Baby steps: Fed banker skips policy meeting -- he's on paternity leave

[lizkat]

I like it that despite all the absurdist theatre of American politics, some things do slowly keep getting better. Now we have had what is apparently the first instance of a US Federal Reserve Bank president adhering to his paternity leave during some important policy meetings.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1324463854802358277

Also cool that San Francisco Fed president Mary Daly was scheduled to vote in Kashkari's place...

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Baby steps, agreed, but lovely to see, nevertheless.

 

[lizkat]

Baby steps, agreed, but lovely to see, nevertheless.

Indeed. Good on Kashkari for helping make paternity leave more of a norm in the high echelons of American business.... some things do and can trickle down, we can hope!

The Fed prez who stepped in for Kashkari at the FOMC meetings, Mary C. Daly, has an inspiring backstory... the Times ran a long piece when she was appointed to the Fed. Not every day someone steps out of an imploding family as a kid and then after managing to scrabble together a GED degree (high school equivalency) presses on to acquire further formal education and eventually lands in the Federal Reserve, much less become one of its presidents.

She Dropped Out of High School. Now She’s President of the San Francisco Fed. (Published 2018)

Mary Daly, the head of research at the San Francisco Fed, will take over as the bank’s president on Oct. 1.

www.nytimes.com

She is a widely respected expert on labor markets with an unusual breadth of personal experience. Ms. Daly dropped out of high school at the age of 15, working in a doughnut shop and at Target before a friend persuaded her to earn a general education diploma. She worked her way through college at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, then earned a doctorate from Syracuse University before joining the Fed in 1996.

Ms. Daly, who is openly gay, [became] the third woman among the 12 presidents of the Fed’s regional banks. As a senior executive at the San Francisco Fed, she has been a leading voice for addressing what she has described as a “diversity crisis” in the economics profession and at the Federal Reserve. At the San Francisco Fed, she pushed successfully to balance the hiring of male and female research assistants.

Ms. Daly credits former Fed chair Janet Yellen for mentorship and for having expanded her original focus on labor economics out to the macro picture, but in a lengthy interview (podcast and transcript) for a series on Women in Economics hosted by the St. Louis Fed, it's clear that Daly's own curiosity and energies as well as the mentoring she sought and got are sturdy underpinnings of her success.

Mary Daly | Women in Economics Podcasts | St. Louis Fed

'I loved the psychology of how people interact,' which is why Mary Daly, the research director at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, was drawn to economics.

www.stlouisfed.org

Maria Hasenstab: From dropout to obtaining your GED, that’s already a success story by many measures. Can you tell me how then that evolved into going to college?

Mary Daly: That’s a really good question. I wouldn’t have been able to do it without a mentor of mine, Betsy. And it’s interesting. After I dropped out of school, I reached back to one of the guidance counselors because I was feeling a little bit underwater, not just financially, but just, I’m 15 and I’m on my own, living with friends. And I don’t really know what to do next. And she put me in touch with Betsy, who was also working in the schools.

And I started talking to Betsy, and Betsy mentored me. And she said, “Mary, you should get a GED.” And then she said, when I got the GED, and I thought I’d apply for a bus driver job so I’d get union wages and health benefits, and she said, “I think you could apply for college. You could start at the community college, or you could maybe do a semester at 'UMSL,' University of Missouri-St. Louis.”

So I applied. I got in. I couldn’t believe it. And then I couldn’t afford it. So she paid for my first semester, $216 for a first semester, full term. And I did OK. And then she said, “Go ahead, maybe try a four-year degree.” And so that’s what I did.

Maria Hasenstab: Wow. That was great that you had that support system.

Mary Daly: It was essential. I don’t know—I mean, there’s no way that I would have been able to find my way without some help. And it just reminds me of the importance of mentors at any point in your life, but especially when you’re young, having someone say, “I see something in you that you don’t see in yourself. And I see opportunities for you that you don’t even imagine.” And then I took them, and here I am.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Indeed. Good on Kashkari for helping make paternity leave more of a norm in the high echelons of American business.... some things do and can trickle down, we can hope!

The Fed prez who stepped in for Kashkari at the FOMC meetings, Mary C. Daly, has an inspiring backstory... the Times ran a long piece when she was appointed to the Fed. Not every day someone steps out of an imploding family as a kid and then after managing to scrabble together a GED degree (high school equivalency) presses on to acquire further formal education and eventually lands in the Federal Reserve, much less become one of its presidents.

She Dropped Out of High School. Now She’s President of the San Francisco Fed. (Published 2018)

Mary Daly, the head of research at the San Francisco Fed, will take over as the bank’s president on Oct. 1.

www.nytimes.com

Ms. Daly credits former Fed chair Janet Yellen for mentorship and for having expanded her original focus on labor economics out to the macro picture, but in a lengthy interview (podcast and transcript) for a series on Women in Economics hosted by the St. Louis Fed, it's clear that Daly's own curiosity and energies as well as the mentoring she sought and got are sturdy underpinnings of her success.

Mary Daly | Women in Economics Podcasts | St. Louis Fed

'I loved the psychology of how people interact,' which is why Mary Daly, the research director at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, was drawn to economics.

www.stlouisfed.org

Most kids just need one positive & supportive adult presence in their lives - several are great - but most need just one, just one who believes in them, supports them, mentors them, encourages them, offers advice and suggestions and ideas, and points to doors that they never even knew existed; it doesn't always have to be a parent.

I cannot count how many interviews I have read with adults - writers or others, many from troubled backgrounds - or equally discouraging, disadvantaged backgrounds, - who had that one teacher in school who had seen this something in them, something that they hadn't seen or even known to look for, someone who took the time to tell them that they were worth something, and could do something with themselves and their lives, and get them to believe in themselves.

As a teacher, I realised that if you told a student that they could do something, very often, they then did it. If you believed in them, they then also acquired self-belief.

I used to chat with my students, take them for coffee, talk things through with them, listen, advise, and suggest and yes, mentor them, and - to me - this was one of the most rewarding things about teaching, seeing someone who had struggled begin to blossom, both as a student and as a person.