Fed fights to keep independence

Bernanke says Federal Reserve has unmatched economic and financial expertise

New York : Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said a "strong case" can be made for keeping the central bank involved in bank supervision, and subjecting interest rate policy to congressional audits may undermine confidence in monetary policy.

"There is a strong case for a continued role for the Federal Reserve in bank supervision," the Fed Chairman said in a commentary released yesterday on the website of the Washington Post. "Because of our role in making monetary policy, the Fed brings unparalleled economic and financial expertise to its oversight of banks."

Bernanke has presided over the most expansive use of Fed powers since the Great Depression. While the 55-year-old Fed chairman has said he averted a financial meltdown, lawmakers have voiced concern about potential taxpayer losses and proposed the most sweeping dismantlement of Fed authority since the creation of the institution in 1913.

The Fed chairman said legislation under consideration in Congress would impair the ability of the central bank to fulfil its basic functions.

"A number of the legislative proposals being circulated would significantly reduce the capacity of the Federal Reserve to perform its core functions," he said. "Now more than ever, America needs a strong, non-political and independent central bank with the tools to promote financial stability and to help steer our economy to recovery without inflation."

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, a Democrat from Connecticut, has criticised the central bank for lax supervision and introduced legislation this month that would strip bank oversight from the Fed and create a single bank regulator. Dodd would also limit the central bank's ability to loan to individual companies.

"Congress has a lot of public support for an attack on the Fed," Allan Meltzer, a Fed historian and professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, said in an interview on November 23. "They bailed out everybody in sight."

The Standard & Poor's 500 Index slid 1.7 per cent to 1,091.49 in New York while two-year Treasury yields fell to the lowest level since December.

Dodd and Representative Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, want to take away the Fed's rule-writing power on consumer financial products and give it to a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency.

Learn from mistakes

"The Federal Reserve, like other regulators around the world, did not do all that it could have to constrain excessive risk-taking in the financial sector in the period leading up to the crisis," Bernanke said. The Fed has reviewed its performance and "moved aggressively to fix the problems," he added.

As the subprime mortgage crisis began to trigger losses in bank portfolios, Bernanke used emergency authority last year to purchase securities from Bear Stearns Cos and facilitate its merger with JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Bernanke also pushed the Fed's backstop lending beyond banks, setting up programmes to support the commercial paper and asset-backed securities markets. The Fed Board approved the bank holding company applications of Goldman Sachs Group Inc and Morgan Stanley, giving them access to the Fed's loan window.

Under Bernanke, the Fed has more than doubled its assets to $2.21 trillion (Dh8.1 trillion) and become the lender of last resort to government bond dealers, banks, Wall Street firms and US corporations. The central bank has also propped up markets for mortgage-backed and asset-backed securities that support credit to consumers, small businesses and commercial real estate.

A financial regulatory reform bill proposed by Frank, a Democrat from Massachusetts, would limit Fed emergency lending to broadly available credit programmes. The Frank bill preserves the Obama administration's proposal to make the Fed the lead regulator of risk across the financial system.

The central bank's independence is also under fire from both chambers of Congress. Frank's committee advanced a proposal this month to remove a three-decade ban on congressional audits of Fed interest-rate decisions. The proposal was offered by Representative Ron Paul, a Republican from Texas, and based on a bill with more than 300 co-sponsors.

Bernanke said studies show that central banks independent of political influence tend to keep inflation and interest rates lower than their less independent counterparts.

"The general repeal of that exemption would serve only to increase the perceived influence of Congress on monetary policy decisions, which would undermine the confidence the public and the markets have in the Fed to act in the long-term economic interest of the nation," Bernanke said.

Under the proposal by Dodd, commercial banks would lose their power to appoint directors of the 12 regional Fed banks. Instead, directors would be chosen by the Fed's Senate-confirmed governors, and each board chairman would be appointed by the president of the United States and subject to Senate approval.

The proposal would create political oversight of the Fed bank presidents, who are among the most vocal proponents on the Federal Open Market Committee for keeping inflation low.