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The Retiree ADVOCATE The Monthly Publication of PSARA EDUCATION FUND “Uniting Generations for a Secure Future” March 1, 2026 Kaiser Permanente’s Hand in the Cookie Jar Robby Stern Robby Stern's article "Kaiser Permanente's Hand in the Cookie Jar." Read More Never Forget! Our remembrance of those who have died trying to help others during the ICE actions in Minnesota. Read More Advocate Editorial Cartoon Barb Flye takes a look at a new White House addition Read More Coal: The Low-Hanging Fossil Fuel Jefl Johnson The latest in Jeff Johnson's series on divesting from fossil fuels. Read More SSA Workers Union at US Capitol Steve Kofahl A report by Steve Kofahl on AFGE's legislative conference in DC. Read More Capitol Outlook 2026 Pam Crone Pam Crone's update on PSARA's work with the state legislature. Read More How States Can Unite, Fight Back, and Reclaim Our Democracy Lisa Dekker Lisa Dekker explains the strategy of "soft secession." Read More Vertical Integration: How UnitedHealth Group Consolidated Market Power Katie Harris Part II of Katie Harris's series on vertical integration in the health care industry. Read More Federal Government Walks Back Home Care Nursing Hours Carla McLean Cindy Domingo explains the Free Washington Project. Read More Resisting Authoritarianism - Free Washington Project Cindy Domingo Read More A brief excerpt from Major General Smedley D. Butler, USMC anti-imperialist book, War Is a Racket: Read More

The Retire Advocate < Back to Table of Contents March 2026 Advocate Editorial Cartoon < Back to Table of Contents

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PSARA advocates on a range of issues. Our committees work in the areas of Social Equity, Environment, Medicare/Medicaid and Social Security. We also publish a monthly newsletter: The Advocate. We welcome New Members and Volunteers. PSARA Committees Meetings/Events Race and Gender Equity (RAGE) Committee Typically meets the 3rd Thursday of the month Contact: organizer@psara.org The Race and Gender Equity Committee works to highlight issues of racial and gender equity and to advocate for diverse and marginalized communities in the Puget Sound region and beyond. Current topics include Black Reparations, immigrant rights, and the impacts of environmental and land use decisions on communities of color. Government Relations Committee Typically meets the 1st Thursday of the month Contact: organizer@psara.org The Government Relations Committee is an active and engaged committee of volunteers that believes PSARA’s advocacy will make a difference in forming our state’s policies and priorities. We meet year around and are open to all PSARA members. Our work helps to center PSARA’s advocacy priorities and lead our members to greater activism in making Washington a healthier and more equitable place to live and thrive. We advocate for the quality of life and well-being of all Washingtonians and particularly seniors emphasizing retirement security, economic and social justice, revenue reform, climate justice, healthcare and housing affordability. Click here for more information. Climate & Environmental Justice Committee Typically meets the 1st Thursday of the month Contact: tplux@comcast.net PSARA's Climate & Environmental Justice Committee was formed out of the urgency of the escalating global climate crisis. We engage with Labor, environmental organizations and indigenous allies to help build a political movement to transition to clean energy and keep the world livable for future generations. We demand a just transition and livable wages for workers displaced by the move to clean energy and we advocate for justice and compensation for low income, communities of color and other communities adversely affected by fossil fuels and inequality. The threat of climate change requires education, advocacy, and direct action now! Fund Raising Committee Typically meets the 2nd Monday of the month Contact: organizer@psara.org The Fundraising Committee raises funds to support the great work of PSARA. Members conduct two major fundraising campaigns annually including Give Big in the spring and an End of Year solicitation. It also sponsors events such as concerts, storytellers, book reading by local authors and more. We reach out to other organizations for annual donations and apply for grants as the opportunity presents itself. Members also support agency events such as organizing our general membership meetings and PSARA’s anniversary celebration. Our work results in significant resources for PSARA and the PSARA Education Fund. We welcome all who want to help and we have fun planning and organizing our events and activities.

The Retire Advocate < Back to Table of Contents September 2025 Washington State Labor Council Says No Cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security Labor Campaign for Single Payer Referred to WSLC Executive Board At its 2025 convention held in Vancouver, WA, July 22-24, the Washington State Labor Council (WSLC) voted unanimously to fight cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, and to oppose the WISeR pilot program to expand prior authorization in Original Medicare. The vote came on a resolution drafted by PSARA and also endorsed by RPEC, WASARA, AFGE 3937, AFSCME Council 28, AFT Washington, SIEU 775, SIEU 1199NW, MLK Labor, Pierce County Central Labor Council, APALA Seattle, and Pride At Work. By passing the resolution, WSLC pledged that the Labor Movement in Washington will participate in the fight to stop the cuts to Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security and the additional attacks on these programs, that the Labor Movement in Washington will participate in the fight to halt the privatization of Medicare by supporting leveling the playing field between Traditional Medicare and Medicare Advantage, that the Washington State Labor Council will send a letter to the State’s Congressional delegation urging them to oppose all cuts to Medicaid, Medi- care, and Social Security, the firing of workers and attacks on the administration of the Social Security program, the proposed expansion of prior authorization, and private profiteering in the Medicare program, that the Washington State Labor Council and its affiliates will help educate their members about the dangers of these attacks to the lives of all working people, children, and seniors and what they can do with their unions and allies to resist these attacks. WSLC represents more than 650 local unions and other labor organizations and more than 600,000 workers. Their commitment to fight cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, and expanded prior authorization in Original Medicare adds a powerful voice to our campaign to save our safety net programs. As the WSLC resolution noted, “these three programs are foundational to the lives of not only union members, but all working people, children, and seniors…” WSLC also recognized that “these attacks are designed to fund tax breaks for wealthy individuals and corporations in our country, to increase corporate profits and to undermine the functioning of these federal programs…” The WISeR pilot program to expand prior authorization in Original Medicare is particularly egregious because it would pay private companies to review the medical care of Medicare beneficiaries and pay those companies on the basis of how many procedures and services they denied. In other words, WISeR incentivizes denial of health care. In action on a second resolution supported by PSARA, the WSLC voted to “urge our federal and state legislators to enact legislation that embodies the principles of a universal single payer healthcare system…” The AFL-CIO has not endorsed the Medicare for All Act of 2025 – even though it is endorsed by 10 national and international unions – or the State Based Universal Health Care Act, and therefore the convention’s Resolutions Committee deleted explicit references to them from the resolution. PSARA does support these proposed bills, and we believe they each embody the principles of a universal single payer system. We will continue to press for their adoption. In the resolution, the WSLC also voted to refer the question of actually joining the Labor Campaign for Single Payer to its Executive Board. Labor Campaign for Single Payer is a coalition of 15 national or international unions, 8 AFL-CIO state federations, 5 central labor councils, and 8 state and local unions. Its aim is summed up on its website: “The Labor Campaign believes that we will win healthcare for all when the labor movement commits all of its re- sources and organizing capacity to the fight for healthcare justice. Our job is to build the grassroots movement within labor that will make this happen.” Just this year, the Washington State legislature passed Senate Joint Memo- rial 8004, asking the federal government to create a universal health care program or to partner with Washington State to implement a universal health system by passing legislation similar to the State Based Universal Health Care Act, or to grant Washington State waivers to remove restrictions on the state’s ability to create a universal health care system. PSARA was ably represented at the WSLC convention by our delegate Rob- by Stern, President of the PSARA Edu- cation Fund and member of PSARA's Executive Board, and our alternate, Pam Crone, also a member of PSARA's Executive Board and Chair of our Government Relations Committee < Back to Table of Contents

The Retire Advocate < Back to Table of Contents June 2025 We Remember Iris Rosechild Editor's Note: The Advocate mourns the passing of our friend and colleague Iris Rosechild. Iris volunteered as a proofreader for the Advocate for many years, and her way with words made the Advocate a better publication. She always kept us laughing and was a pleasure to work with. We'd like to share a remembrance of Iris by her friend Carla. Iris Rosechild, born Iris Chaya Golub in Brooklyn, New York, Oct. 27, 1943, died at the age of 81 in Seattle in the hospital, nine days after a fall in her apartment. Her father, Barry Golub, came from Russia when he was 11 to join his father here in America. He was an interior house painter, and his father was a tailor. Her mother, Rose Golub, was a housewife and the first generation from Austria. Rose and Barry spoke Yiddish to each other and were Socialists. Iris was the youngest of six daughters. Her Jewish identity was very important to her. Iris left home at 17 to be a bohemian with her boyfriend in Greenwich Village. Her favorite place was the Caricatura coffee house. She moved to the Haight Ashbury in San Francisco in the 60’s, became a flower child, and protested the Vietnam War. Eventually she moved to Seattle to attend the University of Washington and graduated with a BA in Women’s Studies. She was the first coordinator of the Feminist Therapy Referral Service, which was started by her partner, Cameron Justam, in 1976. Before that she was a counselor at the YWCA. Iris had a small business selling fashionable hats called Mad about Hats in the Bon Marché in downtown Seattle. She also sold socks in a business called Café Socks in Pike Place Market and in the former Broadway Market on Capitol Hill. She returned to New York to take care of her father and her sister who were dying. She earned a Master’s in Grief Counseling at Pace University. She got a job as a counselor in New York helping the homeless find permanent housing. She loved her job but quit to return to Seattle and Cameron. She did proofreading since 2018 for the Retiree Advocate, where her keen sense of the rhythm of words was appreciated. This was just one of her many volunteer commitments. She volunteered for the Seattle International Film Festival, the Seattle Jewish Film Festival, as well as Seattle Town Hall. She and Cameron have been in a lesbian film group for five years. She had an inimitable sense of style in everything she did. She had a signature sense of humor. She made great chicken soup. She was a reader and big library user. She was warm and caring for other human beings. She was a big animal lover. Her most recent pet, Cozmo, was a three-legged orange female cat who Iris doted on. Iris is survived by two sisters, Dorian and Ruth, four nieces, one nephew, and her partner of 49 years, Cameron. < Back to Table of Contents

For more than a quarter century, Puget Sound Advocates for Retirement Action (PSARA) has been active in fighting for older Americans, retirees, their children and families through social justice activities. P uget S ound A dvocates for R etirement A ction Working across generations for social justice, economic security, dignity, and a healthy planet for all of us. WA State Legislature is in session Click Here for our weekly update Click here for PSARA ’ s Legislative Agenda & Talking Points Click here for answers to Pam Crone ’ s questions in the February Retiree Advocate Upcoming PSARA Events/meetings Know Your Rights Training An Online Training Offered by PSARA Wednesday, March 4, 2026 Featuring trainers Jay Stansell, Dori Cahn, and Karen Gilbert. Jay W Stansell is a lawyer and educator who has actively practiced law in the United States since 1988, most recently for 19 years as an Assistant Federal Public Defender, and previously for five years as a Staff Attorney at Northwest Immigrant Rights Project. Dori Can has worked with immigrants and refugees for many years: as an educator teaching adult ESL and ABE classes, and supporting success for first-generation college students; and as a community activist supporting immigrant and refugee rights. Karen Gilbert is a lawyer who for over 40 vears represented immigrants in deportation defense, immigration benefits, visas, Federal and agency litigation and appeals. A founding member of NWIRP, she volunteers with this and other non-profit organizations This training is for allies who want to understand the importance of supporting our immigrant neighbors and communities: community members who want to know more about their legal rights and how to exercise them: and activists who want to reel more emboldened in resisting the brutal immigrador enforcement that is terrorizing our nation. A central goal of the presentation is to build "Community Power" in the face of government agents who routinely have ignored the legal rights of the communi- ties they contront. Our presenters have updated their training to reflect the newest attacks by the increasingly authoritarian Trump Administration. To participate in this training, you must REGISTER. To REGISTER, click here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/CfLfsUrzQ6SDVe_cuUZhiA ********** If you have questions, email organizer@psara.org To participate in this training, you must REGISTER. To REGISTER, click here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/CfLfsUrzQ6SDVe_cuUZhiA ********** If you have questions, email organizer@psara.org PSARA March Retiree Advocate Click here to read the Advocate online In this issue we feature an article by Carla McLean on federal roll backs of home nursing care hours. Also in this issue: Robby Stern's article "Kaiser Permanente's Hand in the Cookie Jar." The latest in Jeff Johnson's series on divesting from fossil fuels. A report by Steve Kofahl on AFGE's legislative conference in DC. Pam Crone's update on PSARA's work with the state legislature. Lisa Dekker explains the strategy of "soft secession." Part II of Katie Harris's series on vertical integration in the health care industry. Cindy Domingo explains the Free Washington Project. And more! If you haven't done so yet, you can REGISTER for a Know Your Rights training sponsored by PSARA by clicking here:https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/CfLfsUrzQ6SDVe_cuUZhiA Thank you for being PSARA members! Health Secretary Kennedy is Attacking Traditional Medicare in Washington State In January, the Trump administration will be rolling out a new control on Traditional Medicare in six states, including Washington State. This program is called WISeR. It will affect Medicare benefits by requiring a new prior authorization for a number of medical decisions. This means your doctor will need to receive prior authorization from the Federal government before you get some medical treatments. C lick Here for more on the WISeR Program and what you can do to stop it. On December 6th PSARA Board Members Robby Stern and Anne Watanabe (hosted by Dan Grey and Evegreen State College) discuss the attacks on Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Please listen to the interview and share with your friends: Click here to hear the interview. Protecting our Assets Protecting our Asses In the last year PSARA’s Co-President, Jeff Johnson, wrote a series of articles for PSARA’s Retiree Advocate highlighting the need to move beyond fossil fuels and the responsibility of unions to insure that their retirement plans stop investing in fossil fuels not just because its good environmentally but also good economics. Unions can play a key role in jump starting our green future. These articles have been consolidated into a single publication: Protecting our Assets Protecting our Asses. Click here to download the pamphlet or read it online. DOWNLOAD JOIN PSARA in making a difference! Back to Top

The Retire Advocate < Back to Table of Contents January 2025 We Remember Norma Kelsey Contributions from Maureen Bo, Cindy Schu, Nancy Greenup, and David Kelsey The Puget Sound area labor and social justice movements lost a fierce activist with the passing of Norma Kelsey on September 21, 2024, at age 89. Norma was a leader of the Office and Professional Employees Union Local 8 (Secretary-Treasurer 1985-1989, President 1989-2001) and worked for Plumbers Local 32 and Laborers Local 440 for many years. Norma also held various leadership positions with El Centro de la Raza, Mothers for Police Accountability, Coalition of Labor Union Women, and the Martin Luther King County Labor Council. Norma served on a citizens’ panel of the Seattle City Council’s World Trade Organization Accountability Review Committee and was a member of Puget Sound Alliance for Retired Americans (now PSARA). Norma was a true trade unionist and believed in the movement with her heart and soul. Norma was born September 19, 1935, in Independence, Kansas. Her grandparents settled there years before, having arrived in a covered wagon. In her youth she was a member of the Salvation Army Church where she was taught that her role in life should be to help others. Later, when she began to work for unions, she recognized a familiar belief system of helping and giving to others. She brought those values full strength to her work for unions and the community. Norma was married at age 16, but this brutal first marriage ended in divorce. She later married Bob Kelsey and moved to California and eventually to Washington, where they raised four children and several adopted and foster children. Norma and Bob, usually with their son Jack, traveled extensively to Nicaragua, Venezuela, the Philippines, Haiti, and throughout Europe and Central America. The travel often involved reconnecting with former refugees who had fled violence in their home countries and who had been aided by Bob and Norma when seeking housing and assistance in the United States. Norma provided a key leadership role in the mid-1980’s, when a group of women, led by former Local 8 Board Member Maureen Bo (who after the revolution was elected Business Manager), decided their union was headed in the wrong direction. Norma’s kindness, vision, and belief in social justice and creating a humane community helped to provide a focus for their shared work. Maureen, Norma, Nancy Greenup, and Janet Graham, along with others, ousted Local 8’s leadership at the time. They fought off a hard push for an ill-advised merger with another union, which would have stripped Local 8 of its own direction. Instead, they reshaped their local into the vibrant, progressive labor union it is today. These founding mothers focused on building a transparent, fiscally responsible, and democratically run local with organizing made a top priority. Norma’s labor friends remember her passion and kindness, which will live on in so many of the hearts she touched. Her determination was unmatched. And she never lost sight of the important goals she had for a more just world. Norma taught us endless lessons in perseverance with dignity. She was truly one of a kind. The world is a better place because of her. < Back to Table of Contents

The Retire Advocate < Back to Table of Contents December 2025 Jane Goodall Anne Watanabe ’ve never lived in a world that didn’t have Jane Goodall in it. But she passed away on October 1, at age 91, while on a worldwide tour to promote environmental protection and to urge all of us to fight climate change and protect the planet. So now we must carry on without her, it seems. As I write this, Trump declares he will open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a crown jewel of US wildlife habitat, to oil and gas drilling, and Alaska native villages are being decimated by climate-fueled storms and flooding. I wish Jane were here. Jane Goodall and Friend Most of us know the early story of Jane Goodall, the young Englishwoman from a working-class family who was hired by famous anthropologist Louis Leakey to assist in his primate studies in Gombe, Tanzania. She had no college degree (the doctorate would come later). Leakey thought – rightly – that she was free of academic prejudices that could interfere with her observational studies. Jane went to Gombe in 1960, and her studies proved to be groundbreaking. National Geographic sent photographer Hugo Van Lawick to Gombe to capture the daily lives of Jane and the Gombe troop. Those photos captivated the world. Jane discovered that chimpanzees used tools, a behavior that until then was thought to be exclusive to Homo sapiens . She closely observed the chimpanzee family interactions and social structures. She realized that individual chimpanzees had different personalities. Of course, evidence that chimpanzees aren’t so different from the scientists who studied them was uncomfortable for some. Critics attempted to discredit her because she was a woman who lacked academic pedigrees, and they dismissed her observations as anthropomorphic. (In the early years of animal behavior science, this was a catch-all criticism of any study that challenged conventional wisdom about nonhuman animals.) Jane continued to study primates in the field, returning frequently to Gombe. She led a new generation of scientists whose work revealed complexities of thought and behavior in nonhuman animals, expanding our previous understanding of them. She was a scientist and more than anything she loved being in the field, studying the natural world. But Jane felt a deeper obligation to protect that world and its inhabitants. Starting in 1986, she traveled worldwide to raise awareness about human created harms and to urge that we act to protect the planet. She founded Roots and Shoots in 1991, a global humanitarian and environmental program that engages young people throughout the world to bring about positive changes. With her deep commitment to nonhuman rights, Jane was an early board member of the Nonhuman Rights Project, and provided important supporting material for NhRP’s litigation, including a recent hearing in September on behalf of captive chimpanzees. She was a UN Humanitarian Messenger, and right up until her death, she was on the road 300 days a year, raising awareness – and hope. So here we are today. In The Book of Hope , she wrote that “Hope is often misunderstood. People tend to think that it is simply passive wishful thinking…This is indeed the opposite of real hope, which requires action and engagement. Many people understand the dire state of the planet – but do nothing about it because they feel helpless and hopeless.” In September, during her last tour, she offered this: “Every single day we live, we make some sort of impact on the world…I tell people, find something you can do in your community. Do it. Get your friends to support you. See that you can make a difference. Know that all around the world, other people like you are making a difference.” Thank you, Jane. As we confront so many threats to our planet and all life on earth, she is still here, giving me hope. Anne Watanabe is Chair of PSARA's Race and Gender Equity (RaGE) Committee. < Back to Table of Contents

The Retire Advocate < Back to Table of Contents December 2025 ICE Considers Raiding the Local Sandwich Shop The Barbed Wire < Back to Table of Contents

The Retire Advocate < Back to Table of Contents August 2025 PSARA Signs an Open Letter Rejecting the House Homeland Security Committee’s Unfounded Inquiries into 200+ Nonprofit Organizations PSARA Board We, the undersigned more than [...] nonprofit and nonpartisan organizations and community leaders, stand united inopposition to the House Homeland Security Committee’s and Senator Josh Hawley’s unfounded demands for information from hundreds of nonprofit organizations. These charities and organizations have done nothing but carry out their work, including what is outlined in the federal grants some of them were awarded, and include religious organizations and groups working on advocacy and services for immigrants, workers, youth, and a vast array of other organizations serving their communities. These letters of inquiry target civic organizations that have provided services under valid federal contracts that were authorized and appropriated by Congress, filling a need the government cannot perform itself. No allegations of wrongdoing, or evidence is provided for these extraordinary and burdensome inquiries. This effort appears to be an attempt to weaponize Congressional power and create the appearance of wrongdoing against those who the signers believe disagree with their political agenda. The process these lawmakers intend to drag these law abiding, community serving organizations through is the punishment. As nonprofit and nonpartisan organizations and community leaders, we work in communities across the country to feed the hungry; house those without shelter; protect our air and water, our rights to vote, worship, and organize; we fight for consumers, workers, and our children; we advocate for civil and human rights at home and abroad; we have made it safer to drive on our roads, easier to start a business, and healthier to live in our cities. We span the full ideological spectrum. And today, we stand together for our democracy and in solidarity with those nonprofit organizations unjustly targeted by these Congressional letters. Let us be clear – this investigation is Congress weaponizing its powers to target and intimidate nonprofit organizations that are fulfilling the guidelines of federal grants, simply because they disagree with the policy those grants advance. This unfounded inquiry is not about protecting Americans, rooting out waste and fraud, or defending the public interest. It is about using un- checked power to chill constitutionally protected activity, community activism, and voices those sending the letters may disagree with. That is un-American and flies in the face of the Constitution. This specific attack on nonprofits is not happening in a vacuum. Rather, this attack exists in the context of a wholesale offensive against organizations and individuals the administration and its allies find objectionable. We are standing in solidarity with the organizations targeted in this unfounded investigation because nonprofits of all types, members of the clergy and religious groups, advocates, and community serving organizations should not be punished for their work – even if those in power find it threatening to their policy agenda. Our government is meant to serve the people, not those in office. Efforts by members of Congress to attack nonprofit groups they disagree with are reprehensible, dangerous, and a violation offundamental American freedoms. Speaking out for the voice- less is, and has always been, our collective mission. As such,we stand with those organizations wrongly targeted, and with one another. < Back to Table of Contents

The Retire Advocate < Back to Table of Contents June 2025 Chaos Monkey Goes After the Federal Reserve Michael Righi Trump wants lower interest rates. Probably so he and his family can borrow cheap money to pump up the value of their crypto coins, then dump them and leave ordinary investors with the losses. Maybe he needs money to build a golf course in Dubai. Or wait, maybe that’s going to be a “gift.” So call me cynical. He is also worried that his tariff chaos is going to slow production and the economy. Lower interest rates might encourage more spending and support the economy he is effectively tanking. Trump the autocrat wants the same power over interest rates that he has over tariffs. So he is threatening the Federal Reserve and its chair, Jerome Powell. Firing Powell would be illegal; his term is not up, but this is Trump, right? And the Federal Reserve system was created to function independently of the president and Congress, on purpose, supposedly to insulate the Fed from political pressure. The Fed was initially created in 1913 to stop the financial crises private banks kept causing. Bankers would make riskier and riskier loans to pump up profit, some loans would go bad, banks would collapse and production and jobs would disappear. The Fed, once created, then lent money to bail the banks (and depositors) out, and prevent depressions. How to Make Money That is a crucial understanding – the Federal Reserve Bank creates money, out of thin air. You write a check, you draw down your account. The Fed writes a check by changing some numbers on a computer – only based on their authority as the country’s central bank. The Fed works through the private banking system. The Fed buys financial assets, Treasury bonds, or lately even mortgage-backed securities. That money winds up in the banking system, enabling banks to make loans. That’s more money in the economy. So the Fed enables banks to create our money supply. The Humphrey-Hawkins law passed by Congress mandates that the Fed keep both inflation and unemployment low. The Fed does this by controlling short-term interest rates. Those are often conflicting goals. Low interest rates (“easy money”) encourage borrowing and spending and so more jobs. But that also allows businesses to raise prices. High interest rates (“tight money”) have the opposite effect, slowing the economy. This all sounds technical and value- neutral. That’s what the Fed and Wall Street and financial elites want us to think, that Fed policy is apolitical and technocratic. Tell that to homeowners who lost their homes in the 2008 financial crisis while the Fed bailed out big insurance and bank corporations. Or to cardholders and small businesses now as the Powell Fed allows Capital One and Dis- cover to merge and raise their charges. The Fed Is Not Independent The Fed is run by bankers and Wall Street financiers, and influenced by what the corporate elite wants. High interest rates protect the assets of the financial elite from inflation, reducing their value. High rates also keep the economy from creating jobs, because then workers’ wages and willingness to organize might interfere with corporate profit. But financial crisis might call for extended periods of low interest rates, to keep Wall Street afloat, as after 2008. As wages have stagnated or fallen for decades, low rates also encouraged families to run up debt to maintain living standards. Whatever the capitalists in power need, the Fed tries to provide. Its power is relatively easy to access for the wealthy, easier than going through the somewhat more democratic legislative process. With Trump going after him, it is tempting to defend Powell and the Fed. That just puts us back into the space of bad choices. Neither represents what the working class needs. The Fed itself is soon likely to face both inflation and unemployment, a result of Trumpian chaos and uncertainty. If leaving it to the Fed is not the answer, then what is? That also should be up for discussion. There are ideas out there. Regional and local public banks could loan money for public infrastructure, such as transit and clean energy. Postal banking would enable those shut out of banks to borrow and make transactions. Michael Righi is a retired economics professor and a member of the Retiree Advocate Editorial Board. < Back to Table of Contents