mr. powell: yes. mrs. wagner: do you think that was a function of perhaps this luke, would you call it? mr. powell: we knew all that we asked banks to tell us, what's your lowest comfortable level of reserve we got those nurps, added them up, put a buffer on top, and still suggested there was plenty of reserves in the system. this then this happened. that makes us think. we knew about those. mrs. wagner: right. those are definitely on the horizon. i hope you'll find if there's anything symptomatic and we look bard to that turn the page. chairman powell in december of last year, i asked vice chairman for an update on the status of updating the surcharge and plan for finalizing the capital buffer proposal which i understand will be -- will require a reproposal with a comment period. in january, vice chairman corls delivered a speech where he spoke about bring, quote, reasonable transparency to several aspects of the federal reserve supervisory and regulatory framework. last week the fed released the c-card s

mr. powell mr. powell, this is an observation, not a criticism you've indicated that the fundamentals are strong. however, you also indicated at the last fmoc press conference that you were a bit surprised that wages ha s havs have faile up despite being well into an expanding economy, sustained levels of historically low unemployment, increased labor force participation. strong numbers but 42% of working americans in 2019 made less than $15 an hour. fundamentals are strong. yet many of the people in my congressional district, mr. powell, more concerned about the supermarket prices than the stock market when they go to supermarket, they're concerned about the price of procter & gamble products, not the stock market price of procter & gamble itself the stock market means nothing to them. it's what they have to pay for products in the supermarket. this brings me to my question. has there been a study to give us some sense of what a $15 an hour wage will do for the economy? a study of what a $15 an hour

mr. powell. mr. powell, this is an observation, not a criticism. you've indicated that the fundamentals are strong. however, you also indicated that the last fmoc press conference that you were a bit surprised that wages have failed to move up despite being well into an expanding economy. sustained levels of historically low unemployment and increased labor force participation. fundamentals are strong. strong, yet nearly half, 42.4% of working americans in 2019 made less than $15 an hour. fundamentals are strong. good many of the people in my congressional district, mr. powell are more concerned about the supermarket prices than the stock market. when they go to the supermarket, they're concerned about the price of procter & gamble products, not the stock market price of procter & gamble itself. the stock market means nothing to them. it's what they have to pay for products in the supermarket. this brings me to my question. has there been a study to give us some sense of what a $15 an hour wage will do for the economy? a study of what a $15 an hour

mr. powell.put his actions more consistent with the words that he's said, which is that the fed must be independent from partisanship. >> here is what -- i'm listening to every word, this is what the other side would say. you know, is it fair to assume that there was some sort of nefarious activity at this fancy party juist because he was ther? >> look, part of what we're trying to do is give people confidence in government. it's why we as elected officials have to make disclosures of our finances, there's nothing we're doing wrong, but those disclosures give people comfort, so his actions, no matter what he says, the fact that he's standing out in front of jeff bezos's $23 million mansion sends a message to people that he is spending his time with the rich and powerful, that he's spending time having cocktails with jared and ivanka trump rather than maintaining the independence of the fed, and so with public service comes a certain amount of public sacrifice, and that's what i expect of the chai

mr. powell i'm sure you heard him say all of those things yesterday as we are trying to square up the impacte material. we just don't know to what degree >> that's right. this virus does have quite the potential to have some big knockon effects. when you think about the impact on china, there is speculation that will knock off a couple of points of gdp growth there the effects on the u.s. and on the trading partners are also really what we have to keep an eye on you heard chairman pouille say they are looking to see whether they are persistent and material this is kind of a double whammy. we are coming out of a situation where trade has been effected by the tariff wars. we have this virus to contend with from the growth per spec is perspective. >> it seems we are so much more interconnected both the u.s. and china but really china and the rest of the world. the president kept up his attacks against jay powell tweeting during the testimony saying, quote, when jerome powell started his testimony today, the dow was up and as he spoke, it drifted down lower germany and other countries get paid t

mr. chairman. how are you doing today? chair powell: great, thanks. >> i want to do some yes or no questions, just to remind everybody. the labor participation rate is now 83.1%, which is increased in the last three years. is that correct? chair powell: i think that is prime age. >> yes, prime age adults. chair powell: i do believe it has, yes. rs: and wage growth has outpaced demand for workers. currently outpacing inflation, correct? chair powell: yes it is. rep. stivers: and wage growth has gone up by about 3% the last few quarters at an annualized rate. is that correct? chair powell: if you look at a range of measures, then you would see wages moving up at about 3%. rep. stivers: and we have record low and up limit rates for african-americans and hispanics. is that correct -- low unemployment rates for african-americans and hispanics. is that correct? chair powell: that's correct. rep. stivers: thank you for that testimony. your colleague at the atlanta fed stated that economic expansion does not die of old age. i think that is a g

mr. powell's testimony we had comments from the cdc, boeing as well boeing lost about $5 in half an hour there jet liner orders, none u in january. maybe that wasn't a big surprise, but boeing is in negative territory although they are flat now in terms of earning, europe had a great close here the stock 600, the s&p 500 of europe, historic high there. that's now outperforming the s&p 500 this year. earnings today, we talked a lot b about under armour, they talk b about losing perhaps 1% of revenues to coronavirus. that's dropping that but good year tires had something similar. they said they're being dramatically effected by coronavirus as well. remember both these companies have other issues in addition to what's going on with coronavirus. maybe we'll get more information when we get other big global consumer names that are coming out and reporting. pepsi for example, kraft hines nestle op thursday and alibaba to get a much clearer idea back to you. >> thank you for that. though the stocks may have retreat ed after hitting highs this morning, fed chair jay powell has a lot of optimism

mr. powell, for your leadership. thank you for joining us on this evening -- joining us in providence on that wonderful evening. without an independent federal reserve, our national ,olicymaking is, in my view severely --, so keep it up. we've expanded the economy ,or seven years -- for 11 years eight years under president obama, and three years under president trump. but there are still some issues we should address. a survey in january indicated byt the share of wealth held middle income families has been falling for roughly 20 years. i would like you to comment whether it continues to fall despite the expanding economy. in addition, they point out that income equality in the u.s. has increased since 1980. if it is stillg, please comment on that. peer greater than in countries, countries similar to us. if we are seeing trichet of wealth in the middle class and income inequality, those trends are not sustainable over time. they go to the fabric of the country. are those trends continuing? what policy can we adopt co

mr. caston is recognized for five minutes. >> thank you madam chair and thank you chairman powell. i appreciate you sticking around all the way to the bottom of the dais here. if i get elected eight more times, fingers crossed i will have as much experience in this line of work as i do in the energy sector. so i still come here primarily as an energy nerd. and i have a real concern that we are not dealing with the realities of climate change specifically we understand viscerally what it means to have rising sea levels but haven't thought about what it means to have an skpel rating rate of change compound interest confuses people and compound kangs in the voirmt we don't think about it as well as we should just a couple data points that i hope all of us can appreciate. the first evidence that hominids made fire, there is a cave a million years old. james watt invented the steam engine 244 years ago and ushered in the industrial revolution and 50% of all the co 2 we emitted as a species in 1985 it is a massively accelerating shift. if we went to zero co 2 tomorrow, we are looking at

mr. powell is not reappointed in 2022 i understand his perspective. >> is he right i know why you have said that. you said that before is he right. >> i have tremendous regard to delara and for janet rates dropped across the eeld curve. this is what drives businesses gives them confidence in terms of having act dietive fixed income markets to give them debt every ceo i know are taking advantage of this in one way or another. as far as having the incentive to borrow and even engage in cap exit is increase not decreased with the fixed income market movements. secondly if you look across the commodity spectrum, everything but soy beans is down and has been down. that indicates there might be some weaknesses. you have to understand that's a global market and of course it is affected by china and whatever hints of recession may be coming in germany and elsewhere and australia and so on but the question is, what will it do for real operating businesses that are the job makers and creators in america that's one question. is it worth moving on fed funds again when rates have come down across the yi

mr. chairman. chairman powell, thank you for, your good work. >> i think a lot of our institutions are under assault these days. i share some of the concerns about the independence of the justice department. on a regular basis, to make sure the intelligence community can maintain their independence. i would ask and frankly plead with you that if you see efforts made to undermine the fed's independence that you keep this committee fully apprised. the fed's independence is more important than ever. i want to also follow-up on my good friend's comments about equifax. i share with you the belief, the challenge that china poses, but i also think in the case of equifax and the credit rating agencies broadly, none of us choose to be an equifax customer or any credit rating agency. that cyberattack was due to sloppy behavior by equifax, and the fact we have not put in place any, frankly, enhanced rules of liability around credit reporting agencies is something i hope, i know i have talked with the chairman, i hope we will

chair powell: thank you, mr. chairman. >> students from across the voted important issues for presidential candidates to address our climate change, teen vaping, college affordability, gun violence, and education. the winners for this year's competition will be announced on march 11. journal,'s washington live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. up, new york republican congressman tom reed and democratic congressman josh gottheimer discuss legislative parties for congress. and bruce westerman talks about his initiative to help address climate change. watch c-span's washington journal, and be sure to watch next week for newseum week. we will explore the national museum of the marine corps, the ,mithsonian of american history the national museum of the american indian, and the some sony and national museum of

mr. powell hats to go on stage in two weeks and talk about how great the jobs number is. he thought everything was under control, and all of a sudden, due to fears today, the entire curve is melting down. so we have to wait and see what happens this week. it's one day's panic i really don't want to buy rates, hoping that the fed cuts when they immediate in the middle of march. at this stage, when you look at the inflation data, global growth will be a concern, you can bring stuff back down, but the entire treasury curve is a negative real yield. and even adjusting for oil prices, have we seen the consumer lease spending this year, especially with the real estate market, it's hard to see inflation being less than 2% yes, it could happen if the growth rate slows down significantly. it doesn't help you significantly, so i think the fed does have to cut at the stage, but i think they want to be reticent to do so that's why i think we need a couple days to figure out what's going on, and see what the reeks function is. >> you know, the last few weeks, whether u.s. stocks were

mr. chairman. chairman powell, nice to have you back. thank you for the accessibility and the conversations you have with both parties on this committee. before we start, i want say a few words about what happened last night, when we got word jesse loop nomination was withdrawn. she was to appear in front of this committee, was going to appear in front of the senate, when president trump withdrew her nomination. i heard some of you, my colleagues and friends, say the president was being chastened by impeachment. some told me you knew what the president did was wrong. some told me privately how much you think he lies. but you also said publicly that was not enough to rise to the level of removal from office, and many of you asserted he has learned his lesson, he would not do these things again. he would not try to through illegal means try to change the 2020 election. it's pretty clear the president learned a lesson. the lesson as he can do whatever he wants, whenever he wants, can abuse his office and never be held accountable by the sen

mr. chairman. chairman powell, great to see again. i want to make a couple comments echoing what senator rounds and senator reed and others said. i think there's a lot of our institutions, independents are under assault these days. i share some of the concerns of the senator brown about the independence of the justice department. i write on a regular basis to make sure the intelligence community can maintain their independence. i would ask frankly lead with you if you see efforts made to undermine the feds independence that you keep this committee fully apprised. the feds independence is more important at this point. i want to follow on my good friendpr comments about equifax. i share with you the belief, the challenge that china poses, i also think particularly and the case of equifax and the credit rating agencies broadly, not of us choose toeq be equifax custor or any credit rating agency. that cyber attack wasn't due to sloppy behavior by equifax, and the fact that we have not put in place any, frankly, enhanced rules of liability

mr. brown: is the president right? is chairman powell right? dr. shelton: as i said, i'm not sensoring what other people -- mr. brown: i'm not asking to you serns. we have something we've never seen in american history where the president of the united states consistently attacks his own nominee, whom many of us, myself included up here, voted for. trying to get him to do different things on economic policy. what do you think about what the president -- not censoring him, but what do you think about the president's advice to chairman powell and what he tells him to do? dr. shelton: i think what we've seen historically is some fed chairmen have felt they were being pressured behind the scenes. in some ways it's refreshing, if that's out in the open. and as i say, everyone, certainly business journalists, dissect every word that's uttered by a federal reserve official. and it's available, all the information, anyone can make a comment at any time. mr. brown: mr. waller, i think that the chairman of the federal reserve's done a pretty yood goode job re

mr. powell has said about cybersecurity has anything market going down. of playoff teams from 5 in each league to 7, you have 14 teams, why, to increase the excitement, they'll be 6 best of 3 series and at one point the top teams will be able to pick which one of the wild cards they want to play, they can pick our 3, which ones they want to play, all of that according to this proposal would happen live on television where you have teams picking, okay, we want to play the cleveland indians but leave the other two wild card teams to play each other, it just -- it had more inventory for networks that can air the games and adds more excitement. stuart: take awaste interest from the regular season which declines and piles all of -- ashley: you know, qualifying for the playoffs so that makes the regular season more, more, you know, interesting. stuart: i think we have one more on baseball, someone, a player i believe is suing the astros because of cheating scandal. >> former player suing the astros and want them to forfeet the $31 million in bonus money that th

mr. chairman. >> chairman powell, thanks for being here. you have been consistently raising warning bells about what you call the greatest threat to the financial system. you talk to many of us in private about cyber issues. you said yesterday on the house side that you don't think it's breaking through. can you summarize where you are worried about cyber attacks on our financial system? >> they kind of pay us at night to be worried about things. if you look at the financial crisis, we had a game plan, we implemented it over the course of 10 years. i won't say it's perfect, but we have a plan meant to address those kinds of things. what is new in the threat environment is the ongoing level of cyber threat and the increasing sophistication of it. we spent a ton of time worrying about it. the treasury department has really taken the lead on that. we are very focused on it. we are focused on making sure the financial institutions we supervise are doing the best they can to stay the state-of-the-art, good cyber hygiene. a lot of these things ar

mr. powell is not reintited. >> you did just say you thought the fed maybe did the wrong thing when it loweredarlier this year. you're not talking about lowers rates all the time, which is what president trump wanted to do, but what do you say in response to comments like that i heard it from a lot of places yesterday. >> for those of us who were in the middle of the last one of one of these wars, none of us covet the seat of jay powell today. we all still have scar tissue. that's the kind of divisive rhetoric, the sense that politics enter everything we do that is dangerous. the good news is for those of us who went through a real war, we learned to block out noise, stay focused on what you know, make your best judgments. the truth is there are plenty of areas of disagreement i had with the administration, all sorts of things and i don't think they would be a surprise to people on the inside >> you would not have necessarily cut rates quite as aggressively because you would be saving them for a moment like this >> just to give you an example, i don't think negative rates are useful in the uni

powell. thank you and congratulations. >> senator van hollen. senator van hollen: thank you, mr. chairman. thank you both for being here. ms. shelton, i'm sure you've been covering, or catching the article that was been coming out with respect to your record years ago compared to now. and there does seem to be a pattern of total flip-flopping. if you look at the period of time when bernanke and yellen were the head of the federal reserve, you criticized them for, let's see, cheap money, fake economy, you were a deficit hawk, you wanted tight money then. in 2011, you criticized the federal reserve for weakening the dollar to improve exports, in order to improve our economy back home. the only pattern i see here is a political one. not an economic one. and i think that's what concerns a lot of people. because we want somebody on the federal reserve who is going to look at the economic facts and draw conclusions from those, not the political facts. so i want to also ask you in that regard about positions you've taken on the deficits and debt. i've had concerns myself over the years about defi

chair powell: the gentleman from california -- rep. waters: the gentleman from california, mr. is now recognized for five minutes. rep. sherman: a couple of responses to what the ranking number had to say. the stock market's way up, wages are up a bit more than 1% in real terms after inflation. wages at the bottom have risen. chiefly in those states where we anded the minimum wage, when we have a democratic majority in both houses, we will raise the gnome wage nationwide -- the minimum wage nationwide and deal effectively with those states that have not seen such an expansion of wages at the bottom. not by old, but i've spent many decades in this room. i have seen your predecessors' predecessors' predecessors. every time they come in and the republicans attack them for expansionary monetary policy, perdition and newfangled -- policy, both traditional and newfangled, and now we have a president, and all of a sudden they are pushing on the other side. all i'll say is that i have consistently, from the days of mr. greenspan, been pushing for somewhat lower interest rates and an ex

mr. chairman, the economy hasn't gotten anywhere near 6% growth in the last three years, has it? chair powell: no. we have had continue to moderate growth of a little better than 2%. sen. van hollen: and we haven't had 5% or 4%, and the trump administration has not ever hit 3% annual growth, has it? 2018 was marked at 3%, but then got marked down to 2.5%. sen. van hollen: but we are having a reality-based conversation, so the answer is no, right? chair powell: according to the current statistics. sen. van hollen: if you look at the budget that was just submitted by the trump administration, they are predicting 2.8% growth for the coming year, again, very far from what president trump was talking about, but even at that number, that is higher than the most optimistic projections for the 2020 gdp from the 17 fomc members, right? chair powell: we don't have a unified forecast. we don't adopt or vote on forecast, but we do show a dot plot of data. i think the median forecast would be in the low 2% for this year. , andvan hollen: it is 2% the most optimistic was 2.3%, still a full 0.5% of gdp belo

powell, rudy giuliani and tom fitton. andrew mccabe, the attorney general has passed on prosecuting him. what does that mean? what does it portend? >> i think mrants to restore the rule of law. to do that he has to apply it equally regardless of political party. so for declining to prosecute mr. mccabe for lying under oath means he has to dismiss the prosecution of general flynn who was never warned of his rights and wasn't even under oath aside from the other multiple violations with respect to mr. flynn. nothing in the flynn prosecution or investigation was done nothing. >> comey gets off, easy piecey prosecution. he lied to the fbi. same thing with mccabe. he lied four times both under oath and not under oath. and now we are expected to think easy prosecutions aren't pursued, but they will pursue prosecution on the spygate case that targeted the president? >> i think sidney is correct. there is a double standard. barr has to break the double standard pap man who lied multiple times under oath gave material lies things they didn't know. on the other hands you have a man who was trapped. they had the actual answer to the question in their bri

is leading up to 80 west of powell reet where a big rig is still on its side blocking 4 lanes of obama: he's been a leader throughout the country for the past twelve years, mr. michael bloomberg is here. vo: leership in action. mayor bloomberg and president obama worked together in the fight for gun safety laws, to improve education, and to develop innovative ways to help teens gain the skills needed to find good bs. obama: at a time when washington is divided in old ideological battles he shows us what can be achieved when we bring people together to seek agmatic solutions. bloomberg: i'm mike bloomberg and i approve this message. >>said to the south y right now where hikers are being turned away from a park in cupertino after a untain lion attacked a 6 ar-old girl. rancho san antonio park remains closed while rangers are searching for that giant cat. trail camera actually captured a picre of the mountain lion early monday morning. but it's not clear if this is the same cat that attacked the girl she was saved by her father by the way he punched the line and scared it off after a clampdown on her leg. visitors say that ey're ok with the park stay closed un

powell: my kids are grown up. rep. porter: i will yield back. rep. waters: the gentleman from ohio, mr. davidson, is recognized for five minutes. davidson: thank you for the good work you and your colleagues are doing at the federal reserve. just to address comments that came from my colleague recently, is it unprecedented for the chairman of the federal reserve to attend a party or a reception? chair powell: no. it is not the first time a fed chair has attended a party. i am certain is not the first time and it -- a member of commerce -- a member of congress has attended a party. i do not know that we want to say just because you are at an event it is nefarious. you might've talk to a russian on a subway. the way these things are linked for political motives is embarrassingly partisan and bad, and i thank you for resisting all of those pressures. many of them are public. one i am concerned about is the repo market. back home, a lot of people do not though there is such a thing is repo. it is a factor for our economy. some of the warning signs have in a blendto the fed between regulator

powell testifies on capitol hill. i want to bring in north dakota senator kevin cramer. mr. senator? >> yes.tors are beginning to object to president trump's very hard-line. i'm going to call it the revenge that he is going for following impeachment failure. do you approve of that hard-line that the president is taking? >> well, stuart, biggest problem in this town is the bureaucracy runs the town and consequently they run the country. that is why donald trump won in the first place. in my view i think the president has been too generous in the first three years of his percent term leaving too many people hanging around in important positions so they could work not just against him, because he is such, he is such an objection to many of them, but to work against the people and the peoples representatives. he has every right to do what he is doing. he should have done it a long time ago. the reasons he has for purging some of these agencies is very valid and justified in my mind. stuart: he has republican party, republican senate very much on his side as he goes after some of his opponents? y

building at the foot of powell and market street that bears his family's name where sue hester has been a tenant for decades. i would like to ring this real cable car bell that was given to mr. flood who was not only passionate about the building but had broader interests and this was given to him after his first ten years of service as the president of the union square b i.d. and his daughter karen flood is here today and she told the san francisco chronicle that he took that building personally and took care of it lining it wa like itr of the family. i would like to ring this bell and have a moment of silence for jim flood. (bell rings). (moment of silence). so jim's grandfather built that regal ornate flat iron building at turn of the last century in 1904 to honor his father and the supervisor safai were talking about that, the silver king who made a fortune in nevada's comstock load in nevada city. jim, the younger, spent $15 million in the 1990s to restore the building to the former granduer in the lobby. from world war to the hamet, to the gap, that building has housed san francisco classics and as i mentioned, including susue hester and was almost lost to the wreckin

building at the foot of powell and market street that bears his family's name where sue hester has been a tenant for decades. i would like to ring this real cable car bell that was given to mrflood who was not only passionate about the building but had broader interests and this was given to him after his first ten years of service as the president of the union square b i.d. and his daughter karen flood is here today and she told the san francisco chronicle that he took that building personally and took care of it lining it wa like itr of the family. i would like to ring this bell and have a moment of silence for jim flood. (bell rings). (moment of silence). so jim's grandfather built that regal ornate flat iron building at turn of the last century in 1904 to honor his father and the supervisor safai were talking about that, the silver king who made a fortune in nevada's comstock load in nevada city. jim, the younger, spent $15 million in the 1990s to restore the building to the former granduer in the lobby. from world war to the hamet, to the gap, that building has housed san francisco classics and as i mentioned, including susue hester and was almost lost to the wrecking