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    Biden Says He Is Confident America Will Not Default on Its Debts

    Speaking just moments before he left for a diplomatic trip overseas, President Biden said a default would be “catastrophic.”President Biden said a failure by the U.S. to pay its bills would be “catastrophic” for the economy.Tom Brenner for The New York TimesPresident Biden, just moments before he departed on Wednesday for a diplomatic trip to Asia, said he was confident “America will not default” as congressional leaders in both parties offered some signs of optimism about eventually reaching a deal to raise the nation’s borrowing limit.“Every leader in the room understands the consequences if we failed to pay our bills,” Mr. Biden said at the White House on Wednesday before leaving for Hiroshima, Japan, to attend the Group of 7 meeting there. “And it would be catastrophic for the American economy and the American people.”Mr. Biden described his face-to-face meeting with congressional negotiators the day before as productive, “civil and respectful” and said both Democrats and Republicans agreed that the United States cannot default.But his decision to get a final word in on the negotiations signaled that even as he departs for a summit on the global economy, the White House is focused on averting an economic crisis back home.Mr. Biden decided to cut the trip to Asia short to be back for what he called “final negotiations” over the ceiling, the statutory cap on how much the government can borrow to finance its obligations. He is scheduled to return to Washington on Sunday, skipping planned visits to Papua New Guinea and Australia.Mr. Biden echoed the optimism offered by both Democratic and Republican leaders after Tuesday’s meeting.He has designated his senior adviser, Steve Ricchetti, and Shalanda Young, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, to speak to a team of negotiators representing congressional Republicans. Speaker Kevin McCarthy had also commended the move as a sign of progress on Tuesday.“We narrowed the group to meet and hammer out our differences,” Mr. Biden said, adding that the negotiating teams met on Tuesday night and will meet again on Wednesday.Time is running out for the two sides to reach a consensus.The government reached the $31.4 trillion debt limit on Jan. 19, and the Treasury Department has been using a series of accounting maneuvers to keep paying its bills. Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen reiterated that the United States could run out of money to pay its bills by June 1 if Congress does not raise or suspend the debt limit, potentially causing a recession or the elimination of jobs.Republicans have said they want to cut federal spending before lifting the ceiling, while Mr. Biden has said negotiating over the cuts must not be a requirement for raising the debt limit. Even so, Democrats have increasingly appeared open to reaching a compromise with Republicans. Both Democratic leaders from New York, Senator Chuck Schumer, the majority leader, and Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the minority leader, told reporters that passing a bipartisan bill in both chambers was the only way forward.Mr. Biden signaled he was open to a potential agreement for tougher work requirements on federal aid programs over the weekend, when he reminded the press that he had voted for such measures — with the exception of Medicaid — as a senator.Asked on Wednesday if he was still considering work requirements, Mr. Biden said it is possible, “but not anything of any consequence.”“I’m not going to accept any work requirements that’s going to have an impact on the medical health needs of people,” Mr. Biden said.Mr. Biden added that he did not believe cutting his overseas trip short would help China gain influence in the region. The administration has sought to bolster partnerships in the region to to counter China’s economic presence. But the ongoing talks forced Mr. Biden to cut stops in Papua New Guinea and Australia.Mr. Biden said he made sure to call Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of Australia on Tuesday to let him know of his decision to cancel part of his trip. While officials in the administration were still deciding whether they would shorten the trip, they also discussed sending a replacement, including Vice President Kamala Harris or Antony J. Blinken, the secretary of state, according to an official familiar with the matter.As of Wednesday morning, there were no such plans to send a substitute. More

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    Biden and McCarthy Show Optimism on Debt Ceiling but Remain Far Apart

    President Biden and congressional leaders in both parties emerged from a White House meeting on Tuesday offering glimmers of hope about eventually reaching a deal to raise the nation’s borrowing limit, even as they conceded they were still far from averting a default that could come as soon as June 1.With time dwindling to strike a compromise that could make it through Congress in time to avoid an economic catastrophe, Mr. Biden said he would cut short a diplomatic trip to Asia to be on hand for a potential breakthrough. Speaker Kevin McCarthy, the California Republican, said it was possible that such a deal could materialize within days now that the president had agreed to dispatch his top advisers for stepped-up negotiations.“We just finished another good, productive meeting with our congressional leadership about a path forward to make sure that America does not default on its debt,” Mr. Biden said after the hourlong session in the Oval Office.Mr. McCarthy told reporters that he could see a deal reached “by the end of the week” — a marked change in tone after he had lamented the state of the talks just hours earlier. He exulted in a news release after the meeting that “negotiations are happening.”Still, he acknowledged that talks about spending cuts remained far apart and made it clear that the two sides had yet to agree on any policy proposals.Republicans and Democrats had both signaled that they saw the session on Tuesday as a make-or-break moment — much more significant than a similar gathering at the White House a week ago and more urgent with just 16 days before the country is projected to default on its debt.The meeting also appeared to wipe away any pretense by Democrats that they would accept only a clean debt limit increase without conditions from House Republicans. For weeks, Mr. Biden has maintained that negotiating over cuts must not be a condition for raising the limit and avoiding what could be a catastrophic default.But on Tuesday, both Democratic leaders from New York, Senator Chuck Schumer, the majority leader, and Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the minority leader, told reporters at the White House that passing a bipartisan bill in both chambers was the only way forward.“Hakeem and I are committed to getting that bipartisan bill done,” Mr. Schumer said. “We will not sacrifice our values,” he added. “They’ll probably not sacrifice their values. But we’ll have to come together on something that can avoid default. Default is a disaster.”The meeting came a day after Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen reiterated that the United States could run out of money to pay its bills by June 1 if Congress does not raise or suspend the debt limit, the statutory cap on how much the government can borrow to finance its obligations. Economists say that could eliminate jobs and cause a recession.The government reached the $31.4 trillion debt limit on Jan. 19, and the Treasury Department has been using a series of accounting maneuvers to keep paying its bills.Ms. Yellen warned on Tuesday that the United States faced “an economic and financial catastrophe” if it defaulted and said the standoff over the debt limit was already affecting financial markets and households.“We are already seeing the impacts of brinkmanship,” Ms. Yellen said in remarks at the Independent Community Bankers of America summit meeting.As Tuesday’s meeting started, Mr. Biden joked to reporters that “we’re having a wonderful time — everything’s going well.”But the session concluded without a breakthrough, even as broad areas of negotiation have emerged in recent days, including fixed caps on federal spending, reclaiming unspent funds designated for the Covid-19 emergency, stiffer work requirements for federal benefits and expedited permitting rules for energy projects.Mr. McCarthy commended Mr. Biden for designating two officials to negotiate directly with his office and with Representative Garret Graves of Louisiana, one of Mr. McCarthy’s top lieutenants. Mr. Biden picked his senior adviser, Steve Ricchetti, and Shalanda Young, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, according to people familiar with his choices.“The structure of how we negotiate has improved,” Mr. McCarthy said. “It now gives you a better opportunity, even though we only have a few days to get it done.”Mr. McCarthy also singled out the proposal to reclaim unspent Covid funds, which Republican officials believe could recoup $50 to $60 billion.“I think at the end of the day, it will be in the bill,” Mr. McCarthy said.He also told reporters on Tuesday that any deal must tighten work requirements for safety net programs like food stamps, a proposal in the bill the House G.O.P. passed that Mr. Biden showed some openness to over the weekend, but which progressives have declared unacceptable.“Remember what we’re talking about: able-bodied people with no dependents,” Mr. McCarthy said. “It helps people get into a job, and what does it mean when somebody gets a job? They get better pay.”Toughening work requirements for programs like food stamps has long been anathema to many Democrats, and the proposal would face fierce resistance in the Democratic-controlled Senate.“I cannot in good conscience support a debt ceiling proposal that pushes people into poverty,” Senator John Fetterman, Democrat of Pennsylvania, said in a statement on Tuesday. “We’re already addressing SNAP in a bipartisan way in the Farm Bill. But with default looming, jamming through harmful cuts to that program is reckless.”Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, said on Tuesday that Mr. Biden “will not accept proposals that take away people’s health care, health coverage.”Administration officials have said they will not roll back any of the president’s signature legislation, particularly on climate change.As the talks appeared to gain some momentum, Mr. Biden said he would cut short an overseas diplomatic trip to Asia to be back in Washington for what he called “final negotiations” with congressional leaders. The president will still leave on Wednesday for Hiroshima, Japan, to attend the Group of 7 meeting there, but he will return Sunday, skipping planned visits to Papua New Guinea and Australia.Economists on Wall Street and in the White House have warned that a prolonged default could wipe out jobs and lead the country into a recession.Democrats said earlier in the day on Tuesday that they were awaiting the outcome of the meeting to determine how aggressively to push on an emergency plan they have been preparing for months to try to steer around opposition from Republican leaders and force a debt limit increase vote.Starting Tuesday, they have the opportunity to round up signatures for a special discharge petition that would automatically prompt such a vote if they won support from a majority of members of the House. Democrats would need at least five Republicans to join them to reach the necessary threshold of 218, and winning them over would be extremely difficult unless the crisis were at its peak.Lawmakers also said there was increasing talk of Mr. Biden invoking the 14th Amendment of the Constitution to raise the debt ceiling unilaterally, a move they acknowledged would draw a legal challenge — and which Ms. Yellen has questioned — but could still avert economic disaster.With so much uncertainty, Senate Democrats were also weighing whether they would be able to take a weeklong recess scheduled to begin on Monday, before the Memorial Day weekend.Alan Rappeport More

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    Biden Team to Counter Tech Espionage Unveils Cases Involving China and Russia

    A new division set up by the government to pursue sanctions evasion and technology espionage announced arrests of individuals with ties to foreign governments.The Biden administration announced arrests and criminal charges on Tuesday in five cases involving sanctions evasion and technology espionage efforts linked to Russia, China and Iran.Two Russian nationals were taken into custody last week under accusations of sending aircraft parts to Russia in violation of sanctions imposed after the invasion of Ukraine. In another case, a former Apple engineer is accused of stealing the company’s autonomous vehicle technology to provide it to a Chinese competitor.The announcements were the work of a recently established “technology strike force,” which aims to protect critical American technology or data from theft by hostile nations. The strike force was set up in February and brings together agents with the Commerce and Justice Departments, as well as the F.B.I. and local attorneys offices.Federal agents are working to trace the global movement of U.S. goods and data, as well as the funds used to pay for them. The effort seeks to crack down on the global networks that are channeling goods and technology through opaque jurisdictions and middlemen to try to circumvent sanctions and technology restrictions imposed by the United States.In another case unveiled Tuesday, a California-based engineer is accused of trying to steal source code for advanced machinery that can be used to make parts for military submarines and aircraft to sell it to several Chinese companies.Two other cases were announced, including charges against China-based agents who were accused of attempting to send materials used in weapons of mass destruction to Iran, according to U.S. officials, and charges involving the alleged provision of advanced technology to Russia that could be repurposed by the Russian military.Matthew G. Olsen, the assistant attorney general of the Justice Department’s national security division, told reporters that the cases showed the U.S. government’s ability “to accelerate investigations and surge our collective resources to defend against these threats.”“Foreign nation states are working hard to acquire our most sensitive technologies,” said Matthew Axelrod, the assistant secretary for export enforcement at the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security. “We’re working even harder to stop them.”Oleg Patsulya and Vasilii Besedin, the two Russian nationals who were arrested last week under suspicion of trying to procure millions of dollars of prohibited parts for Russian airlines, were charged with conspiracy to violate the Export Control Reform Act and conspiracy to commit international money laundering. If convicted, they would face up to 20 years in prison for each charge.The Commerce Department issued a temporary denial order Tuesday against the men, which prohibits them from transactions involving any U.S. products for 180 days.The order also applies to a freight forwarder in the Maldives that the men had utilized to route shipments of prohibited products into Russia, as well as a Russian airline, Smartavia, that sought to purchase these products.On Thursday, federal officials seized luxury goods purchased with proceeds of their scheme, a U.S. official said. More

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    Retail sales rose 0.4% in April, less than expected as consumers struggle with inflation

    The advanced sales report for April showed an increase of 0.4%, below the Dow Jones estimate for 0.8%. Ex-autos sales increased 0.4%, in line with expectations.
    Miscellaneous store retailers led gainers with a 2.4% increase, while online sales rose 1.2% and health and personal care retailers saw a 0.9% increase.
    It was the first positive reading since January and followed a 0.7% decline in March.

    A shopper browses shirts at a clothing store in Atlanta, Georgia, US, on Tuesday, Feb. 14, 2023.
    Dustin Chambers | Bloomberg | Getty Images

    Consumers barely kept up with inflation in April, as retail sales increased but fell short of expectations, the Commerce Department reported Tuesday.
    The advanced sales report showed an increase of 0.4%, below the Dow Jones estimate for 0.8%. Excluding auto-related figures, sales increased 0.4%, which was in line with expectations.

    As the numbers are not adjusted for inflation, the headline increase equaled the 0.4% monthly rise in the consumer price index. On an annual basis, sales were up just 1.6%, well below the 4.9% CPI pace.
    A 0.8% drop in gasoline sales held back the spending figures. Sporting goods, music and book stores posted a 3.3% decline, while furniture and home furnishings saw a 0.7% drop.
    Miscellaneous store retailers led gainers with a 2.4% increase, while online sales rose 1.2% and health and personal care retailers saw a 0.9% rise. Food and drink sales climbed 0.6% and were up 9.4% on a 12-month basis.
    “Retail sales posted a modest rebound in April, but the gain mostly reflected higher prices and a sustained turnaround is unlikely with consumer fundamentals turning less supportive,” said Lydia Boussour, senior economist at EY-Parthenon.
    Though the report indicated a struggling consumer, it was the first positive reading since January and followed a 0.7% decline in March. Also, the control group, which excludes autos, gas stations, building materials and supply stores and food service and drinking establishments, rose 0.7%, above the 0.4% expectation.

    Overall, the report “was even stronger than our previous assumptions and indicates upside” to the consumption outlook, Goldman Sachs economist Ronnie Walker said in a note.
    Treasury yields rose after the report as the initial reaction focused more on the positive ex-autos number, though stocks were lower in morning trading.
    Consumers still face a tough road ahead.
    Indications are pointing to higher interest rates ahead. In fact, Atlanta Federal Reserve President Raphael Bostic told CNBC on Monday that he thinks a rate hike would be more likely than the cuts markets have been pricing before the end of the year.
    Consumers have been running up higher debts to deal with the persistently high inflation. Total debt rose above $17 trillion in the first quarter as higher rates pushed up borrowing costs for items such as mortgages and credit cards, according to a New York Federal Reserve report Monday.
    “As the labour market continues to cool and the drag from the Fed’s aggressive monetary tightening feeds through, we suspect a further slowdown lies ahead,” wrote Andrew Hunter, deputy chief U.S. economist at Capital Economics.
    In a speech Tuesday morning, Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester noted the “long-run costs” of inflation and stressed that the central bank is committed to returning inflation to the 2% target.
    Other economic news Tuesday saw a 0.5% increase in industrial production for April, better than the 0.1% estimate, according to the Federal Reserve. Capacity utilization was at 79.7%, just below the estimate.
    Also, the National Association of Home Builders sentiment index rose to 50 in May, better than the estimate for 46. More

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    Biden Expresses Optimism on Debt Limit, but a Deal Remains Elusive

    President Biden and congressional leaders will resume face-to-face talks on Tuesday to raise the debt limit and avoid a default.President Biden and congressional leaders will resume face-to-face talks on Tuesday to avert a government default, with the White House expressing cautious optimism as the contours of a possible deal began to come into focus.With time running out to strike a deal to raise the debt limit, broad areas of negotiation have emerged, including fixed caps on federal spending, reclaiming unspent funds designated for the Covid-19 emergency, stiffer work requirements for federal benefits and expedited permitting rules for energy projects.“I remain optimistic because I’m a congenital optimist,” Mr. Biden told reporters on Sunday in Rehoboth Beach, Del. He added, “I really think there’s a desire on their part, as well as ours, to reach an agreement, and I think we’ll be able to do it.”Still, on Monday, Speaker Kevin McCarthy reiterated that he believed little progress had been made, telling reporters that the two sides remained “far apart” even with a potential default looming. “We have no agreements on anything. That’s why I’m so concerned,” he added.Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen reiterated on Monday that the United States could be unable to pay its bills by June 1 if it does not raise or suspend the debt limit, which caps how much money the country can borrow.That $31.4 trillion limit was hit on Jan. 19, and the Treasury Department has been using accounting maneuvers to keep paying the government’s bills. In a letter to lawmakers on Monday, Ms. Yellen cautioned that the actual date “could be a number of days or weeks later than these estimates” but she urged Congress to move quickly to prevent a default.The Treasury Department has been using accounting maneuvers known as extraordinary measures to keep paying the country’s bills without breaching the debt ceiling.Republicans have said they want to cut federal spending before lifting the ceiling, but Mr. Biden has maintained that negotiating over cuts must not be a condition for raising the limit and avoiding what could be a catastrophic default.Economists on Wall Street and in the White House say a prolonged default could obliterate jobs and lead the country into a recession.Mr. Biden, who is set to depart on Wednesday for Japan to attend the Group of 7 meeting, confirmed on Monday that he would meet with Mr. McCarthy on Tuesday. The meeting will be at 3 p.m., according to the White House.Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, was more optimistic than Mr. McCarthy on Monday, saying that the “parallel discussions” on federal spending and the debt ceiling were continuing in “a very serious way.”“We welcome a bipartisan debate about our nation’s fiscal future,” Mr. Schumer said. “But we’ve made it plain to our Republican colleagues that default is not an option. Its consequences are too damaging, too severe. It must be taken off the table.”The two sides had their first face-to-face meeting at the White House last Tuesday, but it ended without a deal. They had been set to meet again on Thursday, but that session was postponed to allow staff members more time to speak in detail.People familiar with the negotiations cast the decision to postpone that meeting as a positive development, one that would give staff members more time to make progress.“The conversations are constructive between all of the parties,” said Wally Adeyemo, the deputy Treasury secretary.“The United States has never defaulted on its debt, and we can’t,” Mr. Adeyemo said. “Because defaulting on our debt isn’t just about financial markets. It’s about paying our Social Security recipients. It’s about paying our troops. It’s about paying the men and women who are working the border today.”Biden administration officials have said they will not accept any deal that rolls back the president’s signature legislative achievements, particularly on climate change. They want Republicans to drop certain provisions in the debt limit bill that passed the House last month.That measure is dead on arrival in the Democratic-led Senate, but the details are a signal of the Republicans’ negotiating position with the White House.The bill would make able-bodied adults without dependents who receive both federal food assistance and Medicaid benefits subject to work requirements until they are 55 years old, an increase from 49. It also seeks to close a loophole that Republicans have claimed is abused by states, which allows officials to exempt food assistance recipients from work requirements.Asked if he was open to tougher work requirements for aid programs, Mr. Biden said over the weekend that had voted for such measures as a senator, “but for Medicaid it’s a different story.”Michael Kikukawa, a White House spokesman, said Mr. Biden “has been clear that he will not accept proposals that take away people’s health coverage.”“The president has been clear he will not accept policies that push Americans into poverty,” Mr. Kikukawa said.Conservatives had initially pushed to tighten those work requirements even further, but more mainstream Republicans in competitive districts balked.Alan Rappeport More

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    San Francisco Fed Ties to S.V.B. Chief Attracts Scrutiny to Century-Old Setup

    As Greg Becker, the former C.E.O. of Silicon Valley Bank, prepares to testify before Congress, boards that oversee regional Federal Reserve branches are in the spotlight.The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank has drawn attention to the relationship between the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, which was in charge of overseeing safety and soundness at the lender, and the bank’s former chief executive, Greg Becker, who for years sat on the San Francisco Fed’s board of directors.The bank’s collapse on March 10 has prompted criticism of the Fed, whose bank supervisors were slow to spot and stop problems before Silicon Valley Bank experienced a devastating run that necessitated a sweeping government response.Now, Mr. Becker could face lawmaker questions about his board role — and whether it created too close a link between the bank and its regulators — when he testifies on Tuesday before the Senate Banking Committee about Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse.In prepared testimony published before the hearing, Mr. Becker said he was “truly sorry” for the bank’s failure. “I do not believe that any bank could survive a bank run of that velocity and magnitude,” he said.Mr. Becker’s position on the San Francisco Fed board would have given him little formal power, according to current and former Fed employees and officials. The Fed’s 12 reserve banks — semiprivate institutions dotted across the country — each has a nine-person board of directors, three of whom come from the banking industry. Those boards have no say in bank supervision, and serve mainly as advisers for the Fed bank’s leadership.But many acknowledged that the setup created the appearance of coziness between S.V.B. and the Fed. Some outside experts and politicians are beginning to question whether the way the Fed has been organized for more than a century makes sense today.“They’re like a glorified advisory committee,” said Kaleb Nygaard, who researches central banks at the University of Pennsylvania. “It causes massive headaches in the best of times, potentially fatal aneurysms in the worst of times.”The Fed boards date back to 1913.In the days after Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse, headlines about Mr. Becker’s close ties to his bank’s regulator abounded, with many raising questions about a possible conflict of interest.Though regional Fed presidents and other officials play a limited role in bank oversight — which is mostly in Washington’s domain — some critics wondered if supervisors at the San Francisco Fed failed to effectively police Silicon Valley Bank partly because of the reserve bank’s close ties to the bank’s chief executive.And some asked: Why do banks have representatives on the Fed Board at all?The answer is tied to the Fed’s history.When Congress and the White House created the Fed in 1913, they were skeptical about giving either the government or the private sector unilateral power over the nation’s money supply. So they compromised. They created a public Fed Board in Washington, alongside quasi-private reserve banks around the country.Those reserve banks, which ended up numbering 12 in total, would be set up like private companies with banks as their shareholders. And much like other private companies, they would be overseen by boards — ones that included bank representatives. Each of the Fed reserve banks has nine board members, or directors. Three of them come from banks, while the others come from other financial companies, businesses, and labor and community groups.“The setup is the way that it is because of the way the Fed was set up in 1913,” said William Dudley, the former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, who said that the directors served mainly as a sort of advisory focus group on banking issues and operational issues, like cybersecurity.The boards may give members benefits.Several former Fed officials said that the bank-related board members provided a valuable function, offering real-time insight into the finance industry. And 10 current and former Fed employees interviewed for this article agreed on one point: These boards have relatively little official power in the modern era.While they vote for changes on a formerly important interest rate at the Fed — called the discount rate — that role has become much less critical over time. Board members select Fed presidents, though since the 2010 Dodd Frank law, the bank-tied directors have not been allowed to participate in those votes.But the law didn’t go so far as to cut bank representatives from the boards altogether because of a lobbying push to keep them intact, said Aaron Klein, who was deputy assistant secretary for economic policy at the Treasury Department at the time and worked closely on the law’s passage.“The Fed didn’t want that, and neither did the bankers,” Mr. Klein said.From a bank’s perspective, directorships offer prestige: Regional Fed board members rub shoulders with other bank and community leaders and with powerful central bankers.They might also offer either an actual or a perceived information advantage about the economy and about monetary policy. Although the discount rate is not as important today, directors at some regional banks are given economic briefings as they make their decisions.Mr. Becker would have seen Mary C. Daly, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, at meetings held roughly once a month, her calendars suggest.Jim Wilson/The New York TimesRegional board discount votes have often been seen as a sort of weather vane for how a regional bank’s leadership is thinking about policy — suggesting that directors might know how their president is going to vote when it comes to the federal funds rate, the important interest rate that the Fed uses to guide the speed of the economy.That is notable in an era in which Wall Street traders hang on Fed officials’ every word when it comes to interest rates.“It’s a very awkward thing,” said Narayana Kocherlakota, a former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. “There’s no gain to having them vote on discount rates.”Renée Adams, a former New York Fed researcher who studies corporate boards and is now at the University of Oxford, has found that when a bank executive becomes a director, the stock price of their firm rises on the news.“The market believes that they have some advantage,” she said.And Board members do get substantial face time with Fed presidents, who meet regularly with their directors. Mr. Becker would have seen Mary C. Daly, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, at meetings held roughly once a month, her calendars suggest.‘Supervisory leniency’ is a risk.Bank-tied directors have no direct role in supervision, nor can they appoint officials or participate in budget decisions related to bank oversight, according to the Fed.But Mr. Klein is skeptical that Mr. Becker’s position on the San Francisco Fed’s board did not matter at all in the case of Silicon Valley Bank.“Who wants to be the person raising problems about the C.E.O. who is on the board of your own C.E.O.?” he said, explaining that even though the organizational structure might have drawn clear lines, those may not have cleanly applied in the “real world.”Ms. Adams’s research found that banks whose executives sat on boards did in fact see fewer enforcement actions — slaps on the wrist from Fed supervisors — during the director’s tenure. “There may be supervisory leniency,” she said.Changing the system might prove difficult.This is not the first time the Fed regional boards have raised ethical issues. In the years leading up to the 2008 financial crisis, Dick Fuld, the Lehman Brothers chief executive at the time, and Steve Friedman, who was a director at Goldman Sachs, both served on the New York Fed board.Mr. Fuld resigned just before Lehman collapsed in 2008. Mr. Friedman left in 2009, after news broke that he had bought Goldman Sachs stock during the crisis, at a time when the Treasury and the Fed were drawing up plans to bolster big banks.Given that controversy, politicians have at times focused on the Fed boards. The Democratic Party included language in its 2016 platform to bar executives of financial institutions from serving on reserve bank boards. And the issue has recently garnered bipartisan interest. Draft legislation under development by members of the Senate Banking Committee would limit directorships to small banks — those with less than $10 billion in assets, according to a person familiar with the material.The committee has a hearing on Fed accountability planned for May 17. Senators Elizabeth Warren, Democrat from Massachusetts, and Rick Scott, Republican from Florida, plan to introduce the legislation ahead of that, a spokesperson for Ms. Warren said.“It’s dangerous and unethical for executives from the largest banks to serve on Fed boards where these bankers could secure preferential regulatory treatment or exploit privileged information,” Ms. Warren said in a statement.But — as the Dodd Frank legislation illustrated — stripping banks of their power at the Fed has been a heavy lift.“As a political target,” said Ms. Binder, the political scientist, “it’s a little in the weeds.” More

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    Consumer debt passes $17 trillion for the first time despite slide in mortgage demand

    Total consumer debt hit a fresh new high in the first quarter of 2023, at just over $17 trillion.
    New mortgage originations, including refinancings, totaled just $323.5 billion, the lowest level since the second quarter of 2014.

    A clerk uses a credit card reader to charge a customer in Miami.
    Getty Images

    Total consumer debt hit a fresh new high in the first quarter of 2023, pushing past $17 trillion even amid a sharp pullback in home borrowing.
    The total for borrowing across all categories hit $17.05 trillion, an increase of nearly $150 billion, or 0.9% during the January-to-March period, the New York Federal Reserve reported Monday. That took total indebtedness up about $2.9 trillion from the pre-Covid period ended in 2019.

    That increase came even though new mortgage originations, including refinancings, totaled just $323.5 billion, the lowest level since the second quarter of 2014. The total was 35% lower than in the fourth quarter of 2022 and 62% below the same period a year ago.
    New home loans peaked at $1.22 trillion in the second quarter of 2021 and have been falling since as interest rates have increased. A series of Fed rate cuts helped push 30-year mortgage rates to a low around 2.65% in January 2021.
    But rates are now around 6.4%, as the central bank has enacted 10 rate increases totaling 5 percentage points to fight inflation, according to central bank data through Fannie Mae. The higher rates helped push total mortgage debt to $12.04 trillion, up 0.1 percentage point from the fourth quarter.
    Borrowers had used the previously lower rates both to buy new homes and to refinance, the latter seeing a boom that appears to have ended.
    “The mortgage refinancing boom is over, but its impact will be seen for decades to come,” Andrew Haughwout, director of household and public policy research at the New York Fed, said in a statement accompanying the report.

    Fed data shows that about 14 million mortgages were refinanced during the pandemic period starting in March 2020. Some 64% were considered “rate refinances,” or homeowners looking to take advantage of lower borrowing costs. Average savings totaled about $220 per month for those borrowers, according to the New York Fed.
    “As a result of significant equity drawdowns, mortgage borrowers reduced their annual payments by tens of billions of dollars, providing additional funding for spending or paydowns in other debt categories,” Haughwout said.
    Despite rising rates, mortgage foreclosures remained low. Delinquency rates for all debt increased, up 0.6 percentage point for credit cards to 6.5% and 0.2 percentage point for auto loans to 6.9%. Total delinquency rates moved up 0.2 percentage point to 3%, the highest since the third quarter of 2020.
    Student loan debt edged higher to $1.6 trillion and auto loans nudged up as well to $1.56 trillion. More

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    U.S.-Made Technology Is Flowing to Sanctioned Russian Airlines

    Russian customs data shows that millions of dollars of aircraft parts made by Boeing, Airbus and others were sent to Russia last year despite sanctions.Last August, Oleg Patsulya, a Russian citizen living near Miami, emailed a Russian airline that had been cut off from Western technology and materials with a tempting offer.He could help circumvent the global sanctions imposed on Rossiya Airlines after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by shuffling the aircraft parts and electronics that it so desperately needed through a network of companies based in Florida, Turkey and Russia.“In light of the sanctions imposed against the Russian Federation, we have been successfully solving challenges at hand,” Mr. Patsulya wrote, according to a criminal complaint filed Friday with the U.S. District Court in Arizona.Mr. Patsulya and his business partner were arrested Thursday on charges of violating U.S. export controls and international money laundering in a case that illustrates the global networks that are trying to help Russia bypass the most expansive technological controls in history.Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the United States has acted in partnership with nearly 40 other governments to impose sanctions on Russia, including limits on Moscow’s access to weapons, computer chips, aircraft parts and other products needed to fuel its economy and its war. The sanctions also applied to Russian airlines including Aeroflot, its subsidiary Rossiya and others.But despite these far-reaching sanctions, thousands of shipments of aircraft parts were successfully sent into Russia last year, according to a trove of Russian customs data obtained by The New York Times.The data, which was compiled and analyzed by Import Genius, a U.S.-based trade data aggregator, shows that tens of millions of dollars of aircraft parts were sent to Russian airlines explicitly sanctioned by the Biden administration, including to Rossiya Airlines, Aeroflot, Ural Airlines, S7 Airlines, Utair Aviation and Pobeda Airlines.Those shipments were made possible by illicit networks like Mr. Patsulya’s, which have sprung up to try to bypass the restrictions by shuffling goods through a series of straw buyers, often in the Middle East and Asia.For instance, dozens of shipments of copper wires, bolts, graphite and other parts marked as made in the United States by Boeing slipped into the warehouses of Aeroflot last year. They traversed obscure trading companies, free-trade zones and industrial parks in the United Arab Emirates and China, and then traveled into Russia, to help patch up Aeroflot’s dilapidated fleet.The data captures more than 5,000 individual shipments of aircraft parts into Russia over a period of eight months in 2022, from simple screws to a Honeywell-branded aircraft engine starter valued at $290,000.In all, it shows that $14.4 million of U.S.-made aircraft parts were sent into Russia during the eight months, including $8.9 million of parts that are described as being manufactured or trademarked by the U.S. plane maker Boeing and sold into Russia via third parties.Boeing said it had fully complied with U.S. sanctions and had suspended providing parts, maintenance and technical support for customers in Russia in early 2022. Experts in the aviation supply chain said the parts probably came from a variety of sources, such as existing overseas stocks from airlines and repair facilities or resellers who trade in scrapped parts.A Boeing plant in Renton, Wash. Millions of dollars of parts described as being manufactured or trademarked by the U.S. plane maker were sold into Russia via third parties.Grant Hindsley for The New York TimesMost of the products were routed through countries like the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, China and the Maldives, according to the data. But a handful of shipments — including to Rossiya — were sent directly from the United States or Europe.The shipments also increased over the course of last year as Russia recruited global businesses to help it bypass the sanctions. The trend suggests that “networks for evading sanctions took time to establish during the immediate post-export-control scramble but are now in a position to help Russian airlines source some key parts,” said William George, the director of research at Import Genius.The Russian nationals taken into custody on Thursday began setting up their scheme last May to send aircraft parts from the United States to Russia in violation of export regulations, according to the criminal complaint.The men are accused of fielding requests for parts, including expensive brake systems for a Boeing 737, from at least three Russian airlines, including two that had been strictly barred from purchasing U.S.-made products through a so-called temporary denial order issued by the Commerce Department. F.B.I. agents raided a condo owned by the men’s company in the Trump Towers in Sunny Isles Beach, Fla., on Thursday, The Miami Herald reported.Lawyers for the men did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Despite the level of sanctions evasion, airplane shipments into Russia remain significantly lower than before the war. U.S. officials say Russian airlines have been forced to cannibalize planes, breaking them down for spare parts to keep others in operation, as well as turning to Iran for maintenance and parts.Russia’s imports of aircraft and aircraft parts fell from $3.45 billion annually before the invasion to only about $286 million afterward, according to The Observatory of Economic Complexity, a data visualization platform that explores global trade dynamics.According to Silverado Policy Accelerator, a Washington nonprofit, China has been the leading overall exporter of parts for aircraft, spacecraft and drones to Russia since the invasion, accounting for about half of all shipments, followed by India. The number of single-aisle planes in use in Russia fell about 16 percent from the summer of 2021 to the summer of 2022, after the invasion, according to Cirium, an aviation data provider. The number of larger twin-aisle planes, often used on international routes, was down about 40 percent.Aviation experts say it will become more challenging for Russian airlines to continue flying planes without access to Western suppliers and help from Boeing and Airbus. The manufacturers regularly consult with airlines to assess any damage and strictly control access to technical documentation used by mechanics.But for now, Russian airlines have been kept alive with the help of international shipments and the use of hundreds of foreign jets that were stranded there after the war began.Tens of thousands of flights are expected to crisscross Russia this month, according to schedules published by Cirium. More than 21,000 flights — over half of them operated by Russian airlines — are expected to carry passengers to and from countries in Central Asia, as well as Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, China and Thailand.Half a dozen export control lawyers and former government officials consulted by The New York Times said that many of the shipments in the Import Genius data likely violated sanctions, but that plane makers like Boeing or Airbus were not necessarily at fault. The aviation supply chain is complex and global, and the parts could have come from a variety of sources.“There is pretty clearly a violation,” said William Reinsch, a trade expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies who oversaw export controls during the Clinton administration. “Less clear is the guilty party.”Aircraft parts originating in the European Union, including those marked as being manufactured or trademarked by Airbus, were also shipped into Russia last year, according to the data.Working on an Airbus A320 plane at a hangar in Haikou, China, in May. Airbus parts were also shipped into Russia last year.Zhang Liyun/Xinhua, via Getty ImagesJustin Dubon, a spokesman for Airbus, said that the company keeps track of genuine parts and documentation provided to its customers and conducts due diligence on all parties requesting spare parts. Restrictions in the United States and Europe mean that “there is no legal way that genuine aircraft parts, documentation and services can get to Russian carriers,” he said.U.S. restrictions technically allow companies to apply for a special license to continue sending products to Russian carriers for “safety of flight” reasons, but both Boeing and Airbus said that they had neither sought nor received such a license. In addition, Airbus said that E.U. laws prevent it from shipping such goods to Russia, regardless of U.S. licensing.Current and former U.S. officials say that some shipments into Russia are to be expected. Kevin Wolf, a partner at the law firm Akin Gump who oversaw export controls during the Obama administration, said the restrictions “can never block everything,” but that the rules were still significantly degrading Russia’s capabilities.He added that the scope of the new rules still exceed current methods of tracking and enforcement in other allied countries. Until the invasion of Ukraine, trade in aircraft parts was mostly unrestricted by the United States and other countries, except to Iran, Cuba, North Korea and Syria.“It’s improving,” Mr. Wolf said, “but it’s still way, way behind.”Compared with other countries that mostly limit their scrutiny to goods crossing their own borders, the United States is unparalleled in its attempt to police commerce around the world.In the past three years, the United States has imposed new technology restrictions for Russia, China and Iran that apply extraterritorially: Products made in the United States, or in foreign countries with the help of American components or technology, are subject to U.S. rules even when changing hands on the other side of the world.Both the United States and the European Union have been ramping up penalties for companies that violate sanctions, and dispatching officials to countries like Kazakhstan to try to persuade them to clamp down on shipments to Russia through their territory. The U.S. government has nine export control officers stationed in Istanbul, Beijing and other locations to trace shipments of sensitive products, and it is setting up three more offices.But providing parts can be a lucrative business. James Disalvatore, an associate director at Kharon, a data and analytics firm that has been monitoring Russia’s efforts to bypass sanctions, said the value of some aircraft parts imported by Russian airlines since the invasion had risen fourfold or more.“I don’t think there’s any secret what’s going on,” said Gary Stanley, a trade compliance expert who advises businesses in aerospace and other industries. “How long have we had Cuban sanctions? How long have we had North Korean sanctions? How long have we had Iranian sanctions? It never seems to put these folks out of business.” More