation Acuson s.r.l.

[drudwen]

Phoebe Davies - E. Lois

Ganwyd Phoebe Davies ar y 7fed o Chwefror 1864 yn Aberteifi.

Roedd ei thad wedi treulio cyfnod yng Nghaliffornia yn ystod y Rhuthr am Aur yn 1849, ac dychwelodd â’i deulu yn yr 1870au cynnar er mwyn gweithio gyda’r Pacific Mail Steamship Company.

Pan roedd Phoebe yn yr ysgol, ennillodd ragbrawf gyda David Belasco, y cynhyrchydd theatr, ac o ganlyniad cafodd gynnig rhan yng nghynhyrchiad nesaf y Baldwin Theatre Stock Company yn San Ffransisco. Yn anffodus, roedd hi’n sâl yn ystod y cynhyrchiad, felly chafodd hi ddim y cyfle i berfformio yn y cynhyrchiad hwnnw.

Perfformiodd yn gyntaf mewn sioe o’r enw Adolph Chalet, ac yna, yn hwyrach yn y tymor, mewn cynhyrchiad theatr o ‘Michael Strogoff’, nofel gan Jules Verne.

Tua 1882, ymunodd Davies â’r Baldwin Theatre Stock Company, a pherfformiodd hi mewn cynhyrchiadau o King Lear a Hamlet, gyda Ernesto Rossi, yr actor enwog o’r Eidal.

Ymddangosodd mewn sawl sioe yn y flwyddyn honno, gan gynnwys Romeo and Juliet, Richard III a King John.

Ar y 7fed o Fehefin 1882, priododd Phoebe â Joseph R. Grimser, oedd yn actor hefyd. Dechreuodd y ddau actio gyda’u gilydd, trwy weithio ar sioeau oedd yn teithio o amgylch Califfornia.  

Yn hwyrach y flwyddyn honno, ffurfiodd y cwpl y Sefydliad Grimser-Davies, a dechreuodd y sefydliad deithio â sioeau o amgylch taleithau gorllewinol Gogledd America.

Yn ystod y cyfnod hwn, perfformiodd Phoebe mewn sawl sioe a ysgrifennwyd gan ei gŵr.

Ar y 12fed o Fedi 1892, bedyddiwyd eu mab, Conrad Valentine Grimser, yn San Ffransisco.

Yn 1893, dechreuodd Phoebe a’i gŵr daith sioeau o daleithau Dwyreiniol gogledd America.

Tua’r flwyddyn 1895, roedd ei gŵr yn un o grŵp o bobl a brynodd yr hawliau i’r ddrama Way Down East. Phoebe oedd yn actio prif gymeriad y sioe, Annie Moore. Perfformiwyd y ddrama hon oddeutu 4,000 o weithiau, ac amcamfyfrifir fod y sioe wedi cynhyrchu tua miliwn o ddoleri, gyda gŵr Phoebe yn ennill tua £350,000.

Daliodd Phoebe ati i deithio gyda Way Down East tan 1909, a’i bwriad oedd i berfformio mewn sioe arall cyn diwedd y flwyddyn. Datblygodd Phoebe salwch ddifrifol, ac wedi cyfnod hir, bu farw yn Larchmont, Efrog Newydd, ar y 4ydd o Ragfyr 1912 yn 48 mlwydd oed.

Darllen Pellach:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebe_Davies

Famour Actresses of the day in America – Lewis Clinton Strang

The Professional Theatre in San Francisco, 1880-1889 – John Scott McElhaney

Frontier Theatre: A History of Nineteenth-Century Theatrical Entertainment in the Canadian Far West and Alaska – Chad Evans

The Best Plays of 1894-1899 – John Arthur Chapman & Garrison P. Sherwood

The Oxford Companion to American Theatre – Gerald Martin Borman & Thomas S. Hischak

Great Actors and Actresses of the American Stage in Historic Photographs – Stanley Appelbaum

Who’s who in Music and Drama: An Encyclopedia of Biography of Notable Men and Women in Music and the Drama – Harry Prescott Hanaford & Dixie Hines E. Lois yw arlunydd Rhithganfyddiad, Crysau T Golau Arall, ac arlunydd a churadur Prosiect Drudwen.

[magicwebsitesnet]

Nature Trump Attacks the Fed as Stocks Fall and the Midterms Loom

Nature Trump Attacks the Fed as Stocks Fall and the Midterms Loom Nature Trump Attacks the Fed as Stocks Fall and the Midterms Loom http://www.nature-business.com/nature-trump-attacks-the-fed-as-stocks-fall-and-the-midterms-loom/

Nature

Image

Jerome H. Powell, selected by President Trump as Fed chairman, has said that Mr. Trump’s views will not influence the central bank’s decisions.CreditCreditAl Drago for The New York Times

President Trump responded to falling stock prices on Thursday by continuing to throw rocks at the Federal Reserve, which he has described as “crazy,” “loco,” “going wild” and “out of control” for slowly raising interest rates against the backdrop of a booming economy.

No other modern president has publicly attacked the Fed with such venom or frequency. Indeed, some scholars said the only close historical parallel was with President Andrew Jackson, who campaigned successfully in the 1830s to close the Fed’s predecessor, the Second Bank of the United States.

Mr. Trump’s pointed remarks reflect the high political stakes less than a month before midterm elections that have been cast by his political opponents as a referendum on his presidency. Mr. Trump has been riding the economy hard, bragging about job creation, tax cuts and reduced federal regulation, and claiming credit for the rise of the stock market. Now that the market has lost 5 percent of its value in the last week, Mr. Trump is insisting someone else is to blame.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index closed at 2,728.37 on Thursday, down 2.06 percent.

In fact, despite the stock market’s plunge, the American economy continues to grow, which is what is prompting the Fed to raise interest rates and drawing the president’s ire. The Fed’s chairman, Jerome H. Powell, has said that the economy is in a “particularly bright moment” and that he sees no clouds on the horizon.

The stock market sell-off instead appears to reflect the movement of money into bonds, a normal consequence of higher interest rates since those securities pay more as rates rise; concern about the health of the global economy; and hesitations about the value of tech stocks.

But after hitching his political fortunes to the rise of the stock market, Mr. Trump is now looking to decouple himself from its fall. Republicans are instead emphasizing continued economic growth and the lowest unemployment rate since 1969.

So far, the president’s comments have made little impression on market expectations about Fed policy. Unlike Jackson’s concerted campaign, Mr. Trump’s attacks appear curiously unmoored from the policies of his own administration or the longstanding goals of the Republican Party. Mr. Trump’s own aides have insisted that the president’s remarks are personal musings, not an attempt to dictate policy.

The Fed has also brushed off the attacks; it still expected to raise rates in December for the fourth time this year.

Mr. Powell, selected for the job by Mr. Trump, said at a September news conference that Mr. Trump’s views would not influence the Fed’s decisions. “We don’t consider political factors or things like that,” Mr. Powell said. “That’s who we are, that’s what we do, and that’s just the way it’s always going to be for us.”

Mr. Powell emphasized that the decision to raise rates to a range between 2 and 2.25 percent was not intended to get in the way of continued growth. “My colleagues and I are doing all we can to keep the economy strong, healthy and moving forward,” he said.

A spokeswoman declined to comment on Thursday.

Some experts warned that a continued assault on the Fed could have long-lasting consequences.

Peter Conti-Brown, a professor of legal studies at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of a political history of the Fed, pointed to the example of the F.B.I., another institution Mr. Trump has repeatedly attacked by raising questions about the integrity of its decision making. Mr. Conti-Brown said technocratic institutions are insulated from political pressure by public confidence. If confidence erodes, it becomes harder for technocrats to resist the politicians.

The F.B.I. has seen a loss of leadership, an erosion of morale and an increase in congressional scrutiny.

“How long before the Fed is looking at its political context and saying, ‘We can’t stick our heads out as far as we need to,’” Mr. Conti-Brown asked rhetorically. “How long will people stay if the job itself becomes terrible, and there are protesters everywhere you go?”

Mr. Trump criticized the Fed when it raised interest rates in July, and again when it raised interest rates in September. But his attacks have sharply intensified in recent days, in tandem with the drop in the stock market.

Video

President Trump responded to the recent stock market sell-off by criticizing the Federal Reserve’s interest rate increases.Published OnOct. 11, 2018CreditCreditImage by Carlos Barria/Reuters

“I think the Fed has gone crazy,” he told reporters on Wednesday afternoon. Later in the day, speaking with Fox News, he continued to increase the heat. “The Fed is going wild,” he said. “I don’t know what their problem is. They are raising interest rates and it’s ridiculous.”

“It’s not right,” he said Thursday. “It’s not necessary, and I think I know more about it than they do.”

Mr. Trump added that he was “disappointed” with Mr. Powell but did not plan to fire him — an authority the president may not even have. While the president in theory has the power to remove a Fed chairman “for cause,” courts have held that the permissible causes do not include policy disagreements.

For the moment, Mr. Trump’s criticism of the Fed does not seem to be catching on with Republican candidates. Many Republicans have argued for years that the Fed was waiting too long to raise interest rates, and then that it was moving too slowly. The party is trying to hold on to majorities in the Senate and the House by running on a strong economy and using the heated liberal opposition to Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation as an example of the threat Democrats pose if they control Congress. That dynamic could change, however, if the stock market continues to fall.

Modern presidents have always kept an uneasy eye on the Fed, because its decisions about monetary policy have a significant influence on the pace of economic growth.

Until the early 1950s, the Fed essentially operated as an arm of the Treasury Department. Even after the Fed gained operational independence, presidents often opined publicly about what the Fed should do and, if the Fed ignored their advice, they sometimes sought to bend its officials to their will.

President Lyndon B. Johnson protested a decision to raise interest rates in the late 1960s by summoning the Fed chairman at the time, William McChesney Martin, to his East Texas ranch and pinning the smaller man against a wall. President Richard M. Nixon instructed aides to blackmail Mr. Martin’s successor, Arthur Burns. President George Bush declared in a State of the Union address that the Fed should keep rates low.

But the volume of public commentary greatly diminished in recent decades as politicians concluded that pressuring the Fed was counterproductive. The administrations of Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama all made a policy of silence on monetary policy.

Krishna Guha, the head of the central bank strategy team at Evercore ISI, said he did not expect Mr. Trump’s remarks to influence the Fed, and he saw no evidence that markets were paying attention. But he added that if Mr. Trump did succeed, he would most likely regret doing so.

If Mr. Trump’s attacks convince markets that the Fed may move more slowly, or show greater tolerance of inflation, bond yields would rise, which would put further downward pressure on equity prices.

Still, Mr. Guha — formerly a senior official at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York — said that the president’s criticisms were not good for the central bank or the future conduct of economic policy.

“You never want to be in a position where some part of society doesn’t just question whether you made the right call or not, but whether you made that call in the public interest,” he said.

Mr. Trump’s aides have sought to play down his broadsides. Larry Kudlow, the president’s top economic adviser, said Mr. Trump was just offering his two cents. “I don’t think he’s ‘calling out the Fed,’ quote unquote,” Mr. Kudlow told reporters outside the White House on Thursday morning. “I really mean this. I think he’s giving you his opinion. He is a, obviously, successful businessman, he’s a very well-informed investor. He has his views. But he’s not saying to them, ‘Change your plan.’”

Mr. Kudlow added, “He knows the Fed is independent, and he respects that.”

Mr. Trump’s criticisms appear strangely at odds with the way he has handled the most powerful means at his disposal to influence monetary policy. Since taking office less than two years ago, he has had the unusual opportunity to fill six of the seven seats on the Fed’s board of governors.

He filled the top three positions on the Fed’s board, including the chairman’s job, with members of the Republican policymaking establishment, which has long been committed to keeping inflation firmly under control. Three other nominees, still awaiting confirmation, are a more diverse group, but there is no indication any share Mr. Trump’s stated opposition to raising interest rates.

“In most areas of administrative policy that have been highly politicized, his appointments have privileged politics over competence,” Mr. Conti-Brown said. “The Fed has been an exception.”

A looming question, he said, is whether Mr. Trump might begin to match his actions to his words.

Follow Binyamin Appelbaum on Twitter: @bcappelbaum.

Read More | https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/11/us/politics/trump-fed-stock-market-interest-rates.html |

Nature Trump Attacks the Fed as Stocks Fall and the Midterms Loom, in 2018-10-12 03:40:19

[algarithmblognumber]

Nature Trump Attacks the Fed as Stocks Fall and the Midterms Loom

Nature Trump Attacks the Fed as Stocks Fall and the Midterms Loom Nature Trump Attacks the Fed as Stocks Fall and the Midterms Loom http://www.nature-business.com/nature-trump-attacks-the-fed-as-stocks-fall-and-the-midterms-loom/

Nature

Image

Jerome H. Powell, selected by President Trump as Fed chairman, has said that Mr. Trump’s views will not influence the central bank’s decisions.CreditCreditAl Drago for The New York Times

President Trump responded to falling stock prices on Thursday by continuing to throw rocks at the Federal Reserve, which he has described as “crazy,” “loco,” “going wild” and “out of control” for slowly raising interest rates against the backdrop of a booming economy.

No other modern president has publicly attacked the Fed with such venom or frequency. Indeed, some scholars said the only close historical parallel was with President Andrew Jackson, who campaigned successfully in the 1830s to close the Fed’s predecessor, the Second Bank of the United States.

Mr. Trump’s pointed remarks reflect the high political stakes less than a month before midterm elections that have been cast by his political opponents as a referendum on his presidency. Mr. Trump has been riding the economy hard, bragging about job creation, tax cuts and reduced federal regulation, and claiming credit for the rise of the stock market. Now that the market has lost 5 percent of its value in the last week, Mr. Trump is insisting someone else is to blame.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index closed at 2,728.37 on Thursday, down 2.06 percent.

In fact, despite the stock market’s plunge, the American economy continues to grow, which is what is prompting the Fed to raise interest rates and drawing the president’s ire. The Fed’s chairman, Jerome H. Powell, has said that the economy is in a “particularly bright moment” and that he sees no clouds on the horizon.

The stock market sell-off instead appears to reflect the movement of money into bonds, a normal consequence of higher interest rates since those securities pay more as rates rise; concern about the health of the global economy; and hesitations about the value of tech stocks.

But after hitching his political fortunes to the rise of the stock market, Mr. Trump is now looking to decouple himself from its fall. Republicans are instead emphasizing continued economic growth and the lowest unemployment rate since 1969.

So far, the president’s comments have made little impression on market expectations about Fed policy. Unlike Jackson’s concerted campaign, Mr. Trump’s attacks appear curiously unmoored from the policies of his own administration or the longstanding goals of the Republican Party. Mr. Trump’s own aides have insisted that the president’s remarks are personal musings, not an attempt to dictate policy.

The Fed has also brushed off the attacks; it still expected to raise rates in December for the fourth time this year.

Mr. Powell, selected for the job by Mr. Trump, said at a September news conference that Mr. Trump’s views would not influence the Fed’s decisions. “We don’t consider political factors or things like that,” Mr. Powell said. “That’s who we are, that’s what we do, and that’s just the way it’s always going to be for us.”

Mr. Powell emphasized that the decision to raise rates to a range between 2 and 2.25 percent was not intended to get in the way of continued growth. “My colleagues and I are doing all we can to keep the economy strong, healthy and moving forward,” he said.

A spokeswoman declined to comment on Thursday.

Some experts warned that a continued assault on the Fed could have long-lasting consequences.

Peter Conti-Brown, a professor of legal studies at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of a political history of the Fed, pointed to the example of the F.B.I., another institution Mr. Trump has repeatedly attacked by raising questions about the integrity of its decision making. Mr. Conti-Brown said technocratic institutions are insulated from political pressure by public confidence. If confidence erodes, it becomes harder for technocrats to resist the politicians.

The F.B.I. has seen a loss of leadership, an erosion of morale and an increase in congressional scrutiny.

“How long before the Fed is looking at its political context and saying, ‘We can’t stick our heads out as far as we need to,’” Mr. Conti-Brown asked rhetorically. “How long will people stay if the job itself becomes terrible, and there are protesters everywhere you go?”

Mr. Trump criticized the Fed when it raised interest rates in July, and again when it raised interest rates in September. But his attacks have sharply intensified in recent days, in tandem with the drop in the stock market.

Video

President Trump responded to the recent stock market sell-off by criticizing the Federal Reserve’s interest rate increases.Published OnOct. 11, 2018CreditCreditImage by Carlos Barria/Reuters

“I think the Fed has gone crazy,” he told reporters on Wednesday afternoon. Later in the day, speaking with Fox News, he continued to increase the heat. “The Fed is going wild,” he said. “I don’t know what their problem is. They are raising interest rates and it’s ridiculous.”

“It’s not right,” he said Thursday. “It’s not necessary, and I think I know more about it than they do.”

Mr. Trump added that he was “disappointed” with Mr. Powell but did not plan to fire him — an authority the president may not even have. While the president in theory has the power to remove a Fed chairman “for cause,” courts have held that the permissible causes do not include policy disagreements.

For the moment, Mr. Trump’s criticism of the Fed does not seem to be catching on with Republican candidates. Many Republicans have argued for years that the Fed was waiting too long to raise interest rates, and then that it was moving too slowly. The party is trying to hold on to majorities in the Senate and the House by running on a strong economy and using the heated liberal opposition to Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation as an example of the threat Democrats pose if they control Congress. That dynamic could change, however, if the stock market continues to fall.

Modern presidents have always kept an uneasy eye on the Fed, because its decisions about monetary policy have a significant influence on the pace of economic growth.

Until the early 1950s, the Fed essentially operated as an arm of the Treasury Department. Even after the Fed gained operational independence, presidents often opined publicly about what the Fed should do and, if the Fed ignored their advice, they sometimes sought to bend its officials to their will.

President Lyndon B. Johnson protested a decision to raise interest rates in the late 1960s by summoning the Fed chairman at the time, William McChesney Martin, to his East Texas ranch and pinning the smaller man against a wall. President Richard M. Nixon instructed aides to blackmail Mr. Martin’s successor, Arthur Burns. President George Bush declared in a State of the Union address that the Fed should keep rates low.

But the volume of public commentary greatly diminished in recent decades as politicians concluded that pressuring the Fed was counterproductive. The administrations of Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama all made a policy of silence on monetary policy.

Krishna Guha, the head of the central bank strategy team at Evercore ISI, said he did not expect Mr. Trump’s remarks to influence the Fed, and he saw no evidence that markets were paying attention. But he added that if Mr. Trump did succeed, he would most likely regret doing so.

If Mr. Trump’s attacks convince markets that the Fed may move more slowly, or show greater tolerance of inflation, bond yields would rise, which would put further downward pressure on equity prices.

Still, Mr. Guha — formerly a senior official at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York — said that the president’s criticisms were not good for the central bank or the future conduct of economic policy.

“You never want to be in a position where some part of society doesn’t just question whether you made the right call or not, but whether you made that call in the public interest,” he said.

Mr. Trump’s aides have sought to play down his broadsides. Larry Kudlow, the president’s top economic adviser, said Mr. Trump was just offering his two cents. “I don’t think he’s ‘calling out the Fed,’ quote unquote,” Mr. Kudlow told reporters outside the White House on Thursday morning. “I really mean this. I think he’s giving you his opinion. He is a, obviously, successful businessman, he’s a very well-informed investor. He has his views. But he’s not saying to them, ‘Change your plan.’”

Mr. Kudlow added, “He knows the Fed is independent, and he respects that.”

Mr. Trump’s criticisms appear strangely at odds with the way he has handled the most powerful means at his disposal to influence monetary policy. Since taking office less than two years ago, he has had the unusual opportunity to fill six of the seven seats on the Fed’s board of governors.

He filled the top three positions on the Fed’s board, including the chairman’s job, with members of the Republican policymaking establishment, which has long been committed to keeping inflation firmly under control. Three other nominees, still awaiting confirmation, are a more diverse group, but there is no indication any share Mr. Trump’s stated opposition to raising interest rates.

“In most areas of administrative policy that have been highly politicized, his appointments have privileged politics over competence,” Mr. Conti-Brown said. “The Fed has been an exception.”

A looming question, he said, is whether Mr. Trump might begin to match his actions to his words.

Follow Binyamin Appelbaum on Twitter: @bcappelbaum.

Read More | https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/11/us/politics/trump-fed-stock-market-interest-rates.html |

Nature Trump Attacks the Fed as Stocks Fall and the Midterms Loom, in 2018-10-12 03:40:19

[blogparadiseisland]

Nature Trump Attacks the Fed as Stocks Fall and the Midterms Loom

Nature Trump Attacks the Fed as Stocks Fall and the Midterms Loom Nature Trump Attacks the Fed as Stocks Fall and the Midterms Loom http://www.nature-business.com/nature-trump-attacks-the-fed-as-stocks-fall-and-the-midterms-loom/

Nature

Image

Jerome H. Powell, selected by President Trump as Fed chairman, has said that Mr. Trump’s views will not influence the central bank’s decisions.CreditCreditAl Drago for The New York Times

President Trump responded to falling stock prices on Thursday by continuing to throw rocks at the Federal Reserve, which he has described as “crazy,” “loco,” “going wild” and “out of control” for slowly raising interest rates against the backdrop of a booming economy.

No other modern president has publicly attacked the Fed with such venom or frequency. Indeed, some scholars said the only close historical parallel was with President Andrew Jackson, who campaigned successfully in the 1830s to close the Fed’s predecessor, the Second Bank of the United States.

Mr. Trump’s pointed remarks reflect the high political stakes less than a month before midterm elections that have been cast by his political opponents as a referendum on his presidency. Mr. Trump has been riding the economy hard, bragging about job creation, tax cuts and reduced federal regulation, and claiming credit for the rise of the stock market. Now that the market has lost 5 percent of its value in the last week, Mr. Trump is insisting someone else is to blame.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index closed at 2,728.37 on Thursday, down 2.06 percent.

In fact, despite the stock market’s plunge, the American economy continues to grow, which is what is prompting the Fed to raise interest rates and drawing the president’s ire. The Fed’s chairman, Jerome H. Powell, has said that the economy is in a “particularly bright moment” and that he sees no clouds on the horizon.

The stock market sell-off instead appears to reflect the movement of money into bonds, a normal consequence of higher interest rates since those securities pay more as rates rise; concern about the health of the global economy; and hesitations about the value of tech stocks.

But after hitching his political fortunes to the rise of the stock market, Mr. Trump is now looking to decouple himself from its fall. Republicans are instead emphasizing continued economic growth and the lowest unemployment rate since 1969.

So far, the president’s comments have made little impression on market expectations about Fed policy. Unlike Jackson’s concerted campaign, Mr. Trump’s attacks appear curiously unmoored from the policies of his own administration or the longstanding goals of the Republican Party. Mr. Trump’s own aides have insisted that the president’s remarks are personal musings, not an attempt to dictate policy.

The Fed has also brushed off the attacks; it still expected to raise rates in December for the fourth time this year.

Mr. Powell, selected for the job by Mr. Trump, said at a September news conference that Mr. Trump’s views would not influence the Fed’s decisions. “We don’t consider political factors or things like that,” Mr. Powell said. “That’s who we are, that’s what we do, and that’s just the way it’s always going to be for us.”

Mr. Powell emphasized that the decision to raise rates to a range between 2 and 2.25 percent was not intended to get in the way of continued growth. “My colleagues and I are doing all we can to keep the economy strong, healthy and moving forward,” he said.

A spokeswoman declined to comment on Thursday.

Some experts warned that a continued assault on the Fed could have long-lasting consequences.

Peter Conti-Brown, a professor of legal studies at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of a political history of the Fed, pointed to the example of the F.B.I., another institution Mr. Trump has repeatedly attacked by raising questions about the integrity of its decision making. Mr. Conti-Brown said technocratic institutions are insulated from political pressure by public confidence. If confidence erodes, it becomes harder for technocrats to resist the politicians.

The F.B.I. has seen a loss of leadership, an erosion of morale and an increase in congressional scrutiny.

“How long before the Fed is looking at its political context and saying, ‘We can’t stick our heads out as far as we need to,’” Mr. Conti-Brown asked rhetorically. “How long will people stay if the job itself becomes terrible, and there are protesters everywhere you go?”

Mr. Trump criticized the Fed when it raised interest rates in July, and again when it raised interest rates in September. But his attacks have sharply intensified in recent days, in tandem with the drop in the stock market.

Video

President Trump responded to the recent stock market sell-off by criticizing the Federal Reserve’s interest rate increases.Published OnOct. 11, 2018CreditCreditImage by Carlos Barria/Reuters

“I think the Fed has gone crazy,” he told reporters on Wednesday afternoon. Later in the day, speaking with Fox News, he continued to increase the heat. “The Fed is going wild,” he said. “I don’t know what their problem is. They are raising interest rates and it’s ridiculous.”

“It’s not right,” he said Thursday. “It’s not necessary, and I think I know more about it than they do.”

Mr. Trump added that he was “disappointed” with Mr. Powell but did not plan to fire him — an authority the president may not even have. While the president in theory has the power to remove a Fed chairman “for cause,” courts have held that the permissible causes do not include policy disagreements.

For the moment, Mr. Trump’s criticism of the Fed does not seem to be catching on with Republican candidates. Many Republicans have argued for years that the Fed was waiting too long to raise interest rates, and then that it was moving too slowly. The party is trying to hold on to majorities in the Senate and the House by running on a strong economy and using the heated liberal opposition to Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation as an example of the threat Democrats pose if they control Congress. That dynamic could change, however, if the stock market continues to fall.

Modern presidents have always kept an uneasy eye on the Fed, because its decisions about monetary policy have a significant influence on the pace of economic growth.

Until the early 1950s, the Fed essentially operated as an arm of the Treasury Department. Even after the Fed gained operational independence, presidents often opined publicly about what the Fed should do and, if the Fed ignored their advice, they sometimes sought to bend its officials to their will.

President Lyndon B. Johnson protested a decision to raise interest rates in the late 1960s by summoning the Fed chairman at the time, William McChesney Martin, to his East Texas ranch and pinning the smaller man against a wall. President Richard M. Nixon instructed aides to blackmail Mr. Martin’s successor, Arthur Burns. President George Bush declared in a State of the Union address that the Fed should keep rates low.

But the volume of public commentary greatly diminished in recent decades as politicians concluded that pressuring the Fed was counterproductive. The administrations of Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama all made a policy of silence on monetary policy.

Krishna Guha, the head of the central bank strategy team at Evercore ISI, said he did not expect Mr. Trump’s remarks to influence the Fed, and he saw no evidence that markets were paying attention. But he added that if Mr. Trump did succeed, he would most likely regret doing so.

If Mr. Trump’s attacks convince markets that the Fed may move more slowly, or show greater tolerance of inflation, bond yields would rise, which would put further downward pressure on equity prices.

Still, Mr. Guha — formerly a senior official at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York — said that the president’s criticisms were not good for the central bank or the future conduct of economic policy.

“You never want to be in a position where some part of society doesn’t just question whether you made the right call or not, but whether you made that call in the public interest,” he said.

Mr. Trump’s aides have sought to play down his broadsides. Larry Kudlow, the president’s top economic adviser, said Mr. Trump was just offering his two cents. “I don’t think he’s ‘calling out the Fed,’ quote unquote,” Mr. Kudlow told reporters outside the White House on Thursday morning. “I really mean this. I think he’s giving you his opinion. He is a, obviously, successful businessman, he’s a very well-informed investor. He has his views. But he’s not saying to them, ‘Change your plan.’”

Mr. Kudlow added, “He knows the Fed is independent, and he respects that.”

Mr. Trump’s criticisms appear strangely at odds with the way he has handled the most powerful means at his disposal to influence monetary policy. Since taking office less than two years ago, he has had the unusual opportunity to fill six of the seven seats on the Fed’s board of governors.

He filled the top three positions on the Fed’s board, including the chairman’s job, with members of the Republican policymaking establishment, which has long been committed to keeping inflation firmly under control. Three other nominees, still awaiting confirmation, are a more diverse group, but there is no indication any share Mr. Trump’s stated opposition to raising interest rates.

“In most areas of administrative policy that have been highly politicized, his appointments have privileged politics over competence,” Mr. Conti-Brown said. “The Fed has been an exception.”

A looming question, he said, is whether Mr. Trump might begin to match his actions to his words.

Follow Binyamin Appelbaum on Twitter: @bcappelbaum.

Read More | https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/11/us/politics/trump-fed-stock-market-interest-rates.html |

Nature Trump Attacks the Fed as Stocks Fall and the Midterms Loom, in 2018-10-12 03:40:19

[blogwonderwebsites]

Nature Trump Attacks the Fed as Stocks Fall and the Midterms Loom

Nature Trump Attacks the Fed as Stocks Fall and the Midterms Loom Nature Trump Attacks the Fed as Stocks Fall and the Midterms Loom http://www.nature-business.com/nature-trump-attacks-the-fed-as-stocks-fall-and-the-midterms-loom/

Nature

Image

Jerome H. Powell, selected by President Trump as Fed chairman, has said that Mr. Trump’s views will not influence the central bank’s decisions.CreditCreditAl Drago for The New York Times

President Trump responded to falling stock prices on Thursday by continuing to throw rocks at the Federal Reserve, which he has described as “crazy,” “loco,” “going wild” and “out of control” for slowly raising interest rates against the backdrop of a booming economy.

No other modern president has publicly attacked the Fed with such venom or frequency. Indeed, some scholars said the only close historical parallel was with President Andrew Jackson, who campaigned successfully in the 1830s to close the Fed’s predecessor, the Second Bank of the United States.

Mr. Trump’s pointed remarks reflect the high political stakes less than a month before midterm elections that have been cast by his political opponents as a referendum on his presidency. Mr. Trump has been riding the economy hard, bragging about job creation, tax cuts and reduced federal regulation, and claiming credit for the rise of the stock market. Now that the market has lost 5 percent of its value in the last week, Mr. Trump is insisting someone else is to blame.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index closed at 2,728.37 on Thursday, down 2.06 percent.

In fact, despite the stock market’s plunge, the American economy continues to grow, which is what is prompting the Fed to raise interest rates and drawing the president’s ire. The Fed’s chairman, Jerome H. Powell, has said that the economy is in a “particularly bright moment” and that he sees no clouds on the horizon.

The stock market sell-off instead appears to reflect the movement of money into bonds, a normal consequence of higher interest rates since those securities pay more as rates rise; concern about the health of the global economy; and hesitations about the value of tech stocks.

But after hitching his political fortunes to the rise of the stock market, Mr. Trump is now looking to decouple himself from its fall. Republicans are instead emphasizing continued economic growth and the lowest unemployment rate since 1969.

So far, the president’s comments have made little impression on market expectations about Fed policy. Unlike Jackson’s concerted campaign, Mr. Trump’s attacks appear curiously unmoored from the policies of his own administration or the longstanding goals of the Republican Party. Mr. Trump’s own aides have insisted that the president’s remarks are personal musings, not an attempt to dictate policy.

The Fed has also brushed off the attacks; it still expected to raise rates in December for the fourth time this year.

Mr. Powell, selected for the job by Mr. Trump, said at a September news conference that Mr. Trump’s views would not influence the Fed’s decisions. “We don’t consider political factors or things like that,” Mr. Powell said. “That’s who we are, that’s what we do, and that’s just the way it’s always going to be for us.”

Mr. Powell emphasized that the decision to raise rates to a range between 2 and 2.25 percent was not intended to get in the way of continued growth. “My colleagues and I are doing all we can to keep the economy strong, healthy and moving forward,” he said.

A spokeswoman declined to comment on Thursday.

Some experts warned that a continued assault on the Fed could have long-lasting consequences.

Peter Conti-Brown, a professor of legal studies at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of a political history of the Fed, pointed to the example of the F.B.I., another institution Mr. Trump has repeatedly attacked by raising questions about the integrity of its decision making. Mr. Conti-Brown said technocratic institutions are insulated from political pressure by public confidence. If confidence erodes, it becomes harder for technocrats to resist the politicians.

The F.B.I. has seen a loss of leadership, an erosion of morale and an increase in congressional scrutiny.

“How long before the Fed is looking at its political context and saying, ‘We can’t stick our heads out as far as we need to,’” Mr. Conti-Brown asked rhetorically. “How long will people stay if the job itself becomes terrible, and there are protesters everywhere you go?”

Mr. Trump criticized the Fed when it raised interest rates in July, and again when it raised interest rates in September. But his attacks have sharply intensified in recent days, in tandem with the drop in the stock market.

Video

President Trump responded to the recent stock market sell-off by criticizing the Federal Reserve’s interest rate increases.Published OnOct. 11, 2018CreditCreditImage by Carlos Barria/Reuters

“I think the Fed has gone crazy,” he told reporters on Wednesday afternoon. Later in the day, speaking with Fox News, he continued to increase the heat. “The Fed is going wild,” he said. “I don’t know what their problem is. They are raising interest rates and it’s ridiculous.”

“It’s not right,” he said Thursday. “It’s not necessary, and I think I know more about it than they do.”

Mr. Trump added that he was “disappointed” with Mr. Powell but did not plan to fire him — an authority the president may not even have. While the president in theory has the power to remove a Fed chairman “for cause,” courts have held that the permissible causes do not include policy disagreements.

For the moment, Mr. Trump’s criticism of the Fed does not seem to be catching on with Republican candidates. Many Republicans have argued for years that the Fed was waiting too long to raise interest rates, and then that it was moving too slowly. The party is trying to hold on to majorities in the Senate and the House by running on a strong economy and using the heated liberal opposition to Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation as an example of the threat Democrats pose if they control Congress. That dynamic could change, however, if the stock market continues to fall.

Modern presidents have always kept an uneasy eye on the Fed, because its decisions about monetary policy have a significant influence on the pace of economic growth.

Until the early 1950s, the Fed essentially operated as an arm of the Treasury Department. Even after the Fed gained operational independence, presidents often opined publicly about what the Fed should do and, if the Fed ignored their advice, they sometimes sought to bend its officials to their will.

President Lyndon B. Johnson protested a decision to raise interest rates in the late 1960s by summoning the Fed chairman at the time, William McChesney Martin, to his East Texas ranch and pinning the smaller man against a wall. President Richard M. Nixon instructed aides to blackmail Mr. Martin’s successor, Arthur Burns. President George Bush declared in a State of the Union address that the Fed should keep rates low.

But the volume of public commentary greatly diminished in recent decades as politicians concluded that pressuring the Fed was counterproductive. The administrations of Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama all made a policy of silence on monetary policy.

Krishna Guha, the head of the central bank strategy team at Evercore ISI, said he did not expect Mr. Trump’s remarks to influence the Fed, and he saw no evidence that markets were paying attention. But he added that if Mr. Trump did succeed, he would most likely regret doing so.

If Mr. Trump’s attacks convince markets that the Fed may move more slowly, or show greater tolerance of inflation, bond yields would rise, which would put further downward pressure on equity prices.

Still, Mr. Guha — formerly a senior official at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York — said that the president’s criticisms were not good for the central bank or the future conduct of economic policy.

“You never want to be in a position where some part of society doesn’t just question whether you made the right call or not, but whether you made that call in the public interest,” he said.

Mr. Trump’s aides have sought to play down his broadsides. Larry Kudlow, the president’s top economic adviser, said Mr. Trump was just offering his two cents. “I don’t think he’s ‘calling out the Fed,’ quote unquote,” Mr. Kudlow told reporters outside the White House on Thursday morning. “I really mean this. I think he’s giving you his opinion. He is a, obviously, successful businessman, he’s a very well-informed investor. He has his views. But he’s not saying to them, ‘Change your plan.’”

Mr. Kudlow added, “He knows the Fed is independent, and he respects that.”

Mr. Trump’s criticisms appear strangely at odds with the way he has handled the most powerful means at his disposal to influence monetary policy. Since taking office less than two years ago, he has had the unusual opportunity to fill six of the seven seats on the Fed’s board of governors.

He filled the top three positions on the Fed’s board, including the chairman’s job, with members of the Republican policymaking establishment, which has long been committed to keeping inflation firmly under control. Three other nominees, still awaiting confirmation, are a more diverse group, but there is no indication any share Mr. Trump’s stated opposition to raising interest rates.

“In most areas of administrative policy that have been highly politicized, his appointments have privileged politics over competence,” Mr. Conti-Brown said. “The Fed has been an exception.”

A looming question, he said, is whether Mr. Trump might begin to match his actions to his words.

Follow Binyamin Appelbaum on Twitter: @bcappelbaum.

Read More | https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/11/us/politics/trump-fed-stock-market-interest-rates.html |

Nature Trump Attacks the Fed as Stocks Fall and the Midterms Loom, in 2018-10-12 03:40:19