What kind of interest rate policy might come out of Tuesday and Wednesday's Federal Reserve meeting if the two vacant seats on the Fed's Board of Governors were filled by worker-friendly governors with different perspectives than the conventional academic economists who dominate the Board today? What kind of difference could new Fed leadership make on the central bank's handling of community reinvestment or predatory lending issues? Its stance on financial decontrol legislation? Its accountability to the public? Few people in public life have more impact on ordinary citizens' living standards than the leaders of the Fed. Now, for the fourth time in his presidency, Bill Clinton has an opportunity to appoint two new governors to the Federal Reserve Board – and citizens have a chance to publicly debate the candidates and concerns Clinton should consider. To encourage that debate, the Financial Markets Center has created an extensive Fed Vacancies Page at its web site (www.fmcenter.org). The new Page includes Fed-governor lore galore, a forum for users’ views, and a pipeline for making suggestions to the White House selection team. We don't offer this page as a substitute for organizing around specific candidates -- or as an endorsement of the (flawed, in our opinion) idea of armchair activism. However, the page could serve as a tool for organizing. And it asserts that average Americans belong in this game no less than the privileged groups that currently hold a monopoly on it. We invite groups with their own web sites to link to this page via www.fmcenter.org and to encourage their member to participate in the forum.
