Should the Federal Reserve Be Doing the Nation’s Work with a Skeleton Crew?

The Federal Reserve Board of Governors is supposed to have a roster of seven Governors. It currently has four. Equally alarming, it lists just two members serving on each of its eight committees. One Fed Board Governor, Lael Brainard, is listed as one of the two members on six of the eight committees, or 75 percent of all committees. Governor Jerome Powell sits on five of the eight committees, or 63 percent of all committees.
The Fed’s Committee on Supervision and Regulation consists of just Powell and Brainard. And yet, this is what the Fed’s 2015 Annual Report describes as the institutions the Fed supervises:
4,922 Bank Holding Companies
442 Domestic Financial Holding Companies
470 Savings and Loan Holding Companies
839 State Member Banks
154 Foreign Banks Operating in the U. S.
Along with other entities per the graph above.

This post was published at Wall Street On Parade By Pam Martens and Russ Marte.