Federal Reserve

For those less familiar with the Carlyle Group, the private equity firm where Powell was a partner and senior lawyer from 1997 – 2005, here’s a quick overview of their history with capitalizing on political connections and the revolving door.

It really shouldn’t surprise anyone that a former Carlyle Group executive — a firm whose whole profit strategy is based on exploiting insider connections in the federal government — hasn’t prioritized ethics and oversight in running the nation’s largest stockpile of potentially market-moving information.

Even when these pundits have the facts right, their actual argumentation is still pretty weak.

The organizations call for the next Chair, Vice Chair, and Vice Chair for Supervision to prioritize protecting against recessions, combating systemic racism, fighting climate change, and ensuring full employment.

The following points are taken from Revolving Door Project’s extensive research document on Jerome Powell’s private-sector record, which includes work at union-busting and fossil fuel-investing firms.

Disproportionately Black cities were the ones most in need of a non-profit-seeking investment alternative during the COVID-19 crisis. The Fed’s program to fill that need failed to deliver.

During his time at the Carlyle Group, the firm repeatedly engaged in union-busting layoffs, climate-damaging fossil fuel investment projects, and more. 

For the sake of American workers, racial justice, financial security, and the climate, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell should not be renominated for a second term.

The Biden administration’s favorite pundit deploys willful ignorance in order to chide the left.

The argument in favor of Powell ignores the simple math.

In the last few months, Revolving Door Project has been quite public about our opposition to renominating Jerome Powell for a second term as Chair of the Federal Reserve.

Interagency cooperation is essential to ensuring the Biden administration adequately manages the risks associated with the growth of cryptocurrency, including illicit finance, tax evasion, investor and customer protection, shadow banking, and financial stability.

Just as a president shouldn’t only be judged on whether or not they started a war, Fed chairs shouldn’t only be judged on whether they raised or lowered interest rates. That’s their most salient power, but they have other, more complex ways of affecting our lives. Financial regulation is one of the most important of these, and it’s one on which current Fed chairman Jerome Powell has failed badly.