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Fed Chairman Jerome Powell sought to reassure investors about the soundness of the banking system, saying that the management of Silicon Valley Bank "failed badly," but that the bank's collapse did not indicate wider weaknesses in the banking system. "These are not weaknesses that are running broadly through the banking system," he said, adding that the takeover of Credit Suisse seemed to have been a positive outcome. The Federal Open Market Committee policy statement also said the U.S. banking system is "sound and resilient." The much-anticipated rate cut by the Fed, which had delivered eight previous rate hikes in the past year, sought to balance the risk of rampant inflation with the threat of instability in the banking system. The banking sector has been in turmoil after California regulators on March 10 closed Silicon Valley Bank in the largest U.S. bank failure since the 2008 financial crisis.

Morgan Stanley analyst Manan Gosalia, in a report earlier this week, set a target price of $54 for First Republic shares in a best-case scenario. That hope was reduced on Wednesday, after Yellen told a hearing of the U.S. Senate's Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services that the government "is not considering insuring all uninsured bank deposits." The Morgan Stanley report considered that a potential extension of FDIC insurance could bring a majority of First Republic's customers back. Even if it clinches a cash infusion, the lender will probably need to take losses on securities in its so-called held to maturity portfolio, the Morgan Stanley analysts wrote. In the worst-case scenario, First Republic's shares would sink to just $1, Morgan Stanley analysts estimated.

NEW YORK, March 22 (Reuters) - JPMorgan (JPM.N) Chief Executive Jamie Dimon is scheduled to meet with Lael Brainard, the director of the White House's National Economic Council, during the executive's planned trip to Washington, according to a person familiar with the situation. The CEOs of major banks gathered in Washington for a two-day scheduled meeting which started on Tuesday, sources familiar with the matter previously said. The quarterly meeting of the Financial Services Forum included Dimon and Bank of America Corp (BAC.N) CEO Brian Moynihan, who head the nation's two largest lenders, the sources said. The banks were aiming to work out details for what needs to be done for First Republic within the coming 24 hours, another source said. Eleven lenders, including the eight members of the Financial Services Forum, threw First Republic a lifeline of a combined $30 billion in deposits last week.

NEW YORK, March 22 (Reuters) - JPMorgan (JPM.N) Chief Executive Jamie Dimon met Lael Brainard, the director of the White House National Economic Council on Wednesday, while in Washington this week, according to a person familiar with the situation. Brainard met with a range of business leaders including Dimon, part of a series of meetings she has had over the last month with business, labor, advocacy, and academic leaders, the source said. The CEOs of major banks gathered in Washington for a two-day meeting which started on Tuesday, sources familiar with the matter previously said. The banks were aiming to work out details for what needs to be done for First Republic within the coming 24 hours, another source said. On Tuesday, Reuters reported First Republic is examining how it can downsize and sell parts of its business, including some of its loan book, in a bid to raise cash and cut costs.

☆ Junk fees cost consumers tens of billions annually, according to the White House
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-21 | by ( Chelsey Cox | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

Fees on concert tickets, airfares, hotels and other so-called junk fees cost Americans tens of billions of dollars every year, often obscuring the full price of purchases from consumers, top economic experts said at the White House on Tuesday. Biden also called on state legislators to address junk fees at a March 8 virtual meeting with the White House. The eradication of junk fees is also a bipartisan issue with positive benefits for the economy, Brainard will say. She says recent surveys show 75% of consumers support cutting junk fees, "with strong support across party lines." "As an economist, I know that regulating junk fees has a strong foundation in decades of scholarship.

☆ Tech pressure, Yellen everywhere: How Washington scrambled as SVB collapsed
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-15 | by ( Andrea Shalal | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +7 min

Yellen heads to the White House, Brainard meets with her staff and holds Zoom calls in her wood-paneled office in the West Wing. Treasury staff hustle to get Yellen on CBS News' "Face the Nation" program on Sunday, in an attempt to reassure markets. White House officials draft news releases with various scenarios, uncertain until shortly before 6 p.m. if an acquisition can still happen. As he leaves Delaware to return to the White House, Biden tells reporters he will make a statement on Monday. Treasury and White House officials reach out to members of Congress and their staffs throughout the evening to explain the plan, with discussions continuing into Monday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. administration stepped in on Sunday with a series of emergency measures to shore up confidence in the banking system after the failure of Silicon Valley Bank threatened to trigger a broader systemic crisis. “The American people and American businesses can have confidence that their bank deposits will be there when they need them,” Biden said in a statement. Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), a mainstay for the startup economy, was a product of the decades-long era of cheap money, with unique risks that made it especially vulnerable. With the Fed poised to continue raising interest rates, investors said the financial system may not be fully out of the woods just yet. “Going forward, we will work with Congress and the financial regulators to consider additional actions we could take in the future to strengthen the financial system,” the official said.

☆ Show me the money: The highest revenue raising taxes in Biden's proposed budget
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-11 | by ( Emma Kinery | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Many of the proposed taxes are more of messaging signals as the president prepares to launch a potential re-election bid and enter the 2024 campaign season. Raise corporate tax rate to 28%: $1.326 trillionBiden's budget calls for increasing the corporate income tax to 28% from the current 21%. Increasing taxes on the highest earners, including large corporations, is central to its implementation. Impose minimum income tax on 0.01%: $436.61 billionIncrease the wealthy's ACA tax: $344.37 billionBiden's budget calls for increasing the 3.8% Affordable Care Act tax to 5% on Americans earning more than $400,000. If enacted, the income tax hike would reverse cuts made by former President Donald Trump in his 2017 tax bill.

☆ White House's Bharat Ramamurti breaks down President Biden's $6.8 trillion budget
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-10 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: 1 min

Share Share Article via Facebook Share Article via Twitter Share Article via LinkedIn Share Article via EmailWhite House's Bharat Ramamurti breaks down President Biden's $6.8 trillion budgetBharat Ramamurti, deputy director at the National Economic Council, joins CNBC's 'Squawk Box' to discuss whether Biden’s $6.8 trillion budget proposal is dead-on-arrival.

"If corporate profits were to decline from the extremely high levels that we saw recently, would it be possible to sustain" growth in workers' benefits "even as we get inflation down to the target of 2%?" Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen asked Powell during the Fed chief's semi-annual testimony before the U.S. Senate Banking Committee. "Wages affect prices and prices affect wages," Powell said, associating current earnings growth to the current ultra-low unemployment rate of 3.4%, and suggesting the labor market may need to weaken at least somewhat for inflation to fall. SHORTAGESUltimately, Powell said he felt profits would likely moderate on their own as the U.S. economy moves beyond the pandemic. "What we're seeing in the economy is pretty much about shortages ... supply chain blockages," Powell said.

☆ AOC says there's still hope for Biden's student-loan forgiveness plan if the Supreme Court rules against it
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-02 | by ( Ayelet Sheffey | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

AOC said Biden "should be prepared to respond" to whatever the Supreme Court rules on student-debt relief. The White House has maintained it does not have a backup plan and is confident Biden's relief will prevail. Some other Democratic lawmakers have also said the focus right now should be on voicing the legality of Biden's current debt relief plan. Still, the White House has previously said that it is not deliberating a backup plan right now if the Supreme Court strikes down the relief. And there is no current backup plan, or anything like that.

☆ Warren Buffett lashed out against critics of stock buybacks. The White House says it isn't anti-repurchases, it just wants to encourage smart spending.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-02 | by ( Zinya Salfiti | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Warren Buffett slammed critics of stock buybacks as economically "illiterate" in his annual letter. But a White House official said Biden isn't anti-repurchases, he just wants to encourage smart spending. The 92-year-old billionaire investor — who has touted the value of stock buybacks for decades — slammed opponents of stock buybacks in his annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders. But Biden isn't an opponent of share repurchases — he just wants to encourage smart spending, a National Economic Council official told MarketWatch. Berkshire has been one of the US's leaders in stock buybacks, spending nearly $8 billion on its own shares in 2022.

☆ Biden aims billions in taxpayer money at companies' labor, supply practices
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-01 | by ( Andrea Shalal | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

"What Biden and his advisers are doing is solving problems that exist in the economy. They are pushing forward an agenda aimed at building things in America again ... and taking on corporate power," he said. A Department of Energy provision in the act requires companies to focus on workforce training, ensure diversity and engage "environmental justice" communities in planning. Key provisions on universal child care and better working conditions for child care workers were stripped out of bills last year. Julie Su, just tapped to be labor secretary, launched a campaign against "wage theft" by employers as a labor activist.

The two-day meeting ended on Feb. 1 with the central bank raising its target interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point, a return to a more standard rate hike size after a year of sequential three-quarter point and half-point increases. The Fed uses the Personal Consumption Expenditures price index in setting its 2% inflation target. Since the meeting, some Fed officials have acknowledged they had pushed to continue with larger half-point rate increases at the last meeting, while investors have boosted their own outlook for where the Fed may end up. Most do not see the Fed returning to larger half-point increases now that they have slowed. While the minutes released today are particularly dated, given the jobs and inflation numbers released since then, policymakers will update their views next month with new economic and interest rate projections issued after the Fed's March 21-22 meeting.

☆ Premarket stocks: Don't underestimate the American shopper
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-16 | by ( Nicole Goodkind | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

All that extra cash should support strong spending through February and perhaps March, said Bank of America analysts. That means the Fed may use the strong data as an excuse to keep hiking interest rates. Recession risk may be deferred, but it certainly hasn’t dissipated.”PPI, housing starts and bald spots: What investors are watching today▸ Thursday morning brings two big data releases: The January Producer Price Index and housing starts. ▸ Housing starts, a measure of new home construction, have declined every month since August. Housing starts are expected to decline slightly.

☆ Biden takes aim at Republican spending cuts plan
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-15 | by ( Andrea Shalal | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

At issue is Republicans' refusal to raise the statutory $31.4 trillion U.S. debt limit unless Biden agrees to spending cuts. The White House has said such measures will only be discussed after the debt ceiling is lifted. In a speech at a union hall in suburban Maryland, Biden accused Republicans, who now control the House of Representatives, of pushing him to agree to spending cuts, while their own plans would add $3 trillion to the debt. Republicans argue that federal spending is too high and will fuel inflation while raising the U.S. debt level. They also plan a separate news conference on Wednesday aimed at highlighting House Republicans' planned budget cuts.

The decision, announced after financial markets closed, gives Biden a pair of trusted Washington insiders to steer economic policy as the risk of recession fades but inflation lingers. Big fights also loom with the Republican-controlled House of Representatives over raising the debt ceiling. The shakeup comes as the White House tries to tackle what officials view as a frustrating disconnect between relatively strong economic data and weak public sentiment. The White House has refused to discuss spending cuts without a debt ceiling vote first. Bernstein last week conceded that the White House's early description of inflation as "transitory" had missed the mark.

☆ Lael Brainard’s Fed Departure Could Leave Immediate Imprint on Monetary Policy
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-15 | by ( Nick Timiraos | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

President Biden’s reshuffle of his economic team could have its most immediate economic impact on the Federal Reserve, with the departure of the central bank’s vice chair, Lael Brainard , for the White House. Ms. Brainard’s move to lead Mr. Biden’s National Economic Council means the Fed will lose an influential top official who has advocated for a marginally less aggressive approach to raising interest rates than Fed Chair Jerome Powell .

☆ NEC Director Brian Deese is confident in Lael Brainard's capacity to take over
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-15 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: 1 min

Share Share Article via Facebook Share Article via Twitter Share Article via LinkedIn Share Article via EmailNEC Director Brian Deese is confident in Lael Brainard's capacity to take overBrian Deese, National Economic Council Director, joins 'Squawk Box' to discuss Lael Brainard stepping in as his successor, bipartisan opportunities in the legislative agenda, and more.

☆ Biden to blast Republican agenda as 'massive giveaway' to big companies
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-15 | by ( Andrea Shalal | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

At issue is Republicans' refusal to raise the statutory $31.4 trillion U.S. debt limit unless Biden agrees to spending cuts, while the White House has said such measures will only be discussed after the debt ceiling is lifted. With his own approval ratings now at 36%, despite 53-year low unemployment and rising consumer sentiment, Biden will seek to flip the script and point the finger at a Republican agenda that he says will amount to "a massive giveaway to the super-rich, big corporations and Big Pharma," the White House said. By contrast, Biden says his administration's plans will cut U.S. debt by another $2 trillion on top of $1.7 trillion in reductions already made. Republicans argue that U.S. federal spending is too high and will fuel inflation while raising the U.S. debt level. Republican have discussed repealing the stock buyback tax entirely, which the White House says would add $74 billion to the federal debt.

☆ Brainard's move to the White House leaves a big gap for Biden to fill at the Fed
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-15 | by ( Jeff Cox | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

In her more than eight years as a Federal Reserve official, Lael Brainard was an influential voice, particularly for the side that favored keeping monetary policy loose and interest rates low. "Brainard's departure from the Fed leaves a dove-sized hole in its monetary policy," Beacon Policy Advisors wrote in its daily newsletter Wednesday. Indeed, Brainard's influence only accelerated the longer she served as a Fed governor. Her subsequent appointment in 2022 as vice chair solidified her influence, installing her as part of the "troika" of policy-directing power that includes current Chairman Jerome Powell and New York Fed President John Williams. Some candidates outside the Fed ranks, according to Guha, include Karen Dynan, Jason Furman, Janice Eberly and Christina Romer, all of whom served under former President Barack Obama (and his vice president, Biden).

☆ What Lael Brainard's departure means for the Fed
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-15 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: 1 min

Share Share Article via Facebook Share Article via Twitter Share Article via LinkedIn Share Article via EmailWhat Lael Brainard's departure means for the FedAlan Blinder, former Federal Reserve vice chairman and Princeton University professor, joins 'Squawk on the Street' to discuss the move to transition Lael Brainard from the Fed to the National Economic Council, the gesture to push out dovish sentiment from the Fed, and more.

☆ Premarket stocks: The job market is making traders' heads explode
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-15 | by ( Nicole Goodkind | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

New York CNN —The labor market ballooned in January when the US economy added an astonishing 517,000 jobs, blowing past Wall Street’s expectations. “It’s tough to say that… Some of those people making those layoffs are our clients.”Alaska Air Group noted a smaller number of tech workers and tech companies using their airline. In San Francisco, apartment rents have fallen and tech layoffs have further weakened the housing market. Manufacturing layoffs: While tech layoffs may not be a leading recession indicator, a decrease in manufacturing hiring could be an ominous sign of things to come. What’s next: Investors looking for clarity on a confusing labor market are unlikely to find it in the frequently revised, high-frequency weekly jobless claims data on Thursday.

☆ Biden Reshapes Economic Team Ahead of Debt-Ceiling Fight, Re-Election Campaign
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-14 | by ( Ken Thomas | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

WASHINGTON–President Biden is remaking his economic team as his administration seeks to tamp down inflation, choosing officials who signal stability and continuity on the policy front ahead of his expected re-election campaign. Mr. Biden is set to name Federal Reserve Vice Chair Lael Brainard to serve as the director of the National Economic Council, according to people familiar with the matter, turning to a veteran economic policy maker as the administration is preparing for contentious talks with Republicans over raising the federal debt ceiling, and as the U.S. economy has sought to emerge from high inflation, rising interest rates and slowing growth.

☆ Lael Brainard’s Fed Departure Could Leave Immediate Imprint on Inflation Fight
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-14 | by ( Nick Timiraos | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

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