bobbyw24
03-20-2010, 02:35 PM
The Fed to Congress: Don't take away our small banks.
Top Federal Reserve officials are waging a public campaign to persuade lawmakers that their long-standing authority to regulate banks around the country -- including small and mid-size ones -- is integral to keeping the central bank attuned what is going on across the U.S. economy.
Chairman Ben S. Bernanke articulated that message Saturday morning in a speech to the Independent Community Bankers of America in which he argued that the Fed is better able to monitor the U.S. economy because of its role overseeing 5,000 bank holding companies and 850 state-chartered banks around the country.
Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) has proposed stripping the central bank of those responsibilities in financial reform legislation that the Senate Banking Committee will take up Monday. The proposal would leave the Fed as the supervisor of only the three dozen or so largest banks.
Dodd and others in Congress have argued that the Fed should be focusing more narrowly on managing the nation's monetary policy and ensuring the stability of the financial system overall -- and are particularly eager for the central bank to face consequences for its mistakes earlier in the decade that contributed to the financial crisis
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/20/AR2010032001327.html?hpid=topnews
Top Federal Reserve officials are waging a public campaign to persuade lawmakers that their long-standing authority to regulate banks around the country -- including small and mid-size ones -- is integral to keeping the central bank attuned what is going on across the U.S. economy.
Chairman Ben S. Bernanke articulated that message Saturday morning in a speech to the Independent Community Bankers of America in which he argued that the Fed is better able to monitor the U.S. economy because of its role overseeing 5,000 bank holding companies and 850 state-chartered banks around the country.
Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) has proposed stripping the central bank of those responsibilities in financial reform legislation that the Senate Banking Committee will take up Monday. The proposal would leave the Fed as the supervisor of only the three dozen or so largest banks.
Dodd and others in Congress have argued that the Fed should be focusing more narrowly on managing the nation's monetary policy and ensuring the stability of the financial system overall -- and are particularly eager for the central bank to face consequences for its mistakes earlier in the decade that contributed to the financial crisis
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/20/AR2010032001327.html?hpid=topnews