Who will win the battle for the soul

of the US Federal Reserve?

America's 96-year-old central bank is considered too independent by those who want it under tighter government control. Stephen Foley reports
Sunday, 19 July 2009Share PrintEmailText Size NormalLargeExtra Large
It is shaping up to be a ferocious fight. Ranged on one side is the entire Republican membership of the US House of Representatives. On the other are many of the most influential economists in the land. In the middle is mild-mannered Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve. After months of phoney wars and petty skirmishes, this is the big one – the battle for the soul of the Fed.

Leading the charge, in his 19th-century pith helmet, is the unlikely figure of Ron Paul, the libertarian congressman who, for a generation, has been knocking about on the fringes of his party, arguing that it was a terrible error to have created the Fed in the first place, back in 1913. Suddenly, he seems to be surfing a mood among part of the political class. It is time, he says, to bring some political accountability to the over-mighty central bank. ( learn more at )